Early GSL swim and Steve Spencer's video

My first day of my window of opportunity to swim the EC starts August 8, 2012: One year from now. Man, I can't wait!

This morning I met Josh before the sun even came up. The gates to the marina were closed and as soon as the sun started to shine just before coming up over the wasatch mountains to the east, the gate automatically rolled open. Josh and I started our swim before the sun showed up. It was beautiful. I was originally planned to do two laps of Gridley Straight, but the water was so calm that I thought it would be nice to go out away from shore for a bit and do one big loop rather than two laps. Here's the map the GPS tracked:

Josh and I swam together to Blackrock, but after that he headed back and I went north.  I wouldn't have done that if the water was crazy, but there was barely a ripple and I felt confident that I would be OK.

I swam about 15 minutes north and then turned east.  I stopped a couple of times to take a picture or to get a drink.  Just north of the marina I saw a red buoy so I turned left and met up with that.  Then went again east for another 20 minutes.  Then I stopped and saw the red buoy that is east of the marina so I headed south to that.

I was feeling so good!  I was doing long efficient strokes.  My time was good.  So I decided to go all the way in through the Marina opening rather than from the beach and rocky path from the east of the marina.  What a beautiful day it was, hardly a ripple the whole time.

Total Distance: 4.6 miles in 2:10


The video of Steve Spencer's visit to the GSL race in June was finally completed with editing and is now available online!  I wish I could have been there to see in person the trophy and cool medals he one, and to meet the family.  Here's the completed video which we will make available on the race website for future swimmers to enjoy: