Open Water Swimming

Richmond’s own Jonah Holland raced the GCBS last year and wrote about it on her blog, Triathlonmom. It’s a real account of a triathlete competing in the Bay Swim for the very first time. I’ve posted the first paragraph below, but you can click over to Jonah’s blog to read her full account!

Race Report: Great Chesapeake Bay Swim 2008

I guess I should start in telling this story be telling you where my journey began. I’m not sure what year it was, perhaps it was 1983 when I was 10, or perhaps it was several years later. I read an article in The Washington Post. It was a first person account of swimming across the Chesapeake Bay — some kind of officially organized event…..The author described hearing this kayaker blow a lifeguard whistle repeatedly. The author/swimmer couldn’t figure out what he was doing wrong, was he breaking some rule? Going off course? Later he found out that the man swimming beside him was blind and was following the sound of the whistle to get across the Bay.