Casco Bay SwimRun

Gearing Up

Back in February, Rebecca and I signed on to race Casco Bay SwimRun (the first "island to island" race in the US).  Since we live over an hour apart, we didn’t train together regularly early on, but each trained on our own within the constraints of the injuries we’ve had in this past year and all the other races on our calendar.  We got together once in June for a 5000m pool swim and 3 mile run, giving us a sense of how our paces would match up.  In the last few weeks, we got together for three swim-run specific workouts using all of our race gear, two in the ocean at Wildwood Crest and one at Marsh Creek State Park.  I also did a few swim-run specific workouts on my own, alternating quickly between intervals such as 10 minute swim/ 10 minute run for about an hour, using some of the gear including shoes and pull buoy strapped on. 

The swim-run race allows for a variety of equipment, such as paddles and fins.  However, whatever equipment you take has to be carried for the entire course (about 4 miles of swimming and 10 miles of running broken into short segments with about 18 transitions).  The course must also be completed as a team, staying within 10 meters of your teammate throughout the entire course.  We opted to swim with the shoes on, so a pull buoy helps prevent the feet from sinking.  Also, swimming with shoes on, I have found that you don’t get much power from the kick anyway.  We did see a few teams swimming with fins, but that would add to the transition time and could be difficult on the rocky shores.  I opted not to use paddles because I have had shoulder pain in the past from swimming with paddles, so I have only gradually re-introduced them into my training in small quantities (no more than 300 m per practice so far).  Also, since I am a slightly stronger swimmer over long distances, it helped to even out our speeds by me not using paddles. 

Here is the gear we carried with us:

•           Wetsuit cut above the knees and elbows (Huub amphibia for me, Head swim-run wetsuit for Rebecca)
•            Innov-8 X-talon 200 trail shoes  (super lightweight, grippy trail shoe)
•           Pressure bandage (gauze and an ace bandage in a ziplock bag), maps, whistle, compass—all required by the race, but fortunately we didn’t need to use any of these
•           Nutrition—Gu chews for me, cliff shot blocks for Rebecca, and some protein smash packs to share
•            Paddles and compression socks for Rebecca only
•           Swim tether (belts, carabineers, bungee cord, with much preparation ahead of time to adjust it to the right length)
•           Cap & goggles
•            New wave swim buoy provided by the race for visibility and carrying gps tracking device
•           Bib number provided by the race (basically a tank top worn over the wetsuit) 
•       Pull Buoy with a strap to attach it to the leg

On our transitions from swim to run, as practiced, Rebecca unclipped her tether and handed it to me (since my hands were free with no paddles) to wrap around my waist and clip to the belt.  I also opted to carry the New Wave swim buoy because it was easier for me to handle with my hands free.  As a trade-off, Rebecca carried our timing chip, worn around the ankle.  Around the 2^nd or 3^rd swim entrance, the timing chip fell off.  Fortunately someone behind us saw it drop, so we picked it up and stuffed it inside the wetsuit.  Also, Rebecca tried to carry some extra body glide, but when I asked her for it during our run on Peaks Island, it had fallen out.  We both ended up with some wetsuit chafing, but my neck looks horrible right now, even several days later.  I also got chafing near the front of the armpits.  I think I had too much slack in the shoulders of my wetsuit, which is a trade-off for having enough space to rotate the shoulders comfortably. 

Race day

After a 4:30 am wake-up, coffee, and breakfast, our morning started with a warm-up bike ride, about a mile, from our accommodations in Munjoy Hill (Eastern Portland) to the ferry terminal.  After locking up our bikes, we boarded the ferry.  Heading downstairs, we found a section with enough room to do some stretching an warm-up during the 45 minute ferry ride.  Through the fog, we got to see some of the course and key landmarks.  Originally, there was supposed to be a half hour delay for the fog to lift, then they said the race would start on time 7 am.  Getting into our wetsuits and getting ready felt frantic, but we made it, and I think the race actually started closer to 7:15.  After getting off the boat, we were standing around in the back of the crowd.  Fortunately, Rebecca led our way through the crowd to a more reasonable place for us to start near the middle. 

The first 1.2 mile run on Chebeague Island was mostly on roads.  I was struggling to keep up with Rebecca at first, as we wove our way through the crowd.  I felt the pull buoy strapped onto my leg slowly slipping down toward my knee, and before I knew it, the buoy was on the ground.  I called out for Rebecca to stop, and pulled it up higher, onto the thickest part of the thigh.  Having trained running with the pull buoy numerous times, I was surprised by this race-day mishap.  My only explanation is that my wetsuit was still dry, and I hadn’t practiced running in a dry wetsuit with the buoy.  I guess it wasn’t sticky enough to hold in place. 

Toward the beach there was a little downhill, and Rebecca continued to lead the charge while I hung on.  Because of the crowd funneling onto a short single track section near the dunes, it slowed to a walk while we got the tether ready for our first transition.  We started swimming right away and started passing teams who were walking out into the water further.  This first swim is a sandbar that was only underwater because it was close to high tide.  Typically it might have been advantageous to do dolphin dives in this section, but this is not something we practiced with all the gear and tether.  High tide was expected at 8:40 that day, so we were expecting water to be flowing into the bay at this point, pulling us from right to left.  We were aiming a little bit to the right, but I didn’t sight quite often enough during this first swim, so we did a little bit of zig-zagging.  There were other teams all around us at this point, so the more important thing was to avoid crashing into or getting tangled with other swimmers.  The water was shallow enough that we could see the rocks on the bottom for most of this first swim, except a little bit in the middle where the water was deeper. 

The short run on Little Chebeague was a grassy trail.  I turned my ankle (without any pain) early on while trying to get some Gu chews out of my pocket.  The front zipper of the wetsuit was difficult to access with the required orange bib worn over it, so after this, I didn’t go into the pockets unless I had plenty of time and a smooth running surface.  As we approached the beach, there was a wood boardwalk, and Rebecca’s feet slid out, but she managed to keep her balance.  Then we slowed it down to be careful on this section. 

On the swim from Little Chebeague to Long Island, we started to get into a rhythm, and the crowd spread out enough to be comfortable.  The first run on Long Island was our first introduction to the hills on the course, not huge hills, but noticeable rollers.  This was a cool section with rustic island homes and piles of lobster traps on the side of the dirt road. 

The transition from this first run on Long Island to our next swim was very rocky.  Unfortunately, this was a very rocky entry to the water, so I slid down in a nearly seated position.  We mistakenly thought some of the lead women's teams were right in front of us, so our competitive instinct kicked in, and we pushed very hard through this section.  This swim across Shark Cove was the roughest water we encountered in the entire race.  There were noticeable waves flowing toward the shore (left to right).  Training in the ocean was definitely helpful preparation, as the waves were not quite as big as the Jersey shore.  Another short, slow, and treacherous journey on foot over the dunes (aka the “nubble”), and we were back into the water headed to Vail Island.  The course map shows a run along the beach, but we were advised in the pre-race meeting to enter the water as directly as possible and swim at an angle to Vail.  I think we were close to high tide at this point, so there was not a significant current to account for here. 

Vail was by far the most dangerous part of the course, about a half-mile scramble along the jagged rocky coast.  It started to rain lightly, adding to the slickness from ocean water and some kind of slippery algae-like growth in parts where the rocks held water.  I tend to be overly cautious on wet rocks, having broken my arm hiking on wet rocks years ago.  I felt bad as Rebecca had to wait for me a few times, and other teams passed us.  The scenery here was amazing, almost reminding me of Ireland, but I tried to stay focused on the footing and not look around too much.  I started to feel the strain on my right hip, as the direction we were going meant that the right leg was usually at a higher elevation than the left leg.  Rebecca provided great encouragement through this section, and I was just happy to be back in the water soon enough for a short swim. 

Video of Vail Island

Exiting the water back onto Long Island, we quickly grabbed some hydration at the aid station and got onto some serious running through a quaint neighborhood.  Some of our male competitors complained that we weren’t supposed to be running so fast as we passed them. I pulled out the old trick from cross country where you pass on both sides (one person on the right and one on the left) to psych out your opponent.  Oops, sorry. 

The swim from Long Island to Peaks Island was the longest swim of the whole race, at nearly 1700 yd.  This was the easiest one to sight because we just had to stay to the right of the small island (Pumpkin Nob) close to Peaks Island.  There was a current moving from left to right, and we started out swimming on the left of a team of men.  I thought we were going to pass them, but we ended up swimming side by side for a long time.  In retrospect, I should have dropped back and drafted off them.  Since we were blocking the current from them, I think it made it easier for them to keep up with us, and I wasn't able to pass them.  However, it did prevent me from swimming off course, as I would have swum right into them if I had allowed the current to push me sideways.  As we approached the small island, we passed more swimmers on our left, and again only had a narrow path to swim between other teams.  We also passed some folks with fins here.  As we approached Peaks Island, we swam through a huge patch of seaweed.  Here, I was glad we trained in Marsh Creek with lots of plant life so I didn’t get too freaked out by swimming through stuff.  As we stood up, loads of seaweed were stuck in our tether so we had to untangle it and lose that weight we were dragging around. 

Peaks Island had the longest run of the whole course, about 3.5 miles.  Preparing for this race, this part was my biggest concern since 3.5 miles has been my longest training run in the last month, due to my knee issues.  The race turned out to be much less painful than most of my training.  The first stretch of Peaks Island was on roads, so we used this time to settle in and get some nutrition.  As we turned right onto the trails, I was in front at first, but quickly asked Rebecca to take the lead and set the pace.  She did a great job of calling out cues for the terrain and turns (rocks! roots! right!).  The first part was a single track grass trail with thick brush, so there wasn’t much room to go off course.  However, the course was marked very well with tons of pink ribbons.  Once we got further into the woods, the trail was less clear.  It reminded me of a “Ron Horn” race (anyone familiar with Pretzel City Sports knows what I mean).  It looked like they intentionally made the course go where there was no trail.  Eventually, we returned to the road and ran by some beautiful waterfront properties with carefully tended gardens.  The whole neighborhood came out to cheer us on.   Running for this long in a wetsuit started to get hot.  We ran by some bikes on the side of the road and had the temptation to get on and ride.  Toward the end of this run as we started to fade, we had to stop and dig some nutrition out of Rebecca’s pockets that she couldn’t reach.  After a little run along a rocky beach, we were back in the water at last. 

All of the swim exits on the course were marked with a yellow banner and had volunteers wearing orange shirts, so I sighted toward the yellow and orange.  I was swimming strong and sighting often, right on my target.  We started to separate from other swimmers and had a volunteer kayaker right next to us.  I kept looking toward the kayak every time I breathed to the side, and got no response or intervention from them.  Once I was close enough to see clearly, the yellow and orange that I was sighting toward was a boat in someone’s backyard, so I stopped and looked around.  Rebecca pointed to the yellow banner, which was a few hundred yards away.  I redirected and swam through a bunch of lobster traps to get there, a little frustrated that the kayaker didn’t get in front of us and stop us sooner, and very frustrated with myself for sighting the wrong point. 

We carefully went up the slick boat ramp onto Cushing Island.  On the smoothest running surface, a nice dirt road, I suddenly felt my knee lock up.  I couldn’t complain too much, because this was our 2^nd to last run and fortunately the first time I felt any knee pain over the whole race.  I eased off and went carefully, especially over the rocks entering our next swim toward the tower on House Island.  I thought we were supposed to aim to the left of the tower, but Rebecca yelled for me to aim right, so we did and followed other swimmers out on some very steep and slippery rocks.  This part of the course was ambiguous, as we had an option to swim around the island an additional 300 yards to the swim exit or exit early and do a rock scramble along the shore.  We followed other swimmers over the rocks, which were nearly as treacherous as Vail.  I took it very carefully, as my knee was about done at this point.  It didn’t hurt that bad; it was just hard to get it to bend.  After the official swim exit, we entered the fort (from the War of 1812) and saw passageways into earthen embankments and ran through a tunnel made of stone.  We skirted around the yard of the only house on the island, and back along the beach toward the final swim.  Volunteers were very helpful telling us that the current was pushing everyone from left to right, so I sighted often and aimed a little to the left of our target.  Onto the beach thinking we were done, there was still a steep staircase to run up before a sprint to the finish. 

Since I didn’t wear a watch, I had completely lost track of time and was pleasantly surprised to see 4:14 on the clock.  I estimated between 4 and 5 hours, depending on conditions… how rough the water would be, how strong the currents, how treacherous the terrain.  I think the water was calmer than I expected, but the sections on land were more challenging and slower than expected.  We ended up as the 6^th female team and 22^nd overall (out of about 120 teams).  All in all, I am proud of our teamwork, leaning on each other’s strengths, and nearly seamless transitions. 

The finish line celebration was great, with a sprinkler to rinse off, free beer (Pale Ale and IPA from Funky Bow Brewery), and great food (veggies and pasta for me, lobster and mussels for most, and some sweet blueberry cake).  There was lots of happy chatter about the course.  The only downside to the post-race was waiting in the heat for the crowded ferry to get back to Portland.  Then, before we could truly rest, we had to ride our bikes back up the hill, which may have been the hardest part of the day. 

Later that day, we rode our bikes into the cobblestone of the port area and explored the city.  The next day, we took a relaxing recovery ride and the Back Cove trail, a gravel trail around one of the inlets. We had to get the biking in somewhere, to make it an unofficial triathlon weekend.  After the bike ride, I went to collect shells from the beach, the same place we did a chilly pre-race swim on Saturday.  Without a wetsuit, I made it less than 10 minutes in this water.  

All in all, this was a great fitness challenge, a fun new style of racing, and a unique opportunity to literally race together with a teammate.  This is not a race for the typical triathlete overly concerned with splits and paces, but more for the adventurous trail runner/open water swimmer.  It has elements of real open water swimming that most triathlons shield their participants from, having to sight from up to a mile away and understand the effects of tides, currents, and waves.  

Since I was racing and couldn't think of a good way to carry a GoPro, I personally don't have many good photos or videos of the actual race, but here are some links with great coverage of the event:

Drone videos

Photos

Many thanks to the race directors, Jeff Cole and Lars.  Putting on a race of this length is no small feat, and especially considering that this was the first year for this race, it was an extremely organized and well-run event.  Thanks to all the volunteers who kept an eye on our safety throughout the course and staffed the much-appreciated aid stations.   The course was open for 6 hours, so these folks spent a long time out there supporting us.  Thanks to all the sponsors, especially New Wave swim buoys and Funky Bow Brewery.  Thanks to the local community who welcomed us into their Maine island paradise and cheered us on from start to finish.   Thanks to Travis Mills for his service to our country, and the Travis Mills Foundation, charity partner for this event.  

SwimRun training in Wildwood Crest

This past weekend Rebecca and I spent some time preparing gear and training for the upcoming Casco Bay SwimRun in Portland Maine.  This is an “island to island” race, which involves swimming from one island to the next, interspersed with running across each island.  Based on the latest course maps released, there should be about 18 transitions between swimming and running for a total of about 4 miles of swimming and 10 miles of running.  The goal is to minimize the transition time and keep it moving. 

I arrived in Wildwood Crest first on Saturday night, and did a Sunday early morning swim by myself.  I did the box swim at the Rambler Rd beach 7 times (swimming around the two buoys that mark off the surfing beach and back to shore took about 10 minutes each “lap.”)  After I had done about 3 laps I paused and looked out to see about 5 dolphins swimming right through the path where I was swimming.  I waited a few minutes to give them space to pass by before I went back out.  The water was warm enough that I was comfortable in just a bathing suit, but I knew I had to practice using a wetsuit anyway, since it is required for the race. 

Once Rebecca arrived, we spent some time going through our equipment and trying to come up with a plan.  We drilled holes in our pull buoys and made a strap out of an old bike tube to secure the buoy to the thigh while running.  After trying them out, my new Innov-8 Xtalons drain the water pretty well and are lightweight even when they are soaking wet. I had already cut down my new Huub Amphibia wetsuit to make it short-sleeved short-legged for more ease of running.  Rebecca tried running in her BlueSeventy wetsuit (not a swimrun specific suit) and found it difficult to run in.   My wetsuit has three pockets on the interior, which will be used to carry some of the required equipment for this race.  In the low back pocket, I will carry the “pressure bandage.”  I had to do some research to figure out what this meant (basically something that can be used to stop bleeding), so I am bringing some gauze and an ace bandage in a ziplock baggie. I will carry this in the least accessible pocket because hopefully we won’t need to use it.  In one of the two front pockets, I will carry the compass, whistle, and map (I tested out that two gallon sized ziplock bags were able to keep a piece of paper completely dry, so I am going with this instead of buying a waterproof map holder).  In the other front pocket, I will carry Gu chews for nutrition (watermelon and strawberry flavored). 

The two big questions for me with equipment were

1)   Is it better to swim with the shoes on, or take them off to swim and put them back on to run?

2)   Is it better to swim tethered together, or just try to stay together?

Once we got to the beach, we did a box swim around the two buoys at the Aster Rd surf area (which took a little under 10 minutes), alternating with about a ¼ mile run and kept repeating that for about 2 hours.  It turns out that the pull buoy and strap works really well.  It makes it much easier to swim with shoes on (which I had tried before and found to be dead weight with shoes alone and no pull buoy).  Also, it is not that difficult to turn the buoy to the outside of the thigh and run with it.  The swim tether proved to be the trickier issue.  The tether is basically two belts connected by a 5 foot stretchy cord.  Rebecca had to be directly behind me (otherwise the cord got in the way), but she was tapping my toes with every stroke.  We tried swimming without the tether, and just got separated too quickly.  So overnight, we tried to stretch the tether out and try again the next day, and it was a little better.  We still need to find a way to make the tether a bit longer.  

Rebecca tried using paddles, but couldn’t get the straps to stay on in the ocean.  I know I don’t want to use paddles, because they tend to aggravate my shoulders if I try to swim fast with paddles.  I also tried wearing earplugs to improve my sense of balance on the transitions.  I tried with and without earplugs and didn’t notice much difference, but I wonder if it will make more of a difference in the colder water in Maine.  We are looking forward to that colder water, because it was really hot trying to run in a wetsuit.  I also got the back of my neck chewed up by the wetsuit.  I forgot to put body glide on Sunday, and I think the salt water makes it worse.  I did put body glide on Monday, when we only went for an hour, and it still felt irritated.  So, I have to remember that for the race, and also some Vaseline just below the ankles where the shoes can rub. 

Aside from trying to figure out our gear, it was so pleasant to swim in the ocean.  There were decent sized waves (for NJ), which made it fun.   The combination of the tether and the waves sometimes gave a “push and pull” feeling, as the wave would hit each of us at a slightly different time.    We got lots of comments, questions, and encouragement from folks on the beach.  The best was when we were all done on Sunday, two girls came up to us to tell us about the Wildwood Crest Dolphins swim team’s fundraiser, the September Splash.  It’s a great race that I did two years ago, a 1 mile and 2 mile swim in “Sunset Lake,” a wide section of the bay.  The girls and their moms were really nice, and we chatted about swimming for a bit. 

My knee held out for this training, although we did much less running than the actual race, and the terrain was much smoother (except for all those holes and sand castles).  I am confident that we are on our way to being prepared for this adventure.  Although we still need to work out the gear a little more, we work well together as a team, and it should be fun to try out a new style of racing.