My Greatest open water achievement to date.

So, I want to start out by stating that I am not an open water swimmer. I'm not even a distance swimmer. I'm a sprinter. I spent most of my time in the water bouncing off of a few walls at a time. That being said, today I tried out for California State Lifeguards. The tryout consists of a 1000 yard open water swim, followed by a 200yd by 400yd by 200yd run/swim/run.

This was my second attempt trying out. I went to a tryout at a different location 2 weeks ago, but due to a series of unfortunate circumstances (Not much sleep the night before, didn't have breakfast, was sick), I had an asthma attack during the run-swim-run segment, and was forced to pull out. The conditions then were light wind and 5-6 ft breakers with water temp around 60 degrees.

Today the conditions were much worse. The breakers were 10-12 ft, easily double-overhead, with 15mph winds and 52 degree water. I am proud to say that I passed the tryouts, coming in 6th on the 1000 with a time of 19:31 (a little too close for comfort to the cutoff, but I still made it), and 4th on the run (didn't get my time). I can't express how accomplished I feel, I just needed to share it with people who would understand how challenging this can actually be!

TL;DR: I passed state lifeguard tryouts under insane conditions after failing two weeks earlier. Just needed to share!