The Urban Traveller: 1st Ocean Swim

Hi everyone! Sorry for the hiatus on the posts - I'm sure you are as eager to catch up with my training as I am to catch you up so lets jump right into the thick of it... :-)

So today was our 1st open water swim. Let me clarify a couple of things first:
1.) Yes, the water was 60 degrees or colder. Perhaps the coldest water I've ever swam in
2.) Yes, I had a wetsuit on (as evidenced by the pictures...)
3.) Yes it is true that when it rains, like it did last night, all of the pollution and other crap that is on our lovely streets and sidewalks in los angeles eventually gets to the ocean. I won't go into much detail here, but suffice it to say, the water wasn't exactly, um, clear...

We began by donning our new wetsuits. These little bastards are ridiculously hard to put on, especially for a 1st (I think I wore a wetsuit when I went scuba diving in Cozumel in high school...) timer. But it fits snugly in all the right (and woefully wrong) places, and kept me surprisingly warm (and dry, actually) in the frigid temperatures of the Pacific. The outside air temperature wasn't much warmer than the water temperature (if at all), so the only saving grace from being ridiculously cold was being able to dry off immediately after getting out of the water. (oh, and I couldn't help but wear my Go Pokes Orange - I wear it every chance I get...)

After we were all buttoned up in our nifty wetsuits, we walked from our meeting location down to the ocean, where Coaches proceeded to explain to us that we were going to go out for a bit and just sit in the water to get acclimated... (What? What are you talking about acclimation? I don't want to just go out there and sit for five minutes! I need to MOVE! Create some heat up in here!) I grudgingly obliged, and what followed was 5 minutes of intense non-adaptation to the freezing cold water (I have much more respect for fish than I ever did before...). Walking in was probably the worst of it - think needles going at my exposed feet and hands at a million miles per hour. Boo to cold water. At least with a cold swimming pool you can just jump in and get it over with - not so much here. You have to actually put yourself willingly through misery in order for it to get better.

But then we got out after a couple of minutes of floating around like buoys - the wetsuits are like full-body life vests. We walked back up to shore, and then Coaches explained the loop we would make. We were to swim from the shore out to the first buoy (about 100 yards or so away), make a right hand turn and swim from that buoy to the 2nd buoy (another 50 or so yards), and make another right, and turn back to the shore. Whole loop took maybe 3 or 4 minutes max. It was definitely more about getting acquainted with swimming in the open water where there isn't a line to follow at the bottom of the pool. IT was actually surprisingly difficult. I found myself zig-zagging a little bit and constantly having to "sight" my target to stay on track. I got in 5 loops (the most of the group, I think) and then we were done with the swim.

Next was a nice 30 minute run. I've developed a weird fondness of running. Lets hope it stays. A little bit over three miles I think is what we ran this am after swimming for 30 minutes with all the blood in the head. Definitely a new feeling!

I'm getting super pumped about my race. I've decided that I'm going to compete in the Desert Triathlon on the 1st weekend in March. This will be a good warm-up race to my actual Lavaman race, which is in late March, because its a shorter distance and will give me some experience on what I can and should expect on race day.

If you'd like to donate to my triathlon, please go to:
http://pages.teamintraining.org/los/lavatri09/ccarrington
I'm currently at $2,750 so I'm right at half way. Help me get there!!! :-)

Enjoy the pics! I think there are some good ones! And if it looks cold, it is...