Mel swims the Big Apple!!!

My biggest and heartiest CONGRATS, Mel!!!

PS.  She did really well too!!!

Cheers,

Rob

My NYC swim…

Well it’s not Manhattan Island! But it was Governor’s Island, a 2 mile swim around the Island, 1 of the events in the NYC swim series. It’s a long way to go for a 2 mile swim, but I thought it would be a neat thing to do and see New York City for the 1^st time too, so I signed up.

Originally I was hoping to convince some of my BMSC swim mates to join me, but it didn’t pan out. So it changed to a family “girls” trip and 3 generations of Price girls descended on NYC on the Canadian Civic long weekend…

After settling into our hotel, we meandered our way down to the ferry terminal to see where the registration would be the next morning. The water looked pretty rough that evening, and we saw a warning sign about eating the fish and eels in the water… EELS! I was starting to get a bit nervous…

5:20am came pretty early; we all got up and walked down to the ferry terminal for registration. (New York City streets were quiet! – weird!) I took my sleeveless wetsuit, I think as a security blanket. At registration they asked if I was going to wear it, as she flipped through the list to find my name, I saw only “no” wetsuit replies for everyone who had already registered, so I said “no” too… Cadence, I think was nervous, and went and asked the water temperature, and was told 74F. So I was confident I could manage it in that respect. Cadence and mom then left (with the wetsuit), to go back to the hotel for a little more rest and breakfast…

I’m a little shy, especially when I don’t know anybody. So, I wore my Canada shirt, to maybe draw some conversation and it worked. “Are you really from Canada?” “Did you come just for the race?”… I met some nice people!

A NYC water taxi took us just off the shore of Governor’s Island, and we jumped off. We then swam to 2 buoys and when everyone was off the boats the race started. I found a nice rhythm, some open water and just relaxed. The salt water wasn’t an issue; the temperature was fine. There was a walking path along the Island and there were people walking around with the swimmers; that was really nice! Around the 1^st turn and breathing to the right side was Lady Liberty just across the way… how cool!! The water was a little rougher at the end of the Island where we turned to come back up the other side, but not to panic; Lake O has thrown worse our way…

The most difficult part of the swim, I would say, was the sighting, the Island was not straight! There were docks to navigate around too; and finally a bridge to swim under and up to the finishing stairs. What already? It was over before I knew it! 46:45

The winner was done in 37:32. Wow! I was 61^st overall (out of 209 finishers – the race was sold out at capacity of 250 – how wild is that!) They don’t sort the results, but I figure I was 16^th female. Pretty respectable! (And I know I could go harder, next time…)

Apparently I had a black beard when I emerged from the water, but I got a hose down, found mom and Cadence, got my snacks, and sat on the grass, in the sun, on Governor’s Island in NYC, very content & happy! It was a lot of fun!!

Then we were off to be “regular” tourists… (see J Facebook for my tourist pictures)

Melanie Price