Story Index:

Adjusting Expectations, IRONMAN 70.3 Oregon
07/15/2022

My 100th Finish Line, at White Lake Half Pro-Am
05/12/2022

The Chance of a Lifetime, IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships
10/10/2021

Now or Never, IRONMAN 70.3 Ecuador
07/22/2021

Is This Fun For You? A 2020 Race Report
10/10/2020

Campeche 70.3 Report: The Last Race Standing
03/30/2020

Knock Me Down and I'll Just Grow Back Stronger
03/11/2020

Underwater
12/31/2019

IRONMAN Wisconsin, My Cinderella Story
09/20/2018

IRONMAN Boulder, Coming in Hot
09/20/2018

IRONMAN Texas: Everything's Bigger in Texas (except the Ironman bike course)
05/01/2018

Uphill Both Ways (Oceanside Race Report)
04/16/2018

The Things We Deserve
03/06/2018

When Life Gives You Lemons... IM 70.3 Santa Cruz and IM 70.3 Boulder (sort of)
09/23/2017

The DNF Strikes Back
07/11/2017

Oops, I Did An IM
06/16/2017

IRONMAN 70.3 Santa Rosa
05/22/2017

IRONMAN Oceanside 70.3
05/19/2017

December in the Desert: HITS Palm Springs 70.3
12/07/2016

The Coolest Prize I've Ever Won
10/26/2016

Running With the Big Dogs
07/23/2016

The Inaugural Wisconsin Milkman 70.3 Triathlon
07/04/2016

Early Season Ups & Downs
06/28/2016

XTERRA Real Granite Bay
04/11/2016

Urbanathlon, Where You Been All My Life?!
11/25/2015

The Top 17 Reasons You Should Have Been at Scott Tinley's
10/21/2015

Rock & Roll Half Marathon
10/04/2015

Ironman 70.3 Santa Cruz
09/23/2015

This Seems Like a lot of Work for a Free Banana
09/01/2015

Sometimes the Best Race is the One I Didn't Win
08/03/2015

Tales of a Swim Meet Rookie
08/01/2015

Victory at the California International Triathlon
06/30/2015

Wildflower Will Show You What You're Made Of
05/07/2015

Mama Didn't Raise No Quitter
04/22/2015

HITS Napa Half, 5 (Plus) Hours of Fun
04/17/2015

Off-Roading: My Trail Run Debut
04/04/2015

Lake Tahoe Marathon Weekend
09/16/2014

Farewell to Madison
09/09/2014

Being Comfortable With Discomfort
08/18/2014

Wildflower 2012, Team Goodell
06/09/2012

USA Triathlon National Championships
10/02/2011

How About a Road Race?
08/06/2011

Tri-Ing for Children
07/25/2011

The Women's Sprint Triathlon - Where it All Began
07/12/2011

Defending the Title in Pleasant Prairie
06/27/2011

Capitol View Triathlon
06/13/2011

Tri Club Party in Madison
04/10/2011

Be A Better Runner
03/28/2011

Hello, Felt
03/20/2011

I'm Going With You
01/03/2011

2009 Triathlon World Championships
09/12/2009

Kim completes her first Half-Ironman
06/10/2008

Kim Visits Home for Wildflower Triathlon
05/16/2008

Kim Blazes Chicago Triathlon
08/27/2007

More Triathlons for Kim
06/15/2006

Kim in Chicago Triathlon
08/31/2005

Kim graduates from Willamette
06/17/2002

Kim returns from Europe
02/02/2001

Kim Travels Europe
11/24/2000
Tales of a Swim Meet Rookie




This year San Jose was the host city for the Pacific Masters Long Course Championships swim meet.

I've never competed at long course before, but with such a big event coming right to my backyard, how could I resist? It's been a good 7 years since I last showed up at any kind of Masters swim meet (representing the Chicago Smelts in Illinois in 2008, and throwing down my best 31 seconds of freestyle for a team relay, Go Smelts!)

Technically, I'm not a rookie, since I do have some 30 or 40 short course swim meets under my belt, but most of those are in the distant past, and in high school I was a very different type of athlete. I often made a point of letting my coaches know that I was only good for about a 50 yard effort ... Maybe 100 if you're lucky.

This was my high school swim team sign-up sheet. If you do the math, you can see my estimates for the distance events (200 & 500 yard swim) were pretty unambitious ...


I remember one high school meet where both teams were short, and with only 4 girls signed up for the 500 yard Freestyle, all I had to do was complete it, and I was guaranteed to score points for my team. Didn't have to be fast or pretty, but it might help my team secure a win!

I flat out refused.

Too much effort.

How's that for teamwork?

Well times have changed, and these days I'm a bit more enterprising, so I decided to Go Big or Go Home, and I signed up for the longest event they have: the 1500 meter freestyle! I'm an endurance athlete now.

What could possibly go wrong?

What indeed. I love swimming, but sometimes I'm not sure swimming feels the same way about me.


Here's how it went down:

Friday morning was pleasantly warm and the 50 meter pool at Gunderson High School was broad and inviting, sparkling in the morning sun. My warm up swim felt great and I was confident that I was about to bust out a seriously heroic distance swim. I tightened my goggle straps and checked two, three, four times to make sure they were adequately suctioned to my eye sockets. Ready!

As I dove in, slicing through the water, my right goggle filled with water, and then my left. Uh oh. This could be a very long 23 minutes... I debated as I swam that first 100 meters: Stop and clear out the water? Or just endure it? It was an annoyance for sure, but really how much do you need your eyes to swim? Turns out, quite a bit, which I proved by missing the wall on the first, second and third turns. Enough is enough. I rolled over like an otter and dumped out the water that had been bathing my eyeballs in chlorine. Ah! So much better!! With my view now crisp and clear, my blind, flailing stroke magically transformed into a smooth, stealthy glide and I was back on track. I whipped through the next turn and shot off the wall like a rocket, simultaneously filling my right goggle with water, and then my left.

Back to square one.

It seemed that more water leaked in with every turn, until I could barely make out the black line on the bottom of the pool anymore. I stopped again, dumped out my goggles, suctioned them extra tight to my face, and continued. But sure enough, water leaked in again and again at each turn (and that's 29 turns in all...) As if the goggle mutiny wasn't enough to endure, my swim cap also decided it was time to quit me right around 1200 meters, and it receded off of my head little by little with each lap. I made a few futile attempts to yank it back down on my head to keep it from filling with water and becoming a parachute tethered to my head by my goggle strap. As my hand finally reached the wall at 1500 meters, the very first thing I did was rip that stupid thing off my head. Go, swim cap. Go, be free!

I turned to look at the timing board, and had to do a double take. My finish time was almost two minutes slower than I had projected, which in swimming years is like a decade. This would explain why all the other swimmers in my heat lapped me. There's nothing quite like hitting that final turn and being greeted by the view of a 50 meter expanse of water between you and the 7 other swimmers who have already finished and are sitting at the edge of pool.... W...A...I...T...I...N...G.


On the bright side, I did score 4th place in my age division, and since the woman who placed 1st currently holds the World Record, she doesn't really count, so it's more like I got 3rd. Also, I won this nifty ribbon! Swimming, YEAH!

Not one to be easily discouraged, I came back for more on Sunday.

My first Sunday event was the 200 Individual Medley. The Event Guidelines stated that athletes must check in 45 minutes prior to their scheduled start time. The 200 IM was scheduled for 10:17 am, so I arrived at Check In at 9:30.

Unfortunately, I had already been "scratched" (eliminated) from that event because I wasn't there at 9:05 am. Go figure.

My next event was the 50 Fly. This time I had my goggles extra super-duper tight as I got up on the starting blocks. Ready!

"Swimmers, step down," said the announcer. I'm not sure what the delay was for, but in the interim, my goggles were crushing my skull.

Oh well. No pain, no gain, right?

And when the starting gun finally did go off, I killed that 50 Fly! I was on fire! And I even won 3rd place (out of three, also known as Dead Last)!

After that was the team relay, 200 freestyle. The relays can be a little nerve-wrecking, since for 35 seconds, the fate of three other swimmers is in your hands. Happily, I managed to not fall of the swim block, or swim the wrong stroke, and my goggles even stayed miraculously leak-free! Our team got First Place! But I'll only take a quarter of the credit for that win.

My final event was the 100 Free. I beat my predicted time by a whopping 5 seconds AND I got 4th place (out of four, also known as Dead Last)!

All in all, I contributed 19 points for the Walnut Creek Masters, and we ended up coming in Second Place, just 2,738 points behind First Place. Go Creekers!

(reposted from EliteWaveTraining.com)



Posted by Kimberly 08/01/2015
FreeStyle Journal 19.03.21
©2003-2011 by Dan Goodell

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