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.