Uswim, Me Swim and Izzy Swim

Rosemary was down this weekend bringing Izzy, her partner for Otillo the World Swim Run Championships later in the year! They're starting to get a little serious and were both doing the Uswim 5km down at Salford Quays.

I was a little apprehensive and not sure what race I wanted to enter as I'm at about 80% of my best for swimming and the water had been pretty cold on Wednesday too! I decided to do the 3.8km event and set a target of 1 hr 20 mins and wanted to be out the water before RB and Izzy! They both had the advantage of eating Beet It beetroot bars, precisely 1 hour before the start! 

We all got our wetsuits on and were ready to go at just after 11am. The water was fine.....not too cold but certainly not too warm either! Karen from Uswim hit the honker and we were off..... It was a much calmer start than one would expect at a triathlon. Open water swimmers are far more polite....helped by the fact that it wan't a massive field.  

I gotta admit I love white water starts with all the body contact.....although not a great swimmer, I'm mega-confident in open water.....I just feel at home and relaxed in it whereas most triathletes are tense and a bit terrified by the stuff....."I just wanna get through the swim" most of them think. Such a negative mindset invariably slows them down...and I perform better relative to my pool times.

There's not much more I can write about the swim.....one arm in front of the other is all that happens. Because I wasn't swim fit, I couldn't push too hard, not helped by the fact that my left calve was always on the point of cramping. By my GPS and time predictions, the course was around 300-350m over so my time of 1hr 21 mins would have been closer to 1hr 13mins if measured precisely so I was pleased.

Rosemary and Izzy both did well in their 5km with me exiting the water ahead of them only with minutes to spare! 

Afterwards we headed off to Sugar Junction in the Northern Quarter for lunch......my mac n cheese, chai latte and cake were all pretty good! Izz then headed back to Edinburgh and RB n I undertook a greater feat of endurance........her trying on every item of clothing available in Decathlon!