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It has now been a week since the swim, but seems like only yesterday. It was a great trip, we had a blast. The race went well; I felt really good and confident and my stamina held up. What a new experience, swimming all that way with no flip turns, other swimmers around, seeing sand and coral and fish below me, sighting on things to keep on course. The water was so beautiful, so clean and bouyant, and I didn't get that sick chlorine aftereffect.
My time was 1 hour 38 min. 34 sec. I came in 3rd overall for women. There were 11 women and 26 men in the long course solo categories, total 37. I was 8th out of those 37. I was also the fastest in my age group (35 - 49) although they didn't score it like that. There were 142 swimmers in all doing various lengths of the course. The race results in PDF are at this address:
http://www.friendsvinp.org/swim/06_results.pdf
I stumbled a little in the soft sand coming out of the water (a clumsy emergence), but there was lots of clapping and they handed us each a medal and water. Well more about the race later, I'll put up some photos from the race and the rest of the trip soon.