Ben Brewer overcame a case of jet lag and won the Semana Nautica, Mullen and Henzell 1-mile ocean swim on Saturday at East Beach.
Brewer, who earlier this week returned from Japan, where he competed in the Sanyo International Life Saving Cup competition, managed to find his rhythm in time to hold off locals Taylor Steffan and Chris Braden for the win. His time was 20 minutes, 19 seconds. Steffan took second in 20:25 and Braden was third in 20:43.
Brewer said he found his rhythm “probably around that orange buoy, when I decided to go hard. I wasn’t sure if I was going to have the energy to make it the rest of the way, but I did, so that’s good.”
Because of the weariness after a long flight from Japan, the 19-year-old Brewer wasn’t sure if he was going to swim the race to win or do it for fun.
“I wasn’t really sure going into it. I was just going to see how I felt because I wasn’t sure if I would feel good or not. But after a little bit, I was swimming to win,” said Brewer, who earned All-American honors as a freshman swimmer at Cal Lutheran this year.
“It has been my best year of swimming so far,” said Brewer, a Santa Barbara High alum.
San Marcos alum and UC Davis swimmer Olivia Smith was the women’s winner with a time of 21:58.
“I had a lot of fun. A lot of my friends were here, so it’s good seeing everyone,” she said. “There’s usually a lot of good competition that comes out to race, so it’s really fun.”
Smith finished her first year at UC Davis. The second-place finisher was local veteran open-water swimmer Karen Schultz in 22:31 and third was Kristina Hill in 23:25.
Smith plans to compete in Sunday’s 3-mile race.
There were 108 finishers in the race. The last two finishers were 79-year-old Sylvia Glen in 48:56 and Monica Jones, 76, in 1:03.33
— Noozhawk intern Blythe Hastings can be reached at sports@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawksports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.