Saturday, July 21, 2012

Open Water Swim, really.

Today I swam in Oyster Bay. The significance of that statement will become obvious once the following points are understood:
  • The last time I wore my wet suit was last November. In Florida. Racing IMFL.
  • I haven't been swimming much at all.
  • I have no excuses as to why I haven't been swimming. It is even worse when you realize I have an endless pool. In. My. House.
  • My friend, Mindyruns, sent an email out yesterday asking if anyone was swimming open water this morning. I responded that I would be interested in joining her if she found something. She found a group that was swimming part of the TOBAY sprint tri course. She said to bring a bike since they were going to casually ride the bike course after. Some might even do the run too. (I had no dreams of being in that "some").
  • I woke up early and stayed in bed figuring out how to wimp out.
  • Since I couldn't find any reason (said tri is coming up soon and I'm registered) I started looking for all my swimming stuff.
  • My stuff was where I expected it to be. Victory or another reason to not swim avoided?
  • Put the bike in the car too and headed to the meeting place. Got there and there were about 20 people.
  • The bay was relatively calm.
  • Put on my wet suit. Even though I'm fat I'm not so fat that my wet suit didn't fit. Another victory.
  • Jumped in the water. Realized salt water still tastes the same. my goal was to swim slow to make sure I didn't have breathing issues - the weather was just about perfect with air temps in the 60s and water temps in the mid 70s.
  • I started in the back. After what seemed a long while, my arms were getting tired. This long while was a whole 5 minutes per my watch.
  • Swam a little more to a sign that said 5 mph speed limit. Turned around and headed back. I had no issue making sure I was not swimming faster than 5 mph.
  • Got out and deemed it a success swimming a monstrous 20 minutes.
  • Got on my bike and rode most of the course.
There were no breathing issues so I guess I can swim more. I celebrated by taking a nap when I got home.

PS: Later Mindyruns emailed me that she found out that the beach was officially closed due to high bacteria levels. Oh well, this could have been a real excuse but I blew it.


9 comments:

Pahla said...

I am so jealous of your endless pool that I'm not sure if I have anything else to say. Oh, no, yes I do: Good job!! Seriously, you did it and that's awesome. Plus now you can consider yourself completely trained for your tri.

Kate Geisen said...

Way to get out there. Thank goodness for other people to train with...some times they're the only thing that gets me out of bed.

Unknown said...

Way to go!!

Unknown said...

Good to hear your breathing issues are improving! Oh, and +1 about that pool...

Shelly said...

Yes, there have been days when I wished it was raining so I wouldn't have to get out of bed. And twenty minutes in open water seems like an eternity to me!

Ransick said...

Nice job getting out there! There are a million reasons not to get out there and only a couple reasons to do it. Nice job not using an excuse.

Carolina John said...

Any time in the open water on a hot day is good time spent. I swam for almost an hour as well on saturday.

Unknown said...

Nice job getting out there. Bacteria just strengthens your immune system, right?

Unknown said...

A few victories, but it is scary about the bacteria.