Category Archives: Boston Light Swim

Boston Light Swim 2014

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BLS-front_4-colorThe Boston Light Swim is an eight mile swim in Boston Harbor, from the Boston Light (a light house) in to shore of South Boston. I first heard about the swim last year on the Marathon Swimmers Forum, and after a brief discussion with the Race Director to determine if I could make the cutoff (I am not the world’s fastest swimmer), I had resolved to sign up for it. The event is kept small to ensure safety and has become increasingly popular over the years, last year it sold out within minutes of registration opening and thus I missed out on it and did C3 instead.

This year the event switched to a lottery system for and I managed to secure an entry, the day of the event was three weeks before my scheduled Catalina swim, however I figured it would be a fun way to start the tapering process. As it turns out, Catalina was not to be this year, so I was very glad I had the BLS in the line up to look forward to.

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Boston Light Swim and Weekly Training

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The Boston Light Swim came on my radar last year as an interesting swim to get my feet wet (so to speak) with longer cooler water swims with water temps in the high 50’s to low 60’s (i.e. pretty much standard San Francisco Bay temperatures during summer). The swim sold out last year in 9 minutes (there are only 20 spots for solo swimmers) so I ended up doing C3 instead.

This year the organizers switched to a lottery system for entries, so I decided to throw my hat into the ring, despite having already committed to swim Catalina three weeks after BLS. I figure it will be a fun warm up for Catalina and a good test of dealing with cooler water (though I plan to have done longer swims in the bay by then).

On Friday I got the email that I’d been one of the lucky ones to get a spot, so excited to have this on my swim calendar for the year.

Managed to get in 16,500 yards in the pool this week and an hour in the Bay for a total of 11 miles. Short of the 15 miles I was aiming for, so am thinking I will have to start pushing my pool sets from 4,000 to 6,000 yards to make sure I get a good base in each week.

Off to Illinois for work this week. Have identified a pool to swim in, the challenge will be that my best opportunity to get to it will likely be the morning sessions, and I have never been an early riser, something I think will have to change if I am to ever hit the ~20 miles a week I’ll need to be doing by June.