Manhattan Island Marathon Swim 2013

Looks to be a strong MIMS field this year! Here are the soloists:
Braga, Giuliana
Brynn, Charlotte
Cashell, Carol
Clifford, Devon
Cummins, Lisa
Delaurentis, Lisa
Dods, Suzie
Donovan, Timothy
Dooley, Katy
Downie, Paul
Gorman, Victoria
Helguera, Gustavo
Herrick, Charles
Hinds, Lochie
Hirschman, Nicole
Ho, Phyllis
Hughes, John
Hunt, Andrew
Kiernan, Marilee
Leonard, William
Lichtenwalter, Kenn
Maher, Liam
McGowan, Ellery
Morris, Wayne
Neitz, James
Neri, Jesus
Newsome, Paul
Penrose, James
Roberts, Ceinwen
Rutford, Kristian
Samuels, Charlotte
Sanders, Gretchen
Thorpe, Victoria
Throsby, Karen
Van der Byl, Grace
Ward, Deirdre
Wilson, Geoff
[added later]
Green, Steven
Levy, Frank
Rose, Caitlin
Please post Twitter accounts of swimmers (or crew) who will be providing live race updates. Then on race day folks can use this thread to keep track of the race from multiple perspectives.
For example:
Official NYC Swim - http://twitter.com/nycswim
Paul Newsome - http://twitter.com/SwimSmoothPaul
crew member @evmo - http://twitter.com/pointswim
I will also suggest the Twitter hashtag #MIMSwim, for those who use such things.
Per NYC Swim, use the Twitter hashtag #MIMS (not to be confused with the eponymous rapper).
Braga, Giuliana
Brynn, Charlotte
Cashell, Carol
Clifford, Devon
Cummins, Lisa
Delaurentis, Lisa
Dods, Suzie
Donovan, Timothy
Dooley, Katy
Downie, Paul
Gorman, Victoria
Helguera, Gustavo
Herrick, Charles
Hinds, Lochie
Hirschman, Nicole
Ho, Phyllis
Hughes, John
Hunt, Andrew
Kiernan, Marilee
Leonard, William
Lichtenwalter, Kenn
Maher, Liam
McGowan, Ellery
Morris, Wayne
Neitz, James
Neri, Jesus
Newsome, Paul
Penrose, James
Roberts, Ceinwen
Rutford, Kristian
Samuels, Charlotte
Sanders, Gretchen
Thorpe, Victoria
Throsby, Karen
Van der Byl, Grace
Ward, Deirdre
Wilson, Geoff
[added later]
Green, Steven
Levy, Frank
Rose, Caitlin
Please post Twitter accounts of swimmers (or crew) who will be providing live race updates. Then on race day folks can use this thread to keep track of the race from multiple perspectives.
For example:
Official NYC Swim - http://twitter.com/nycswim
Paul Newsome - http://twitter.com/SwimSmoothPaul
crew member @evmo - http://twitter.com/pointswim
I will also suggest the Twitter hashtag #MIMSwim, for those who use such things.
Per NYC Swim, use the Twitter hashtag #MIMS (not to be confused with the eponymous rapper).
Comments
...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
I copied and pasted the list from this page, and missed the Swim Free fundraisers, who were listed separately.
and Karen Throsby
...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
Buoy water temps today June 6th
The Battery 61.5F
Kings Point 60.4F
Breezy Point 60.4
Sandy Hook 70.7F
I don't wear a wetsuit; it gives the ocean a sporting chance.
Lisa Cummins (Sandycove)
Liam Maher (Sandycove)
Carol Cashell (Sandycove)
@KarenT (UK) being crewed by @jgal
Tori Gorman (WA)
Andrew Hunt (dormant since EC, might wake up tomorrow) (WA)
Paul Newsome (WA) being crewed by @evmo
Lochie Hinds (WA)
Ceinwen Roberts (WA)
There a couple of others I know but are never used so I didn't add them.
loneswimmer.com
Sisu: a Finnish term meaning strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity.
loneswimmer.com
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
loneswimmer.com
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
loneswimmer.com
Given that Paul is an honoree Australian now, that makes 3 Aussies in the top 4 - I feel a rousing shout of "Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi" is only appropriate
http://notdrowningswimming.com - open water adventures of a very ordinary swimmer
Molly Nance, Lincoln, Nebraska
http://nycswim.org/Event/Event.aspx?event_id=2302&from=results
loneswimmer.com
What does 'boat assisted' mean in this list?
Milko
https://db.marathonswimmers.org/p/milko-van-gool/
The ebb turned before most of the field made it to Hellgate. Those swimmers were transported by boat to the Harlem River and allowed to continue swimming from there. Considering the alternative, I think it was a good option, as those swimmers could experience the rest of the course and hopefully enjoy the day in the water. I'm sure mot are anxious to take another crack at it.
...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
There was a lot of chaos out there yesterday, particularly with the late swim start. The swim officially started at 8:30am - it was scheduled to start at 8am, as indicated on the MIMS timeline.
Based on my observations, I believe the late start negatively affected the very front end of the middle of the pack swimmers. I do feel the extra 30 minutes would have given them a smaller section of strong current to navigate, and perhaps they would have been able to get through it. However, I still believe the middle of the middle pack, the lower of the middle pack, and the back of the pack would have not been able to make the currents yesterday, no matter if they started on time, or even an hour before.
The first group of swimmers (10 at the back) was pulled at 10:55am (2hr25mins in), and some were barely at the bottom tip of Roosevelt Island - with a good current propelling them along up until then. Had they started at 8am, they still would have had to get to around 116th Street, where I noticed the currents were subsiding. The distance from the back group of swimmers to this area was at least 3 miles. Our 2 swimmers were pulled around 11:17am, and still had a distance of 1.5 miles to get to 116th street. Had we left 30 minutes earlier, would this distance have been possible? Maybe. But it would have been tough, and I don't think anybody after them would have made it.
It was compelling on Twitter, though the GPS was not much use this year.
It also seemed the temperatures affected a few people badly who weren't as acclimatised.
It has seemed to me there's been a bit of complacency about MIMS for the last couple of years, even though almost everyone agreed last year was very difficult (first 90 mins and then all the Hudson). I think this year's events will actually serve to dispel that myth and will benefit MIMS standing amongst other swims. It's a pity though so many swimmers should be affected by the tide for this to happen though.
I no longer believe this last part of my post.
loneswimmer.com
If you think about it, it is actually quite remarkable that 100% (or nearly 100%) of the field have finished in recent years. And IMO, it's a testament to NYC Swim's management of the swim that we have come to expect such success rates.
This year was an aberration, and resulted from factors outside swimmers' control (including human error), which no doubt increased the frustration of the affected swimmers. I absolutely empathize with that frustration, but it is worth remembering that chaos, unpredictability, and sheer bad luck are all quite fundamental to the marathon swimming experience.
I don't know if complacency is the right word here... I think everybody realized that the swim would be challenging. What I think was different this year than previous years is the speed of the swimmer. I looked back at results, and the majority of swims in the last few years (bar 2007?) were well within the 9:30 time limit. A good few swimmers this year still finished above 8 hours, after being moved up the river 2.5+ miles. Had conditions been favorable in the upper East River, with the rest of the swim as it was experienced yesterday, these swimmers would have finished in well over 10 hours...and probably closer to 11 hours.
I think the current-neutral speeds of this year's field were comparable to other years.
I reckon she was middle of the middle when pulled. My hubs, Dave, was observing a swimmer (James Penrose) who was pulled at 11:01AM, and he was probably 600m behind Karen. Dave thinks 15 swimmers were behind James when he was pulled, and I'd estimate 3-4 swimmers separated James and Karen. So that puts Karen right in the middle of the middle pack.
Given the first 10 were pulled at staggered intervals from 10:55, James at 11:01, and Karen at ~11:15, I would estimate that all of the pulled swimmers were on board a boat by 11:25. But during that time, some boats had already made their way to the Triborough bridge, so the finishing times of the pulled swimmers will vary because some boats immediately headed there, while others (including ours) stayed in neutral while deciding what to do.
I can't say if the 30 minutes would have made a difference. Had it started at 8, I think she would have been the separation... she either would have barely made it, or barely missed out. It's impossible to know.
I was talking about no current speed, as in, like a pool.
The unusually large spread between Paul (at 7:14) and the finisher at 9:50 is more likely due to the start later in the tide cycle, which benefited faster swimmers, and punished slower swimmers.
That doesn't make sense to me. I see how the Upper East Side area benefitted the faster swimmers, because they were able to get to the Harlem River on this current that changed at 80th St for us, but the slower swimmers were all taken out of the swim area with strong currents, and put back in at a normal or current-assisted area, which remained this way for the rest of the swim (bar a few areas of tougher than normal conditions, which I put up on Twitter).
These tougher conditions included a bit of chop, but all of the swimmers continued to make good, steady progress in them. So, effectively, they got to skip a bit or most of the only section of the swim that had strong currents. The rest of the swim looked 'as expected' of any long distance swim.
Knowing some of the swimmers who were pulled. they included, (obviously since only 11 finished), some fast swimmers, which for this case I'd define as 4k per hour (nominally).
I'm not drawing any conclusions, just comments.
loneswimmer.com
How the typical MIMS goes is: the field (still relatively tightly packed) enter the East River at near max flood, which gradually abates as swimmers move upriver. With the staggered start, the fastest swimmers should reach the front of the field by the upper East River. When the fastest swimmers enter Hell Gate, the Harlem usually isn't ebbing yet, so the front part of the field bunches up again (i.e., faster swimmers get "punished"). Meanwhile, slower swimmers are still benefiting from the East River flood.
In the Harlem, the faster swimmers battle a slackish current in the beginning, while slower swimmers don't enter the Harlem until the ebb is stronger - so they benefit relatively, compared to the faster swimmers.
Same in the Hudson. When the faster swimmers reach it, they battle slack water for some time, while slower swimmers benefit from a more fully-ebbing Hudson when they reach it later on.
The net effect is that finishing times between "fast" swimmers and "slow" swimmers are compressed for the typical MIMS, compared to current-neutral conditions.
Because of the delayed start yesterday, the opposite happened. The tides were optimized for fast swimmers - so Paul's time was probably faster than what he'd have done if the race started on time. Similarly, the swimmer who finished at 9:50 would likely have been much faster on the typical MIMS, resulting in a narrower spread of times.
If you're interested, much more info on the dynamics of the rivers around Manhattan as relates to swimming is available in Capt. Tim Johnson's History of Open Water Marathon Swimming.
See what I mean? You should think of him as finishing 11/39, not 11/11.
The swimmers who got pulled may have been moved forward, but I question the assumption that they were necessarily moved as far as they'd have been on a non-delayed start.
I was in the lead boat, so I have no idea what actually happened back there.
...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
The timeline we had originally, and that was discussed at the meeting on Friday afternoon, had the start scheduled as: "7:35am swimmers enter the water" and "7:40 race start." But even this wasn't the actual plan for the first wave. Wave 1, which had the slowest swimmers, was going to start closer to 7:20 in what Morty called an "unceremonious" start, just to give them a chance to make the cut-off times. So even when the start time was moved to 8am, there were plans to unceremoniously start wave 1 twenty minutes ahead of that time (~7:40). Wave 1 started closer to 8:35 yesterday, a full 55 minutes after the adjusted planned start (and some 75 minutes after the original planned start).
I was in the second wave, which started only a few minutes after the first wave (instead of the 20 minute gap that was planned), at 8:38. In other words, a full 58 minutes after the originally planned start, and 38 minutes after the rescheduled start... All of this is to illustrate that the specifics of the start time delay is a little more complicated than what can be gleaned from the currently published schedule.
@evmo's explanation of how this years swim flipped who got an assist and who got "punished," is very clear. Thanks, Evan.
Another way to see the effects of this: all eleven 2013 finishers had to be fast enough to to beat the tide change, or in other words, they were the fastest swimmers in the field (if we don't look at the few folks pulled for hypothermia). The fact that the 11th fastest swimmer (out of 40) in the field this year had a time that falls in between the two slowest swimmers from last year says something... All signs point to that something being that this late-started course was very different from previous years, and not that the rest of us were unusually slow swimmers (which would just be a weird thing for the MIMS committee to let happen). At most, there were one or two swimmers that NYC Swim was at all concerned about their ability to finish. (I'm not guessing here, this is what I was told by a NYC Swim organizer in the weeks leading up to the race.)
First of all, many congratulations to everyone who took part on Saturday. From what I've heard (Twitter, Facebook, MSF) it was a very tough swim for all involved. The results obviously don't do the swimmers justice, as there are some amazing swimmers on that list who don't have official times.
Anyway, regarding Tim Donovan. I agree with what @evmo is saying above. Tim's a great swimmer. Lovely chap. I trained with him all summer in Dover last year (well- not quite, because his feet would disappear into the distance very quickly). He swam the EC last summer in 11h 40m - I guess that sort of time might put him high-middle of pack in a normal MIMS year?
The lead swimmers (Newsome, Hinds, Leonard, Roberts) flew through Hell Gate, indicating the Harlem was already ebbing, and the East would soon lose its flood.
Later, when Paul reached Spuyten Duyvil, we motored ahead to scout the Hudson, suspecting the ebb may have already been in full bloom. Indeed it was - we measured 3mph at the top of the island. We also observed a back eddy along the Manhattan shoreline at the same spot. Therefore, we immediately directed Paul out into river, and he flew past the GWB much faster than a lead swimmer would normally experience.
Based on my knowledge of the application process last November, and conversations with several swimmers over the weekend, I can confirm that the pulled-and-repositioned swimmers included many with very respectable pool speed. Certainly enough to make it around the island on a normal day. Unfortunately, with the late start only the swiftest of the swift had much of a chance of making it.
At least, that is how I see it.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
I could not agree more.
Myself and a couple of others following at least were under the impression that some of the swimmers toward the trailing end of the field hadn'> been pulled. (e.g. Suzie & Ellery).
So we trying to figure out a cause involving much useless speculation and currents. In fact it wasn't clear until the provisional results went up yesterday that everyone after that lead group was pulled.
Anyway, just adding this for clarification because some of you will have read Twitter feeds and might not get that many of us were very confused following you.
loneswimmer.com
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams