Fort Myers 5km openwater swim

Today was the first race of the Fort Myers / Florida / USA Swimming openwater festival.. at 10am they ran a master's 5km swim, which had about 30 competitors of all ages. Since the course was the same as Karyn's race later in the day we went along to watch from the pier.

Later in the afternoon it was time for our 'test' event. The 5km openwater world team was selected in March, so this particular event holds no significance to the Canadians, but a few of the team opted to do it for experience - which is a huge factor in openwater swimming as the ability to react quickly to changing situations can mean the difference between maintaining contact with the lead pack, and getting dropped. Both Karyn and her roommate, Nadine Williams from Silver Tide in Edmonton, swam the race.

The course was a two loop one, which offered a chance to practice 'feeding' for the two swimmers at the end of the first loop. During the afternoon the wind picked up so that at the start of the race there was a 1 foot chop, which built up during the race to almost two foot swells... also, the water was about 87 degrees farenheit... they were pretty brutal conditions!

Karyn and Nadine ended up swimming most of the race together, coming in after the lead pack, but altogether a good practice swim, and the actual 10km race should be a lot easier!

Karyn is the youngest competitor in the entire trials, so just by being in contention is impressive. The swimmers have a break tomorrow with just a couple of easy swims before the 10km event on Sunday morning at 10am Eastern time (7am Pacific).

Check out some more pictures from the event here.

Again, live 'tweets' from USA Swimming are available during each race here.