Three-peat!!!

Lots of pressure for this years Boston Sharkfest swim. This was the fifth annual swim. I have competed  in all of them and have won my age group the last two years. There was tremendous self imposed pressure to three-peat!!!  I did not let myself down!

It was a beautiful, last day of summer. Blue skies, the temps in the mid-seventies and even better the water was 68 degrees. Perfect conditions for a sans wetsuit swim. I'm met my fast friend Eric at registration. We checked in and surveyed the course from the finish line, left our bags at the bag drop and made our way to the water taxi.

Taking the water taxi over to East Boston looking back to Boston and the Moakley Courthouse finish line Eric and I visually charted our course. It was clear that the better plan was not to follow the red buoy line but to bear right and swim through the handful moored sailboats to the finish.

We waited about 30 minutes in the park before visiting with other swimmers and listening to the final race briefing. Eric and I self seated ourselves in the first wave that went off at roughly 11:30am. It's dock start with 75 swimmers per wave. It was a bit crazy at the start but the crowd thinned nicely by the end of the pier. Eric pulled away, quickly as expected. Sticking to the game plan I sighted off the right corner of the Moakley Courthouse. The water felt great and I knew I was right on course when I swam through the sailboats and saw the finish line approximately 500 meters away. 

Approaching the finish line and seeing the swimmers off my left that were following the buoy line I could tell I had a better line to the finish.  Finishing strong in a pack of youngsters I nudged a few of them out at the end.

Waiting for the results at the timing tent it shortly became apparent that it was going to be an age group win and a three-peat!

The awards ceremony was long as the organizers started with the wetsuit division and eventually made it to the skins division. At my age you don't get a chance to be on the podium so I was going to wait for it come hell or high water. There weren't many people in the crowd when I stepped on the podium but it was definitely worth the wait.

I was 34th out of 136 in the skins division with everyone ahead of me 17-35 years younger than me.  When you factor in the wetsuit division I was 48th overall out of 480 swimmers. Age adjusted not too shabby.

Looking forward to next year and hopefully securing a-dynasty!

A great day was capped off by a fun benefit dinner at Landsake Farm our local community organic farm.