29th ANNUAL T. JOHN CAREY MASTERS 1 MILE OCEAN SWIM

Ocean City, NJ -- July 26, 2008

19:58
65/311 - overall
1/13 - age group
16/121 - female

As if we didn't get enough beach time in Rehoboth, we headed up to Ocean City, New Jersey for some more beach time. This time we were there for the one mile ocean swim that a bunch of the Drexel swimmers were doing. We had not done a swimming event, that was just swimming alone, in two years.

We arrived, signed up and walk the mile down the beach to the start line. As we did we tested the water and realized it was unseasonably cold. It is JULY!!! Shawn and I stood in the water contemplating a warm-up for about 15 minutes. Finally, once the Drexel guys ran and dove in we worked our way in, swam out past the breaking waves and quickly back in. This water was COLD.

The swim had two waves and I was in the second. I watched the first wave go off and expected to be two minutes later, I am standing there wet and shivering uncontrollably at this point and find out the start of wave two is going to be ten minutes later. This was a long ten minutes.

Finally our wave went off, and I did not burst into the water like a normal ocean swim. Again I gingerly walked my way in, and walked out as far as I could. When I did dive in I just swam for it, all I could think about was getting back out of the water. By the time I reached the middle of the swim my feet were numb up to my ankles. The only other thought I had throughout that swim was ... how am I going to walk when I get out to the finish line when I can not feel my feet??? Somehow I did, but it took a while for them to come back. I lost a lot of time on the start, probably at least a minute, but I was too cold to care...

I was cold the rest of the night and got a hot chocolate, mid-july on the way home. Sitting at the awards, an older man was having a really bad time. He was shivering still and all wrapped up, I added my towel for him to keep his legs warm. Once we got out of there an ambulance, fire-truck and police car came screaming in, I hope it was not for him.