Discussion: Swimming

so when you were swimming, where did you put your map? Was it sealed? Do you hold it in your teeth?

Adding swimming to an o-meet ups your hardcoreness ten-fold. I'm impressed!

I've swum a lot at Canoe-O events and one other time at a Foot-O event, sometimes with moderate success, sometimes not. For the first time in my experience, the swimming option in the Canoe-O was unequivocally the best route choice, and I suspect as well that my decision to swim during the Foot-O maximized my potential score.

Regarding hardcoreness, the Canoe-O swim at Pawtuckaway was delightful and should in no way add to my hardcoreness rating. The other swim was a touch slimy, but far from my worst water experience. This would have to have been at the Norumbega Canoe-O in 2003, detailed to some extent by Aims Coney in the Results section of the NEOC web site. I seriously doubt that even the most grueling Special Forces training exercises typically require exposure to such unpleasant conditions. Suffice it to say that I was happy in retrospect to be fully immunized against Hepatitis B due to my professional exposure risks.

It may not speak highly of my intelligence to admit that I did not learn adequately from this first misadventure, and I subsequently suffered a gash to my knee with a complicating significant soft tissue infection resulting in hospitalization while trying to traverse a swamp at the NEOC Ice House Landing event in 2005. I do maintain, however, that my decision to run to the furthest upstream control and then swim downstream to rendezvous with my sister was a winning strategy, had I only recognized her ability to reach a rendezvous point upstream of the fateful swamp.

And yes, the sealed map goes between my teeth when I swim.