Why The Buoy Looked So Far Away

So while I was plotting how I was going to be able to do the open water swim, I decided I would calculate how many tenths of a mile 800 yards was, then ride my bike along the shore and landmark the distance with the lifeguard chairs, then swim it and time it, and compare that time to the slowest times in the previous races at the same site of the same distance. Somehow, I guess it wasn't a math day! I came up with 800 yards being a quarter of a mile, and decided I had to swim two and a half lengths of the beach. So I did that two days in a row, in 15 minutes, and felt like I would be able to swim that far in the race.

Well, race day comes, and the buoy looked _so_ far, but I thought that was just because I would be swimming straight out and back, and I convinced myself that each way was about the equivalent of a length of the beach, plus a little more. Fine, the race happens, I do the swim, it's ok, in fact it seems easier than I thought, and I am very pleased with my time of 15:49.

Then sometime yesterday I decided to recalculate the distance, converting 800 yards to miles, and guess what- you guys that do tri's probablby already know this!! It's 0.454 miles, not 0.25!!! So I swam almost half a mile, and didn't even know it! I'm so glad I didn't know at the time, and now I feel much better about my ability to swim a long distance...

Thanks for all the nice comments and encouragement from everyone before and after. It really helped.

Nanci

I think I am confused. :confused:

Just tell me this... are you saying that the mile I am swimming in a lake this Sunday.... is going to look farther than I could ever imagine??? :eek: :eek: :eek:

I _thought_ I was practice swimming 800 yards, which I had wrongly calculated to be 1/4 mile. It turns out 800 yards is 0.454 miles. So when I got to the race, and looked at the buoy, it seemed a lot further out than what I _thought_ 800 yards was, due to my wrong calculation...

I'm sure you'll do wonderfully on your lake swim!

Nanci

The way y'all measure things just doesn't make sense! :p

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Originally Posted by tlkiwi

The way y'all measure things just doesn't make sense! :p

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ROFL - now don't ya'll go changing things on us here.....next thing ya know you'll be wanting us to speak the Queens English and then start drinking tea and then taxing us and then we'll have to dump the tea in the harbour in Boston and then......................... ;) LOL

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Originally Posted by tlkiwi

The way y'all measure things just doesn't make sense! :p

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Im with tlkiwi - when Im on the forum I have my calculator out to do all the conversions or I have no idea what the distances are and dont even start on temperatures because I have to work that out too or I have no idea what to dress my poor kiddies in. :D

nanci,

you are so funny! when i first read in one of your posts that you were going to do a 800yd swim, i was thinking, wow, that is pretty far for a first time swim!! :o

i went out to the site where our little ocean swim is going to be held. we have to swim around a pier and this cement ship (yes, it's actually cement). it looked a lot farther than the 400yds that it's supposed to be. in fact, my friend claims that it's more than 400 yds -- maybe it's actually 400 meters!! LOL!

i think it's really quite common to look out and think that it looks far because most of us are used to only swimming laps in the pool and it's hard to visual what those laps would look like back-to-back.

anyway, congratulations to you.

-frances

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i think it's really quite common to look out and think that it looks far because most of us are used to only swimming laps in the pool and it's hard to visual what those laps would look like back-to-back.

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My last lake swim was 500 yards... and it looked really far! It didn't like like only 500 yards.

Gosh, I really hope that 1 mile... doesn't look like 1 mile! HA!