Chilly temperatures and an overcast sky throughout didn’t stop a large crowd of local swimmers from diving into the water and completing their respective ocean races at the 79th annual Semana Nautica.
Among those competitors were Chris Braden and Olivia Smith, who not only finished first in the one-mile swim on Saturday but followed it up with victories in the three-mile race on Sunday at East Beach.
“I was pretty convinced that I wasn’t going to be doing this today after finishing the mile yesterday, so I’m super happy with how it went,” Braden said. “My stroke felt good the whole way through and I somewhat enjoyed myself when the sun came out.”
The local triathlete and former Dos Pueblos cross country runner jumped out to a quick lead and never looked back while finishing with a time of 1 hour and nine seconds. The win Sunday wrapped up an impressive week for Braden, who went 4-for-4 in open water swim events with wins in the Reef & Run mile and Nite Moves 1k.
“The cold was definitely the biggest challenge today and I was seriously unsure if I was going to be able to finish because of it,” added Braden about the 3 miler. “I started off fast in order to warm up and once I reached the 2 1/2 mark, I knew that I was going to finish.”
The early favorite for the Swimmer of the Year award started his win streak with the Nite Moves 1k on June 29th, then captured the Reef and Run mile swim on June 30th before picking up his first ever title in the Henzell and Mullen mile on Saturday. Finishing in second and third place, respectively, were Myles Peck (1:02:32) and defending champion Taylor Steffen (1:03:13).
With a personal best time of 1:04.12, Smith claimed the distinction of female champion in the 3-mile swim and finished fourth overall. The title was her third out of four races during an eventful week.
“I’m going to walk away happy with this weekend because those were some pretty hard races,” commented Smith. “It’s cool to win back-to-back swims as its been a goal of mine for a while.”
A little fatigued from the energy exerted while winning the 1-mile race on Saturday, the UC Davis-bound swimmer went into the day expecting to take it easy.
However, with fierce competition coming throughout from Matt Miller (1:04:14) and 2015 champion Karen Schultz (1:04:17), the former San Marcos standout was able to use her own competitiveness to drive through a tough race.
“I thought that I was going to be able to cruise today but I had a lot of good competition that pushed me a bit harder,” added Smith. “This definitely made it more exciting and pushed me to go a lot faster.”
Overall, the 3-mile ocean swim had 73 finishers on Sunday morning.
3-MILE SWIM AGE-GROUP CHAMPIONS
Male 17-Under: Taylor Steffen, 1:03.13
Male 18-24: Joshua Keefe, 1:09.34
Male 25-34: Chris Braden, 1:00.09
Male 35-39: Matt Miller, 1:04.14
Male 40-44: Ed Smith, 1:07.37
Male 45-49: Chip Blankenhorn, 1:11.25
Male 50-54: Dave Kosmo, 1:19.32
Male 55-59: Chris Lincoln 1:10.22
Male 60-64: David Strybel, 1:24.50
Male 65-69: Tom Ettinger, 1:18.23
Female 17-Under: Paige Kieding, 1:27.39
Female 18-24: Olivia Smith, 1:04.12
Female 25-34: Adrienne Brown, 1:07.27
Female 35-39: Karen Schultz, 1:04.17
Female 40-44: Hilary McAvoy, 1:20:55
Female 45-49: Kate Martin, 1:47.18
Female 50-54: Mary-Pat Barry, 1:27.41
Female 55-59: Cathy Broad, 1:46.18
Female 60-64: Liz Boscacci, 1:27.30
— Noozhawk sports reporter Blake DeVine can be reached at bdevine@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports and @noozhawk. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.