TravTri: The Flowers 1 mile open water sea swim experience

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the Flowers 1 mile sea swim.

For those readers not from the Cayman Islands and not familiar with the Flowers sea swim more details can be found on the official website:

Cayman Islands Flowers 1 mile sea swim

The Flowers sea swim has been named one of the top 10 best open water swims in the world by the Guardian newspaper. The link for this top 10 list can be found here: Top 10 swims - The Guardian

Catching a pic with Jana about 30min before the swim start

This was the 5th year running that I competed in the Flowers sea swim. Swimming conditions for a 1 mile sea swim just does not get better than the conditions on 7 mile beach in the Cayman Islands. Having grown up in South Africa and gaining most of my open water experience in the province of Gauteng I just cannot compare the conditions of the Flowers sea swim to the water conditions and visibility of the dams and rivers I used to do open water swims in.

The wonderful support crew (Lara, Jana & Nicolene)

I knew I had to buy a proper set of goggles for the race this year as there is nothing worse than your goggles fogging up every 300m and having to stop to clear them. I decided to buy a pair of TYR NEST Pro Goggles when I was shopping around at Florida 70.3 race expo 3 weekends ago. I was feeling rather chuffed with my decision during the swim that I chose to buy these goggles specifically for the Flowers sea swim. The goggles did not leak at all, did not fog up and the anti fog worked as intended. I could sight and navigate with accuracy as goggles that fog up can obscure one's vision which can cause one to swim in a rather jagged line from start to finish.

The race started in the usual format of "organised chaos". 830+ swimmers kicking and bashing against each other all trying to cut the straightest line to the finish. I managed to get away fairly well. I positioned myself in a group of about 20 swimmers during the first 100m. The drafting tactic did not work too well after the first 100m as for some reason some of the youngsters that train with the swim squads are brilliant swimmers but their navigation sucks. You can be an excellent pool swimmer but if you can't navigate when swimming in open water you lose precious time.

100's of swimmers in the ocean just after the start of the 2012 Flowers sea swim

I knew my toughest masters competitors to beat on race day was going to be William and Marius A. I could not believe the three of us were within 8 meters of each other after 200m. With 830+ swimmers we managed to find each other within the same swim pack. I thought to myself, wow this is going to be a tough race as we will be pushing each other to the max all the way to the finish line.

Marius A drafted me for a while so I knew I had to draft another swimmer ahead of me or pull away. The swimmer ahead of me swam too skew so I decided to steamboat ahead and swim my own race. I was surprised to see at this stage that I was pulling away from Marius A and William. I pretty much swam by myself from about what I seem to recall the 400m mark to about the 1400m. I felt pretty confident going into the swim as I knew my aerobic endurance level was still high after completing the Florida 70.3 Ironman a mere 3 weekends ago.

I eventually caught up with Danielle a talented CBAC swim squad member. I drafted Danielle from about the 600-800m section of the course but she end up taking a different line (hugging the line closer to the shore) to the finish. The one advantage of the swim course was that I am so familiar with the best line to take from the Hyatt (Half way mark) to Royal Palms. I have swum this route countless times over the last 4.5 years.

I felt really strong throughout the first 1.2km. I could feel my shoulders, arms and legs were holding up well and powering away but could feel my lungs and heart were working pretty vigorously. I just remember finding the last 400m push to the finish line really painful. I understand that all swimmers need to swim with swim caps for the purpose of being visible to the kayakers but with the heat and humidity in Cayman at 2:45pm on a summer's day afternoon one can feel pretty hot when pushing the limits. In a way I wish we could have the option of rather swimming without a swim cap in order for more bodyheat to dissipate. I know that a large % of one's body heat escape's from one's head so it would make sense to swim without swim caps but it would obviously result in a safety concern for the race organizers.

I am the swimmer on the right with the extended arm

As I closed in on the finish line I remember spotting a swimmer to the left of me and a pack of about 3-5 swimmers to the right of me and slightly behind me but they were closing in. I expected that William and Marius was in this swim pack so I pushed really hard during the last 200m to the finish. Danielle end up beating me by about a body length on the finish line while I managed to finish just ahead of the group containing Andrew S, William B and Marius A.

I was rather ecstatic after crossing the finish line when I realized that I placed 20th overall out of 830 plus swimmers. My time was about 3min slower than previous two years but we definitely faced a stronger current year this year which was evident from the fact that most people (including the winning time) being slower than the previous year.

I am the swimmer with the red cap 1 sec after crossing the finish line

All in all I highly highly recommend participating in the Flowers sea swim if you ever have the opportunity to do so. The event is exceptionally well organised. The Flowers family puts so much time and money into the event which is really admirable. From winning a spot prize point of view the event can also be highly recommended as swimmers have a 25% of winning a prize. I was lucky enough to win a return flight ticket with Cayman Airways to either Florida or one of their other Caribbean destinations.

The only improvement point I have is for the organizers to make the "speeches" section of the presentation at least 30minutes shorter as swimmers had to wait for approx 2 hours before the spot prizes were awarded. It is understood by all the swimmers that the sponsors all want to promote their brand with a 1000+ people watching but when it is like 32 degrees Celsius outside plus 80% humidity it gets rather uncomfortable and hot for so many people to wait around.