A swim fit for a king

I had such a great time with Tara Brown competing in the 1.2-mile King's Swim in Kailua Bay on the Fourth of July. It seems like every year when the race come around I tell myself, "Next year you should enter." This year Tara and I encouraged each other to give it a try.

I've been swimming in Kailua Bay for years and started swimming regularly with Sarah Jasper after work. She would drag me out there in pouring rain or ridiculous surf or chop, which is usually when we had the most fun. Eventually, I started swimming with fins on and making it all the way to the 1.2 mile buoy, but I had never tried swimming that far without fins until a couple of weeks before the race. About a year ago, Chris and I also took a swim lesson, which improved our stroke, made us faster, and made it feel more comfortable and effortless to move though the water.

 I had hoped to be able to do the race in less than 50 minutes. My time was 46:06 and I came in 184 out of 262, which I was really happy with for my first time around. It was really exciting being in the water with all of those people thrashing around and it was hard to get my heart rate relaxed at first. I know I could improve my time with cardio training because I was pretty out of breath.

I was very impressed with how well organized the event was, and everyone received a nifty King's Swim bag and there were tons of really great door prizes given away at the awards ceremony, too. Well done, Kona Aquatics, I am super excited to do the race again next year to see if I can beat my time.

Swimming is something our town does really well. There are a lot of athletes here and dozens of people swimming for exercise first thing in the morning. The race, and my morning swims take place at the same spot where Ironman World Triathlon begins with a 2.4-mile swim. Conditions are usually fantastic, especially first thing in the morning. I usually go a couple days a week before work and sometimes see the akule baitball or dolphins. What a great way to start the day.

My mom took this photo of the start of the race.

Thank you, Kona Aquatics, for posting photos of the race on Facebook I hope you don't mind me using this one of me at the finish of the race.

A photo I took of dolphins during a recent swim in Kailua Bay.