This morning’s Big Shoulders 5K open water swim in Lake Michigan was canceled due to rough surf and heavy winds which would have put swimmers in peril throughout the race. Those who had signed up for the race tell Swimming World that officials had hoped the weather would only postpone the start of the race, but winds never subsided, and the event was called off.<\/p>\n
Heavy winds and rain in Chicago meant visibility was low beyond the shore, and a few expert swimmers who were standing on the shore this morning told Swimming World that they would not have braved the waters if the race had taken place. Waves were so high that they were crashing over the seawall at Navy Pier.<\/p>\n
The event could not be moved to Sunday because the Chicago Bears football team is scheduled for that day at nearby Soldier Field, and sources tell Swimming World that having an open water race about a mile from the football stadium was not feasible on game day.<\/p>\n
The event was also to be recognized as the official 5K U.S. Masters Swimming national championship race. USMS Executive Director Rob Butcher<\/strong> said the USMS open water championship committee decided to not have a 5K national championship for 2015 in light of today’s cancellation.<\/p>\n The Big Shoulders event, now in its 24th year, had an estimated 1,200 entries for the 2.5K and 5K races this year. It’s regarded as one of the top open water races in the United States, held every Saturday after Labor Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This morning’s Big Shoulders 5K open water swim in Lake Michigan was canceled due to rough surf and heavy winds which would have put swimmers in peril throughout the race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":153401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,9,11],"tags":[54412,54410,54411,5549,142],"class_list":["post-153392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-masters","category-open-water","tag-big-shoulders","tag-lake-michigan","tag-navy-pier","tag-rob-butcher","tag-swimming"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n