Great Chesapeake Bay Swim

Here are a few pictures from the Great Chesapeake Bay Swim. There are two events. The first is a 1.1 mile swim and the second is the swim across the entire bay which is 4.4 miles. I swam the 1.1 mile swim with my good friend and my teammates from the Masters Swim Team in my area. It was a beautiful day and the bay was great! We all finished without any problems. The top pic is of the race start for the 4.4 swim. The second pic is of the start of the 1.1 mile swim (my group). My friend and I started preparing for the event last September and it felt really great to participate.



This is a pic of me right before starting. We had to wear wetsuits since the water was too chilly. Believe it or not, the hardest part of the race was not the swimming but finding the course when you're swimming with a lot of people. I also think I drank a ton of bay water. It was my first open water swim and I'm really looking forward to doing it again next year.



This is a pic of all the team members who participated in the 1.1 mile swim.



This pic is of my good friend and a teammate who won first place in her age category. This race was great fun and I loved the entire process. We had to buy wetsuits and practice in the Severn river at 7:00am in the morning. It wasn't too bad but the first day we went, there was fog and we could not see where we were swimming. On top of that, my friend saw water snakes and she is scared to death of snakes.

The event itself was a lot of fun with our families and friends coming out to cheer us on. They played great music, had food and the beer that we had when we finished tasted like the greatest thing on earth.