Today was a banner day. Despite the lack of sleep last night (the neighbors had some friends over; not their fault, the night was cool so we had windows open), I woke at around 7:30 and hurried my ass down to the lake. The clinic was starting at 7:45. I knew I wouldn’t make that, but I did get there for the last 5 minutes or so before we got in the water.
The clinic was led by our local famous marathon swimmer, Chris Derks. If you don’t have time to click on that hyperlink on his name, I’ll sum it up. He was a multiple All-American in open water. He’s also got the course record for the Tampa Bay Marathon Swim (he’s done it multiple times), the fastest time in 2001 for an English Channel crossing (and the most efficient feeding evah! Watch the video at the link on his name.), MIMS, and many 25K wins. The guy is incredibly fast in the pool, too. I think he did something like 5500 yards this year in the one-hour postal.
For six bucks, you can’t beat it. He’s been mentoring me on my swims, and today I was lucky enough to have him escort me during a long leg of our practice race at the end of the in-water part of the clinic. So nice to not have to sight. He’s also offered to kayak for me for a nice long swim about two weeks prior to END-Wet. Nice guy, too.
Anyway, we had a nice triangular course set up with three “buoys.” I have quotation marks on there because the buoys would have made cheapskates happy. They were each made of two gallon-sized milk jugs painted hot pink, tied with yellow boating rope and weighed down, I think, by bricks. Unfortunately, the tide was coming in and knocked a buoy out of place, so we started with two-buoy loops. I don’t know, maybe 300m total per loop. Yes, dear reader(s), I know what you’re saying. “IronMike, what do you mean ‘maybe 300m’? What did Mr Garmin say?” Well, I made wonderful use of my 200-clams watch by leaving it in the car. (At least I brought it that far.) So all distances for the clinic are guesstimates.
We did a bunch of those small loops; I did three, then the third buoy was back in place, so we did a bunch of the triangular loops. I put that course at 500m. I did four of them before we were stopped. All of these courses were in pretty shallow water, which I think some of the other swimmers appreciated. But I would have preferred to go farther out to get beyond the forest. I would stand up and people would laugh because I’d have vines and seaweed all over my head and arms.
With just a littel bit of time left we reversed course on the triangle and races. I lined up behind the fast swimmers and took off. Not sure how fast I did the loop, but I managed to lead the second wave. Not hard when you have a kayak escort for two of the three legs! But I did really try and push it, take advantage of not having to sight to really put the head down and stroke through it. It felt great.
At least until I went out and swam by myself. Let me state first a couple of things. I did run to the car and get my GPS. I had to pay for the clinic since I arrived late, so good excuse. Also, the entire time we were swimming, the waves were beating us, coming in from the west. We really had to power through the waves at some point, and when you do that, you really use your shoulders and lower back. At least, that’s where I feel it. When I went out on my own, I really tried to take it easy, using my back and chest (bigger muscles better) more than my shoulders. But I was in pain when I got back. More so than I should have felt after only about 6.55KM.
But back to my swim. I was wary because there were a couple powerboats out there going N-S up and down the lake at high speed. I wanted them to see me. I would stop every 10 minutes or so just to make sure there wasn’t a boat coming right at me. Ended up a boat only came near me once, and near I define at 30-40 yards away. But he was going pretty fast.
I decided to repeat, as closely as I could, the route from last week. But this time, I knew which button to push for LAP. In the map below, I pushed lap at the two corners, then END at the finish. What I learned when I came home, was that the watch, apparently, also counts as a lap every time it beeps for AUTO-LAP. I find this interesting. When I finished this route, I took the watch out of my cap, and as I was walking in, I found the way to review what I’d just done. In the watch memory it listed only 3 laps, which made sense since I swam a triangle. I was looking forward to seeing that on the map, because in the watch, leg 1 and leg 2 were each 1.61KM, exactly! Somehow I had managed to do the exact same distance on those two legs. And I just looked at the watch. In history it now lists what I swam as 9 laps instead of the 3. And sure enough, some laps are exactly 500m, just like I set the AUTO-LAP to do, so there’s the answer.
That first leg out I was pretty much going straight into the waves. Of course, waves seem much bigger from eye-level in the water. They really weren’t that big, but they did slow me down. The tide was obviously coming in, because before I set off, my little beach where I put my sandals was almost covered by water and the tree in which I hang my drink and shirt was much closer to the water than normal! I put my sandals on a log for fear they’d float away. When I got back, the water was half-way up that log.
So, a little over 6.5KM today. Happy with that.