2006 Tiburon Mile

The 7th annual Tiburon Mile (a 2000meter open water swim in the San Francisco Bay) took place on Sunday morning at 9:00am. I was so happy to be on the starting line of this fantastic event again. I participated in 2004, was the Women’s champion, but the race was not held last year. This year the race was SOLD OUT with 800 competitors braving the 60 degree waters (about half wore wetsuits while the other half just went numb:).
I flew from COS into San Fran on Friday morning and spent the day relaxing in my hotel room with some movies. When my roommate and friend, Erica Rose, finally arrived, we drove into Tiburon for the pre-race dinner and celebration. It was a beautiful affair in the Tiburon Lodge with lots of the race sponsors, fellow competitors, and all the Special Olympians who would be competing on Sunday!
On Saturday morning we had about 7 people participate in the “Test Swim.” Erica, Robert, Ryk, John, and myself were some of the brave souls who completed the ENTIRE race course at 8am…I will take ever opportunity I am given to swim in the fun waters of the Bay with a view of the Golden Gate bridge off to my left. Unfortunately, it took me about 2 hours to get feeling back into every one of my toes and fingers…a couple cups of hot cocoa, a VERY warm shower, and an hour curled up in my bed!
For our afternoon adventure, Erica, Robert, and I drove into San Francisco and did a lot of “touristy” things. We walked around Fisherman’s Wharf, I showed them the Sand Ladder from the Alcatraz Triathlon, we shopped in Ghirardelli Square, window shopped along Fillmore St., and drove down the twisty turns on Lombard St! WE ate dinner at a very nice restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf before driving back to the hotel to pack and rest for race morning.
I woke up at 6am and went for a wake-up swim in the warm Tiburon Club pool, just like I did before winning the race in 2004! I picked up my race packet…which included a BLUE swim cap with MCLARTY written on the sides. After I squeezed into my Speedo FastSkin (it’s been a LONG time since I’ve worn a swim-racing-suit!) I hung out on the Elite Athlete deck until they loaded us on the yacht for the trip over to Angel Island.
We got to the starting beach a few minutes late so I ran down to the beach and got a good starting position. The gun fired from a boat in the Bay to signal the start…I was off like a rocket into the water, didn’t even have time to notice that it was freezing! Just like 2004, I swam with the lead men to catch their draft and …but unlike 2004, I could not hang with them for the whole 2000meters, only 500 meters! And then I was suddenly swimming all by myself about 30 meters behind the lead pack (and I knew that at least one or two girls were ahead of me).
So I just enjoyed myself for the remainder of the race…keeping a good pace, but knowing that the win was out of the picture. Right when I was swimming into the Tiburon Yacht Harbor for the last 300 meters of the race, I could see Erica Rose entering it on the left side. We took completely different lines from the start to the finish, but ended up finishing only one second apart (I ran out of the water right in front of her). When we were standing on the beach someone yelled that we were 2nd and 3rd place women!! That was a BIG shock to me…I thought lots of girls were ahead of me (Chloe Sutton was the first girl finisher)…but it was fantastic to know that open water experience sometimes beats pure swimming ability!!
After the awards, I relaxed in my hotel room until Leanda came to pick me up and we did some more exploring of San Francisco for shopping and dinner. Monday morning, I caught a ride to the airport and spent most of the afternoon traveling back to COS!