The start area of the swim course was busy. Thirteen hundred swimmers and a few hundred spectators filled the air with the excitement that is typical at the start of a race. As usual, volunteers were holding signs to indicate time ranges for the 1900 metre swim (e.g., 40-50 minutes, 50-60 minutes) so that swimmers could place themselves in the correct group. Usually, the faster groups are organized ahead of the slower groups but, for some strange reason, the 50-60 minute group was beside the 60-70 minute one. I stood at the back of the 50-60 minute pace group, which was exactly where I needed to be.

For the back of the pack swimmers like me, the wait to start the swim was long. Only 5-10 swimmers were allowed to enter the water every 5 seconds; I estimated that it would take about 45 minutes to get everyone into the water. There was nothing we could do but inch forward and talk (almost always about triathlon) to the people around us.

There were so many people ahead of us that we could not even see the entrance to the water. The group that I was around thought that the swim entrance was straight ahead; it wasn’t until we got closer that we realized that it was to our left.

As my group approached the water, it got quieter and quieter, which made perfect sense as more and more people were swimming. I looked behind me to see how many of us were left and gasped. My group was last. The 60-70 minute group was gone.

“How did we end up at the back?” I asked.

Shoulders shrugged and one man replied, “The 60-70 group managed to push ahead of us.”

“So we’re last? Dead last?” I didn’t want to be in the last wave at all, not at all, but I really had no choice.

What I soon realized, though, was that being in the last group to start wasn’t all that bad. I always had someone ahead of me to follow, and that also gave me a bit of motivation to push myself a little more than usual. I was also passing swimmers and nobody passed me! That felt awesome!

By the time I was finished my swim, I had caught up to about 40 swimmers. Now I only had an uphill run to transition but I was so happy with how my swim felt that I didn’t care; I just kept smiling and moving while thinking about the next part: getting on my bike.