On Saturday, July 4th, I took part in the Global Ocean Swim race. It was a very special day for me.
Even though I spent my entire childhood swimming in the pool, I had never raced in open water before. This was my very first open water race!
I signed up for the “short” 1,500 m distance because my main goal was to experience a mass start and learn how to navigate in open water—to simply get a feel for how these races work.
Before the event, I had only completed four open water training sessions, so I was pretty nervous. Up until then, I had always swum in my surfing wetsuit. It wasn’t ideal, but it had done the job. However, the weather was so hot that day that I couldn’t decide whether to wear my 4/3 mm wetsuit or just swim in my swimsuit.
Having my partner there, together with his mum, who was visiting us from the Czech Republic, made the day even more special. It meant a lot to have them there cheering me on and supporting me before the start.
In the end, Bibiana came to the rescue and kindly lent me her swimming wetsuit. I want to thank her once again because the difference was incredible! She also explained the race course to me, as we later realized that the race briefing was entirely in Portuguese, and I probably wouldn’t have understood everything.
Right before the start, I was so nervous that I completely forgot to take the energy gel I had prepared.
While we were waiting for the start, I kept wondering where I should line up. I didn’t want to stand right at the front because I didn’t think I was among the fastest swimmers. But at the same time, I didn’t expect to be one of the slowest either, and I didn’t want to spend the race constantly swimming around other competitors.
Well… in the end, I chose the front row. To be honest, I’m still not sure why. Maybe I thought it would motivate me to swim fast enough not to get run over by everyone else.
Lucy Aries Krysová