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...




She was the smart one, I'm thinkin...

The group floating around, getting used to the water. BRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Going in for our first loop! Can you find me? I'm the one in the wetsuit...

Rainy Saturday Run

This past saturday we were supposed to have another brick, however due to rainy/grey weather, our coaches decided that the better option would be just to have a run - and get soaking wet in the process. I think my shoes are STILL drying out...

But we had this nice little 1.2 mile loop that we were running so it ended up being kinda fun to run in the rain... reminded me of being a kid. Except there wasn't torrential downpour and it wasn't lightning and thundering outside. And there wasn't a clown in a sewer, saying, "Down here everything floats... and when you're down here, YOU'LL FLOAT TOO!" (on a side note, I do believe I was eternally scarred by watching Stephen King's IT on national television as an innocent 8 year old. Ask my parents - I was scared to get into the shower for months! Secretly, I still check the drain every time I'm in the shower - especially after closing my eyes for a second to wash shampoo out of my hair. Although, with the rate at which my tub drains currently, I'm not sure Pennywise would be able to come up for anything but air, much less to kill innocent old me. And I think I could take him anyway - I mean, Tim Curry in a clown costume isn't exactly scary... wait. Who am I kidding? That would be terrifying!)

But I've included a picture of our team (this is about 1/2 of the Westside Tri team - everyone else was at home asleep and DRY) after the run on Saturday. Can you see me? If you can't, its because my face is cut in half sort of - the picture is actually a splice of two pictures and guess where the splice is... right through my head. I'm not sure if thats a sign of things to come or what... I'm thinking its not an omen though... (prays)

:-)

Point Dume

This is where I ran up to a couple weeks ago... Point DUME! Cool, huh? (Thats Zuma beach-ish to the left there...)

I Know You're Anxious

To find out my workout over the weekend, so...

Saturday:
Transition Clinic (we went over swim-bike and bike-run transitions)
30 minute bike ride - 10 miles
30 minute run - 3 miles (my legs felt like lead weights for about the first 15 minutes...)

Sunday:
40 minute run - 4 miles

Whoo hoo! My legs hurt...

Zuma Beach... Again... Take Two... Part Deux

So bright and early tomorrow morning I will be robbed of my glorious slumber to venture up (again) to Zuma Beach, that nice little patch of land 60 minutes/30 miles away from my apartment. There is definitely something to be said for the dedication and sacrifice that endurance atheletes (and their chauffers/significant others/people they meet on the street) must give in order to be successful to their trade. I remember when I was a kid my mom carting me all over the greater metroplex of Oklahoma City to take me to swim practice. The WORST were those early morning long distance swim practices (long distance being in reference to the length of the pool, not the distance of the drive to the pool - summer=long distance=50meter pools; winter=short course=25yard pools) in the sub-zero temperatures of pools in Oklahoma in early June - I shiver just thinking about them. Brr... But she would come and gently coax me out of sleep before the crack of dawn (not even kidding) and cart my sleepy ass off to the pool. And then she would wait. I have to give it to her - I would definitely have had thoughts of leaving and never coming back if I were her... although in hindsight, I do remember waiting an extra long time after swim practice on occasion...

So tomorrow we are doing a transition clinic, followed by a coached brick (bike/run). The transition clinic should be especially interesting - the transitions, called T1 and T2 accordingly, are the periods when you change from T1.) swim to bike; and T2.) bike to run. For serious triathloners, its clutch - you can pick up a lot of time here depending on how efficient you are at changing from one to the next.


So we'll do that, then we'll have the coached bike/run, and then... I sleep. Maybe.
http://pages.teamintraining.org/los/lavatri09/ccarrington

Zuma Beach Run

Saturday was our first run at Zuma Beach... dreadful because its 30 miles away from my apartment and takes me an hour to get there in the morning, but amazing because its right on the coastline and I get to exercise right along the ocean. I KNEW there was some reason I decided to live in SoCal!

There's this really cool point there, called Point Dume, that gives basically a 360 degree panoramic view of the california coast line. Its the point at which the coast turns north, so it creates a great big bay by Santa Monica:


And thats a picture of me fininshing my six-mile run. Go Pokes!

If you'd like, donate here: http://pages.teamintraining.org/los/lavatri09/ccarrington

BRICK

This morning I did my first solo "brick" workout for my triathlon. This workout involves doing a bike ride followed with a run. It is called a "brick" because that is what your legs feel like as you start your run immediately following a long bike ride (and not, as I was exhaustively trying to figure out, a splice between "bike" and "run," as no such combination of the words bike and run form the aggregate "Brick"). My knees are still trying to recover from my hour run yesterday am, but my muscles and knees fared surprisingly well today. I now have more respect for cyclists riding in the bike lane on the beach boardwalk - I'm surprised I never hit anyone as people are completely retarded and will just cross the lane without looking, or will be walking against the flow of traffic.

So today, I rode from Will Rogers Beach to Playa del Rey and back, a nice 80 minute bike ride, roughly about 18 miles or so round trip. Whoo hoo! The ride was really nice because it was along the beach so I just got to take in the beautiful scenery of the santa monica mountains to the north, the ocean to the west, and the various boardwalks and beach front restaurants and eateries that Ocean has to offer - including Venice where all the freaks hang out. :-) After that I had a short run, only 10 minutes, and then I was done! And now for recovery...