Happy Like I Had Good Sense

My Kayaker Risked Life and Limb to Get This Shot.  No, Really

One of the things that has been strongly recommended by people who, like, actually know what they're doing, is that I need to get in some open water practice.

Dear oh lord are they right.

I blew off a morning session in the pool today in favor of an open water swim (I spent about the same amount of time in the water, by the way!) after work.

It was amazingly good fun.

I had tried a swim on Saturday in this lake.  The air was cold and the wind was high enough that there were little whitecaps, even though the lake was really only about 4 miles by a half mile.   But Saturday was a little bit of a challenge.  I wasn't sure of what I wanted to do for training and was really only getting in the open water to see what it was like.

I had a great time, and I learned a few things for the next training session.

Today, I took close to an hour swim.    The day was much warmer (as was the water), and as you can see, the lake couldn't have been more calm without being an actual swimming pool.  The orange paddle is from the kayaker (my darling, supportive husband) who braved the unstable kayak to take a few pics.

I have learned something.

I cannot sight for crap.

Oh, I'm trying and trying and practicing and practicing, but the movement is still new enough I cannot get into that zen swimming groove that is so awesome.

And swimming in the lake was so much fun that I didn't really care.

I loved it.  There is something that is so much more... real about swimming in an open body of water rather than a pool.  I want to do it again tomorrow night.  I know I need to get open water practice for my Kingdom Swim (I'm doing the baby Son of a Swim) in a couple of weeks.

I'm so eager to do it again.  I know I don't sight well, and I need to practice.  I can't wait until I do it well enough that I can get in the zone swimming in the open water like I do in a pool.

As my grandmother would have put it, when I'm out there on the water, I'm happy like I had good sense.

"Surviving the Swim"

When I do searches on open water swimming, more times than not the advice seems to be geared towards triathletes who want to "survive the swim."

Which is cool. I want everyone to survive their swims.  And unfortunately, it doesn't always happen.

What gets to me about it isn't that it's recognized that yes, there are dangers inherent in open water swimming.  So there are, and it's important to be aware of them.

It's more that when you're dealing with triathlete advice, the advice is about getting through the damn swim so you can get to your bike. It's about the race.  It's about getting through this unpleasant thing you're not all that great at to get to the good stuff at which you're competent.

That's not where I'm coming from with swimming.  I genuinely, no kidding, swim because I am a total waterbaby, only run if chased, find that bike seats hurt my butt, and in general find most land based exercise (barring dance, martial arts and weight lifting) considerably less interesting than knitting or reading.

I love the water.  I love being in the water.  I love the challenge of seeing if I can cope with cold water.  I am excited about the challenge of dealing with unpredictable weather conditions, and learning new swimming skills.

Survive it?

Well, yes, that's the plan. But I do it to glory in it. Because it's fun.

It seems that except for a very small group of marathon swimmers (and even they are far more competitive than I ever intend to get!) open water swimming is becoming one third of a triathlon event rather than an activity in its own right.  I say activity rather than sport.  I do it to do it, not to compete at it.

It's not that I have anything against triathlons.  Totally don't.  Don't have anything against other people being into hang gliding or mountain climbing, either. It's just not my bag.

But, as with anything else, I find myself really on the periphery.  I'm a swimmer who loves to swim and is only trying to be better than one person.

Me.  Yesterday.

Need More Open Water Practice

Outdoor Temp: 67F
Estimated water temp: 57F  (according to http://www.fishingnotes.com/fishing-report/nh/Mascoma-Lake.  I don't think it was that cold as I wasn't really uncomfortable)
Wind speed: 10MPH
Distance:  Not sure.  I was swimming in East Nowhere, New England and GPS is spotty enough it kept blinking out.  Between 400-550 yards.  Not very far at all, but at least 100 yards further than this map shows.
Time: 22 minutes.

Because it was cooler and windy, I almost blew off the open water swim today. I didn't blow it off for two reasons: My kayaker tried to remember when he'd last been in a kayak and it had been a few years.  The other reason was that I wanted to see how I'd do in less than beautiful conditions, since there's no guarantee the conditions for the swim I'm doing in a couple of weeks are going to be any better.

You can't swim from the boat launch and you can't put a kayak in from the swimming area, so my kayaker (my husband) put in and kayaked under the bridge to meet me at the swimming area.

The swimming area has lifeguards and I asked if there were any rules against swimming past the buoys, and explained I'd have an escort kayak with me.

He said he wouldn't get in trouble if I did swim out, but that he couldn't be responsible for me past the buoys.   Fair enough.  I just didn't want to get the kid in trouble.

So, I swam out to meet my husband and see if we could get a rhythm going.

What I learned from this swim:

1.  57 F is chilly, but not really all that uncomfortable to swim in.  It's about 45 minutes after the swim, and I'm in a cotton robe.   My exterior skin is still cool and it was tingly warming up, but inside I'm perfectly warm and comfortable.
2. I need to get a feel for how far I've been swimming so I can get an appropriate open water pace going. Thinking in terms of pool lengths isn't going to cut it.
3.  My sighting skills, while not great, aren't as abysmally bad as I feared.  Practice, yes, but the way you do it makes sense to me.
4. Swimming into wind and chop is hard.  I need more practice doing that so that I can be comfortable.
5.  My kayaker is good swim support, and I need to stop checking in with him to make sure HE is okay! (I see myself as the water baby, and I know my husband isn't entirely, so I have this mental switch where when we're in the water, I need to be looking out for him.  I can't do this and focus on the swim.  Besides, it's his job to look after me if he's kayak support and I'm swimming, and he does it just fine)

It all boils down to the fact I simply need more open water practice. I think I'm going to be doing some more sessions after work in the evenings over the next couple of weeks.

Fast bathing suits and other rambling muses

When my mother was a little girl, getting new tennis shoes for the new school year was something of an event.  She and her brother and sisters, upon getting the new shoes home, would lace them up and then have races to test how "fast" those new shoes were.  Fast tennis shoes were a big and important thing in 1950s Richmond, VA, apparently.

I gave that a lot of thought in the pool today.  You see, I bought some new bathing suits.  My old one (yes, just one, and yes, I know that's a way to have your suits wear out really fast if you swim every day) had worn out badly, was sagging and was even getting to the point where it had a bit of a gap at the chest. (I am a full-figured gal, after all).

My swim speed has also been slowing down discouragingly in the past couple of months.

Well, today, I wore one of my new suits.  (Speedo ultraback -- believe you me, nuttin' fancy).

You know how tennis shoes can be fast?

So can bathing suits.   My hand to God, I made some personal records for freestyle today.  Not that this is impressive to anyone but me.  I'm pretty damn slow.

Even so, it was kinda surprising.  Yes, I know drag makes a difference, and the new suits were the way I like 'em -- slightly tight.  I like some compression in my torso for a bathing suit.

Possibly it was enough to reduce some drag.  I suspect also that feeling better after a serious cold that kept me out of the water for a bit had something more to do with it.

I cannot help but grin, though, and chalk it up to my new "fast" bathing suit.

Bathing suits still are a bit of a grumble factor for me, though.  I just bought three and spent over two hundred dollars for the damn things.  The last time I spent that much in a go for clothing, it was for fabric for a whole summer wardrobe!  I spend more on bathing suits than I do on any other single item of clothing I own.  I'd make 'em myself, but when I am honest with myself, I don't have the equipment nor the skill to make a good one that would stand up to what I do in the water -- never mind where in the world I'd find the right fabrics!

I am still considering a small modification to one of the ones I just bought, though.  It's navy blue.

When I was a little girl, I had this bathing suit I LOVED, I mean LOOOVVVEEED.  It was navy blue and had an goldfish appliqued on the front.  I just loved my fishie bathing suit so much and was furious when I got older and outgrew it.

I am so tempted to get some orange fabric an thread so I can sew a goldfish onto my navy bathing suit.

I could wear it when I do the Son of a Swim two-miler I have coming up in a few weeks.  Though I suspect that love my new fast bathing suits as I do, and how happy the orange fishie would make me, the time is simply much better spent getting my groove on for some open water work.  I still haven't spent much time in any open water training and I'm starting to get nervous about it.  I mean, I know I can swim two miles, no problem.  But there's no real substitute for getting out where there is no chlorine and lanes and learning the techniques you can't learn in a pool.

I'll be headed out to a local lake this weekend to try.   Need to pick up a kayak paddle for my husband, too, so that he can paddle along beside me and we can get some practice in as a kayak/swimmer team.   Even though it's only a short swim by marathon swimmer standards, I'd like to get some practice in with passing me a water bottle, too.  I've read about some people who use a water-bottle and retractable dog leash combination for that sort of thing, and I think it would be a good idea.   Still, want to practice.

One of our local ponds has Open Water Wednesday events in July and August where you can swim a mile of a marked course to practice your own water skills.  That comes too late for my first swimming event of the year, but I figure I'll still do it, as it'll be great for my Sharkfest swim this fall in Boston.

It's Just Wednesday

In doing the fifty mile challenge for my gym, I’m cranking up the volume on my workouts so that I don’t get behind this month.  I’m going to be training while on travel, but it won’t count for the purposes of the gym challenge.  So, to stay on track for that, I need to get in about 12.5 miles this month at my gym.

That’s not really an issue.  I have about 13 training sessions to do it, and volume will be good for my swim at the end of June.

Back last fall, I was swimming between 1000 and 1500 yards a session usually close to 1000.  I didn’t challenge myself to swim 2000 yards until quite late in November.  The intent, barring weather and car troubles, is to swim every weekday morning with the occasional weekend challenge thrown in.

So, 2000 yards was a challenge that I saved for the occasional weekend swim.

Now?

It’s just Wednesday.

My challenges are over twice that.  It’s also still a laughably short distance for the stuff I’m aspiring to.  But that’s okay.  It’s consistent progress and fortunately distance swimming is not a sport only for the young.

Spring Scream

Okay, I finally got in open water today.

I was visiting a friend who is letting us have an old kayak, and was talking about conditioning myself to swimming in cold water, and mentioned that I was planning to do a cold water swim this weekend.  A short one, obviously.  I might be crazy, but I don't want to hurt myself.

She lives on a small river and we are of a size.  She asked me if I wanted to borrow a bathing suit and we'd go for what she calls a Spring Scream.  (You jump in cold water and you scream)

My best estimate, from checking on fishing reports of local lakes and taking into account that a shallow, but flowing river is probably a little cooler, is that the temperature was about about 50F (10C), give or take a degree.

The day was unseasonably warm for Vermont, and there was little wind, so I agreed to go for it.  I got in three times, swimming a few yards (breaststroke) each time and getting out -- just to acclimate myself and test how I could handle it.

Was it cold?

My word yes!

What it wasn't was miserable.  I'd been turning the showers to cold occasionally and sticking my hands in cold water all winter trying to brace myself.   Instead of acclimating myself, I think I was psyching myself out for it to be awful.

It wasn't awful.  It was exhilarating!  

It was also comforting.   My open water swim is in a month and the lake is going to be a lot warmer than the water I was in today.  I freely admit I'd been scared of how cold it might be.

Now?

Not so much.  I was worried it was going to be awful rather than exciting.

It's exciting.

50 Mile Club

Like many gyms with pools, my gym has this little challenge they put out every year where you try to swim a certain distance over a period of time.

Ours is the 50 Mile Club.  From May 1 to August 31, you log the yardage you swim and try to log at fifty miles over that time.  The head of the aquatics program is the lifeguard on Monday mornings.  She came up to me with a card already filled out, presuming I'd be doing it.

Yes, I will.  Probably will even complete it for the first time.  The times I've done it in the past I've run out of steam. But I have an event in September I need to keep training for.

In reality the challenge is about 12.5 miles a month, so it's not really all that outrageous if you're training for something. Even in a crap month, I've been doing that, so yeah, I'll be making it this year. They do count 2000 yards as a mile, so the real challenge is more like 56 miles all told. But who's counting?

Yeah, you guessed it.  Me.

This is really gotten me thinking about bumping up my pool yardage for my training sessions, because no open water swims or swims I do that are not in my gym count.  I'm going to be away for a fair whack of May, and while I'll be swimming, it won't be in my usual pool.   Weekends, I'm going to be in the open water, getting used to colder water, learning sighting, training with my husband who will be my kayaker for a swim I am doing in June and getting a feel for lake swimming.  I figure a few sessions out on a lake will give us a good idea of how we work together, 

For all that I will be doing the 50 Mile Club thing, what I am really itching to do is finally get out in the open water and see what more I need to learn and train for.  I feel like I've done 'most everything I reasonably can in a pool, other than keep up my form and fitness.