Hammerfest 6 rundown

Well, Hammerfest 6 was quite the disappointment. I'm hoping that because it was such a beautiful day outside, people just decided they did not want to swim at an indoor pool on such a lucratively beautiful weather day. Maybe it was poor planning on my part, scheduling the swim race on the same weekend as Tupper Lake Tinman, the Rochester Criterium, and various other races.

Regardless, at noon on Sunday, a grand total of 4 swimmers hopped into the 82 degree pool at the Webster Aquatic Center for the sixth edition of Hammerfest. Swimmers present were; yours truly, Heather Wolfe, John Hunter and his girlfriend Teresa. We all waited until 12:30pm to see if anyone else would show and when no one did, we decided to do a mass start and have everyone time themselves.

There was a short 100 yard warmup for all, but it seemed like the water was warm enough and we were all stretching while waiting around, so we were primed to swim fast. I sounded the start and we all tore into the water. John seemed to have some troubles with his suit as I saw a few times that he was doing "Greg Buzulencia turns" (ie. open turns) and pulling up his drawers around every other turn. To give him the benefit of the doubt though, he kicked ass at Tupper the day prior and told me he really wasn't too shelled from the half ironman race the previous day. (and he STILL made it to the swim, what a trooper!) Ask him how fast he ran the last 3 miles as he cruised to a 4:52 finish at Tupper...

Anyway, back to racing... I was feeling a little frisky as I hadn't raced in over a week and I took the first 500 out pretty hard as per usual... but finished in a good time of 22:21. John was about 100 yards behind in 24:16 and Heather Wolfe hit the wall in 27:42. Nice job everyone. Teresa told us later that she wasn't competing and she just came to check out John's really awkwardly sunburned legs in his tri shorts.

We decided to nix the awards as there were only 4 of us there (and I usually don't get door prizes as I am the one giving them away...) and decided to hold them until next month when we will swim at Kershaw Park in Canandaigua, NY in open water. We had a lot planned for awards and I guess I'll have to bring the goody bag next one.

Hammerfest 007 will be held on Friday July 14th, 2006 at Kershaw Park in Canandaigua. We are going to hold this on a Friday night at 6pm to allow everyone time to get there after work. Race will be wetsuit friendly (as Kershaw tends to be a little chilly) but by July it should be more than bearable for those of you who don't own wetsuits. So don't be shy, we would all really like you to come. Hammerfest 007 is looking to be a good race and I am concocting up some ideas on how to draw people in and "sell" these Hammerfest swims.... Perhaps the majesticness of open water swimming will be enough, but for those of you who desire more, we will have PLENTY of door prizes and awards (including a new pair of TYR goggles and other goodies.) Maybe we'll even bring back the race goody bags. we'll see. Mark the date on your calendars and we hope to see you there. Award ceremony for 007 will be held at either the ice cream place across the street from Kershaw or somewhere in the greater Canandaigua area so we can raffle off all of the FANTASTIC door prizes and award the "best of times/worst of times and covetted "tin foil and wire coathanger trophy" don't miss out!

Post a comment to any story on this site to "register" and hope to see you there for another monthly installment of Hammerfest Swims. Check out the updated leader boards. (We will have an ALL NEW top ten list for Kershaw Park - as it is open water, so if you place in the top ten, you can get recognition on this site as a amazing, leaderboard, hammerfest swimmer! - So show up, race fast and get on the board!) Take care all and hope to see you on Friday night July 14th, 2006 for Hammerfest 007.