My teammate and I spent a good deal of time checking out the course for SwimRun NC tomorrow.  It is obvious that the race is going to be tough.

We started our scouting, by checking out the windows waterfall.  We will be climbing up through this waterfall during our first run in the morning.  The waterfalls are beautiful, but the climb up them is steep, particularly the upper falls. I am pretty sure we would really struggle without the rope that will be there to aid us.

After the falls, we visited the lake where we will do eight of our nine swims.  Again the lake is beautiful, but when we checked the water, it was cold.  While we were there, we ran into two of the race directors and they told us the water temperature was in the high 50’s ‘F.  They also said that the river swim, at the end of the race, would be even colder.

The climb up to the lake, from the start down by the river, involves much more elevation gain than I expected.  From the lake, we have even more elevation to climb, as we head around the Moore’s Wall loop.  Add in trails that are technical, and we realized that our pace is not likely to be fast.

After checking in for the race, we changed into our race gear, for one final view of the course.  The final part of run number ten, and the river swim.  The run warmed us up nicely as we reached the swim entry point.  We put on our swim gear, tethered ourselves together and got into the water.  Wow… that water is really cold!  We ended up not swimming anywhere near as much of the river as we planned. It was just too cold, and we decided to save the bravery for tomorrow.

We heard that SwimRun was different, and that is part of why we signed up.  It is going to be tough, but I am sure it will also be a lot of fun.  We will find out tomorrow.