Big Shoulders

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We’ve been trying to swim the Big Shoulders open water swim for years. We saw the race happening one September, wondered what it was and looked it up. “Great, let’s sign up for that next year.” The next summer we went to sign up and discovered that it had already sold out. We noted that sign-ups started in March and the next year we checked in the middle of March. So then we found out exactly when registration opened and put a calendar entry in to remember to do it that day. So that was this March 1 and we signed up! Erica went whole-hog and signed up for the 3 mile swim and I played it safe and signed up for the 1.5 mile. Our friends Sara and Andrea signed up as well.

I wouldn’t say we trained hard core all summer, but we trained — Erica joined a gym with a pool up in Evanston and she helped me get my act together and signed me up as well. We got out for some open water swims and did a real 1-mile race and then did the swim in the Chicago Triathlon. We were both a little nervous about our distances, but we were ready.

And then there were very high winds and the race was canceled.

It was very disappointing, especially because the water wasn’t that bad inside the protected walls of Ohio Street Beach, but the Parks District wasn’t able to get their safety boats into the area.

So, we’re waiting for next year’s sign up with bated breath…