The jellyfish got me about ten times.
The current was strong. The mass start was new to me. A lot of swimmers did not make it through the first leg.
I stayed calm.
That was the important part.
Two months earlier, I had spent a weekend in a pool learning how to swim with better form. A hurricane later damaged the gym I used in Lower Manhattan, so I did not get as much practice as I wanted before Cozumel.
I kept doing the drills whenever I could.
They worked.
The 2.4-mile swim took less effort than it would have before the clinic. When the water became rough and crowded, I had something repeatable to return to. Stroke. Position. Breathe. Keep moving.
Then came the bike and the marathon.
There was nothing elegant about the full day. The point was to keep moving through each part and protect enough energy to reach the next one. The finish mattered more than a clean split.
I finished Ironman Cozumel.
The race had been on my list for a decade. I had run ultramarathons and completed shorter triathlons, but this was the largest physical challenge I had attempted. Amanda traveled with me. We built a short beach trip around one very long Sunday.
A week later I wrote the swim coach to say thank you. The instruction had helped me finish the first mass-start open-water swim of my life and, ultimately, the whole goal.
I was already talking about what came next. Escape from Alcatraz. A longer swim. Leadville. Faster races.
But this one deserved a clean sentence first.
I finished the Ironman.