AZ Open Water Swimming Series - Canyon Lake 4000 Meters

In my quest to psychologically prove I can do the Ironman distance sports in each of their distances, I decided to sign up for the Canyon Lake AZ Open Water Swimming Series Race - a small group of people that get together in AZ to swim various distances in open water.  This particular race had a 1000 meter, 2000 meter and 4000 meter distances.  When I saw that I could do what amounts to a Ironman distance open water swim, in wetsuit, with buoys, medical support, etc. for $30 in my backyard, I jumped at the chance!

Jason Porter, his son Ren and Joel Betz and his son Bridger came along for the 4000.  Ren and Bridger are high school swimmers for Williams Field and promised to beat us old timers.  They were pretty low key, though, so we werent sure their hearts were really in it.

I think there were 88 swimmers for the 4000.  Some 60 to 80 for the 1000 and 2000 respectively.  Sign up was easy.  Accomodations were sparse but it was neat to see the cross section of athletes getting out.  Older folks, triathletes, younger swimmers.  Really neat.

The course was a big 1000 meter triangle.  4 laps for those of us doing the 4000.

I had some idea of my time - I had swam 3500 meters in a pool on Wednesday so I thought I would be somewhere in the 1.5 hour range.  I came out of the water at 1:34:17 and 19/23 in my Open Mens group.  The two high school boys got out at 3 laps....  Joel came in 17th at 1:14 and Jason at 1:45.  A lot of fun and good practice.

DT