The event is called 8 Bridges, but it’s really just two bridges. That’s all you have to think about each day. It’s pretty simple really, you start and one bridge and you finish at the next one. How many miles the stage is and how long it’s taking seem less relevant as the miles start to blend together and the time starts to blur.
The starting point today was the Rip Van Winkle Bridge and the finish line about 18.3 Miles away under the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge. This stage is officially called “The Islands” but it’s really “the warm up” as it’s our first chance to wrap our collective heads around how the water is moving, what the Hudson River Valley looks like on the way by, and the conditions that can make the exact same swim change vastly from one year to the next or one day to the next.
We had a favorable current and a tailwind which made the 18.3 miles move by pretty quickly. I had great help all day long from Luis, my kayaker, who did a great job of working through the challenges of the day including a lot of traffic on the waterway.
Overall the water was warm (74 degrees) and the conditions were favorable. It was a great warm up for the week ahead. All of the swimmers finished today. So one way to look at it is that we have a solid first day in the books, but we also have over a hundred miles to go 🙂