We did the Swim Across the Sound this past Saturday, and it went really well.
We had kind of a different event this year. After years with the original Team RBG, none of my habitual teammates could make this one. I initially reached out to Race Director Liz Fry to just fold me into someone else’s team, but Liz didn’t want that. She wanted to keep Team RBG a going concern.
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| Team RBG before the Swim |
We found new swimmers slowly but surely. It got complicated because I personally have never done any age group swimming locally in Connecticut. I didn’t grow up here and don’t compete as a Master’s Swimming. So I don’t know anyone on the local scene! Save for the Swim Across the Sound, I’m retired from competition and not really looking to go back.
Liz had to introduce me to some folks, and as a result, Team RBG 2025 became the home to all the talented adult swimmers who were looking for a team. Chris Spearing joined first and quickly brought Mary Spillane into the fold. Galen Rinaldi joined next, and then we added Greg Pinchbeck maybe ten days before the Swim itself. This turned out to be a great group!
We had a heat wave locally in the days before the Swim. Then the weather broke, bringing storms, but thankfully, those blew over maybe sixteen hours before the event. However, those storms left maybe 15 mph of wind coming in their wake, running opposite the current. We started under crystal blue skies with temperatures in the low 80s — I mean, it was *gorgeous* out there — but all that wind blowing in the wrong direction created easily the strongest chop I’ve ever seen in an open water swimming race. We had two or maybe even two-and-a-half foot swells with white caps.
Friends, it got nasty out there.
Chris led off, and he handled that chop like a champ. However, I went second, and I struggled quite a bit. In talking about it afterwards, I think my biggest issue was that I decided to swim on the left side of the boat — breathing right to keep the boat in my line-of-sight — which had me breathing *into* the swells. On the smart/stupid scale, this was really stupid. I couldn’t catch my rhythm under any circumstances, let myself get a little panicked, and wound up doing breaststroke just to try to keep from having a full-on freak out.
I’ve had a lot of success in the water over the years, but in this instance, the best I can say for myself is that I neither drowned nor DQ’ed my team. Beyond that, things got kind of ugly. But as we learned during Beast Barracks, sometimes winning is just staying in the fight long enough to let conditions change.
Mary went in third, and she also swam well, as did the rest of my team. I was therefore nervous for my next leg -- and feeling like a real asshole for bringing everybody out and then booting it like that. I really got down on myself in the hour after that first swim. Thankfully, however, the chop settled a bit over the course of the day, and I put the boat on my other side for that next leg. Those things together -- plus a commitment to keep my stroke long and smooth -- let me chill out and just swim. With that, I actually swam pretty well on that second leg, and by the time I hit my third leg, I’d gotten back up to race pace and actually felt like myself in the water.
I’d trained all season for this, so it was nice to feel like I was actually succeeding. That first pull went far worse in my head than it went in the water.
The weird thing is that even doing breaststroke in the early going, we had the current so strongly behind us that I wound up putting in over a mile in the water. My next pull took me 1300 yards, while the one after that took me 1600. That’s almost another full mile in just 20 minutes. Even my last pull, which went just fifteen minutes, took me over 1000 yards.
So it was crazy out there. Tough conditions in the water but also insanely fast. All told, Team RBG finished in under six hours. That’s insanely fast.
At the finish
Our team finished fourth overall in the Traditional (No Wetsuit) team category. The only teams that beat us had four or more high school age group swimmers on them. We also did well with fundraising. As I write this, the team is up to almost $7500 raised for St. Vincent’s Cancer Center. I’m pretty excited about that, especially since this was an ad hoc team that came together late in the season.
Thank you again for your support. Speaking personally, I’m already looking forward to next year.
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