Henley Swim

Found this in my drafts:


I did the Henley swim at the world famous Henley Royal Regatta rowing venue sponsored by the Upper Thames Rowing club last weekend (June 27th).  It is a 2.1km race that is on the upper portion of the Thames so the water was fresh and quite clean.    It takes place the weekend before the big regatta and is quite unique.  The event start exactly at Sunrise so you have to be there at 0330, walk to the start at 0350 with a 0430 start time.  They offer camping in the back parking lot but that was a bad idea.  The next door rowing club had a wedding that ending at 0230 with the people dispersing at 0315.  So this was not my best race with ZERO sleep.  I was quite pissed and really did not want to even do the race but came all that way.  I dragged my ass down to the start and it was dark and quite cool.  75% of the entries were wet suits and I entered as traditional, ie speedo but for forgot it and had to swim in my training/drag suit.   By time I got down to the start my toes had nearly froze off and had to get into that water.  I heard reports the water was warm but not boiling, it was 23C/73.5F.  Coming from the English Channel that Monday and into this wow...  The first pack of men in wet suits went off at 0430 and we went 5 minutes later.  My pack was traditionals and women in wet suit so was not a bad at all.  The start might have been a mass start but it was so spread out it was no problem.  The race it self is against the current but the river has been manipulated so much over the century that the current was non-existent.  I did not go out hard, just went at a nice pace but started to overtake people pretty quickly.  So that gave me a boost and as the race went on, I started to have to zig zag to get around all the people.  I stayed in the far right to avoid the bunches on the right side.  I kept remembering them saying they had an open water pad on the left hand side and you must hit it with your left hand.  They pulled this all out in the cover of night so I did not know exactly where the end was or this pad was located.  At about the 1.8k mark, I could see a buoy and knew that had to be the end.  It was right behind a building in the water so it was hard to determine if that was it.  I heard from some that we had to finish at the bridge some at the end of the actual regatta course, so it was up in the air at this point.  However that buoy was at the end of the course and I did not see it the night before so at this point I put up a 6 beat kick and started to haul ass.  With the pad being on the left I started to merge to the left towards this buildings and this paid off as I saw people still going straight on.  I was able to hit two people out because of this strategy.  When I went on to cool down a bit people were swimming right by it on the right losing time and positions so this was a bit confusing for everyone.  I think if it were in the middle of the course or have an open water finish line that would be a bit less confusing.  Anyways, I did it got 8th Place in my category and got a bacon sandwich with brown sauce.  We got out of their due to the searing heat at 6am and headed home.  It took us 45 mins to get home cutting thru London opposed to the hour and 45 mins getting there the night before...

It was a great little event and would advise anyone to do it but watch out for weddings!