{"id":3227,"date":"2026-07-24T08:46:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T08:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/?p=3227"},"modified":"2026-07-21T17:07:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T17:07:39","slug":"3227-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/3227-2\/","title":{"rendered":"My First Open Water Race: More Than Just a Medal"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"515\" height=\"343\" src=\"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-7.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3230\" srcset=\"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-7.png 515w, https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-7-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-7-18x12.png 18w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 515px) 100vw, 515px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>On Saturday, July 4th, I took part in the Global Ocean Swim race. It was a very special day for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I signed up for the \u201cshort\u201d 1,500 m distance because my main goal was to experience a mass start and learn how to navigate in open water\u2014to simply get a feel for how these races work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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\u2019t ideal, but it had done the job. However, the weather was so hot that day that I couldn\u2019t decide whether to wear my 4\/3 mm wetsuit or just swim in my swimsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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\u2019t have understood everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"597\" src=\"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-8-1024x597.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3232\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.7166963349508644;width:666px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-8-1024x597.png 1024w, https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-8-300x175.png 300w, https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-8-18x10.png 18w, https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-8.png 1854w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Right before the start, I was so nervous that I completely forgot to take the energy gel I had prepared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While we were waiting for the start, I kept wondering where I should line up. I didn\u2019t want to stand right at the front because I didn\u2019t think I was among the fastest swimmers. But at the same time, I didn\u2019t expect to be one of the slowest either, and I didn\u2019t want to spend the race constantly swimming around other competitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well\u2026 in the end, I chose the front row. To be honest, I\u2019m still not sure why. Maybe I thought it would motivate me to swim fast enough not to get run over by everyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"613\" height=\"345\" src=\"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-9.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3233\" srcset=\"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-9.png 613w, https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-9-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-9-18x10.png 18w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 613px) 100vw, 613px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lucy Aries Krysov\u00e1<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No s\u00e1bado, dia 4 de julho, participei na prova Global Ocean Swim. Foi um dia muito especial para mim. Apesar de ter passado toda a minha inf\u00e2ncia a nadar em piscina, nunca tinha competido em \u00e1guas abertas. Esta foi a minha primeira prova em \u00e1guas abertas! Inscrevi-me na dist\u00e2ncia \u201ccurta\u201d de 1.500 m porque o &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/3227-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A minha primeira prova em \u00e1guas abertas: mais do que apenas uma medalha&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sem-categoria-en"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-9.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Clube Swim4fun","author_link":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/author\/geralclube-swim4fun-pt\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3227"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3236,"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227\/revisions\/3236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}