Lake Garfield

Met up with the folks from massachusetts for a wednesday swim. The thermometers disagreed about the temp. One said 62 the other said 66. We swam just about a mile. I'm not very well calibrated on temperature but I think it  was less than 66. Anyway I had to bundle when I got out.

My Great, or at least Pretty good, Chesapeake Bay Bridge swim

Once, in college, I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. The scariest part of skydiving, for me, was not hesitating at the airplane door at 12,000 feet counting to three (actually 2 a little trick of the instructor's) The scariest part was looking out the window at about 6,000 feet and thinking that was already pretty high. Standing on the beach at Sandy point State park waiting for the start was fine. But riding the shuttle bus over the bridge actually got me pretty nervous.

Rule number one: Do not let the bridge psych you out.
At Sandy point park we had real bathrooms instead of just porta-potties. I had plenty of time to grease up and get ready. The race director said the water temperature was 76 degrees. Nearly everyone was wearing a wetsuit. To be fair I think it was a little colder out in the middle. In this case a little colder might have been 72. I don't think of myself as an anti-wetsuit guy. So far I've done all my swims without, but some people don't and that's ok. But at 76 degrees I'm amazed that some 85% of the swimmers are still wrapped in neoprene on a fine sunday morning.
The course stays between the two spans  of the bridge for nearly the whole distance. The tide pushes you first to the left and then to the right. This mostly wasn't a problem. Post race emails indicate that the current was very strong. I didn't really notice while I was swimming but It might have had an effect on my swim time.
The tide may have been pushing me around without me really thinking about it. I started following more or less the left span of the bridge, moved out into the middle around the halfway point, and then found myself over towards the right for the last mile and a little more.
I had heard terrible things about the cuisinart start. This is the largest open water swim on the east coast and we start in two waves of around 300 people. It really wasn't that bad. It was very crowded and took a long time to open up but the other swimmers were very polite about all that contact. I have already been to a few races where much smaller groups resulted in worse starting conditions. 

Chesapeake Bay Bridge Swim

Who: The Great Chesapeake Bay Swim run by Lin-Mark sports
What: The Chesapeake Bay Swim
When: Sunday, June 9, 2013
Where: The Chesapeake Bay right under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
Why: Because the open water season is finally open

The Great Hudson River Bummer

Who: NYCSwim
What: The Great Hudson River Swim
When: Saturday May 25 2013
Where: Christopher street pier New York, NY
Why: In this case the question is why not?

I took the train down  into the city friday night. I was looking forward to my first event with NYCswim. At 8pm I got a message saying that the swim was still on . But at a quarter to 11 I got the notice that the swim was being cancelled due to weather.
Saturday morning was cold and very very windy. So I can't really question the decision to cancel. But I'm disappointed. I will have to try again for a different event with NYCswim.

That magic number

I think I've mentioned my magic numbers before. So far this has been true. If I can swim 17 or 18 100's on a given interval then I can knock 5 seconds off the interval and swim about 5 100's on the faster interval. I've done this several times already. A year ago I was working on 1:40 two years ago I was on 1:50. When I started swimming on a 1:30 interval I thought I had finally hit my limit. After all there has to be some point where I won't get any faster. I'm not in danger of setting any world records here. But it looks like I'm going to be able to do it one more time. next week or the week after (if I wuss out) I'm going to have try a 1:25 interval. I should be able to do about 5 of them. (probably)

Those long pool swims again

Today I did my first long pool swim of the year. My beginning of my second ever open swimming season is just a few weeks away and I need to be sure I am ready to go. I count anything over 2 hours or 4 miles as a long swim so this one just barely qualifies. I was right in line with my very fastest long swims from last winter and spring.
I figure this means my regular pool sessions have done what they are supposed to do.

More butterfly

My wednesday swim starts with a set of butterfly. It still kicks my butt. I think it takes about 30 minutes off of what my workout needs to be, though. After my butterfly set a set of freestyle feels much easier. As in easier than the butterfly I was just swimming. It also feels much harder. As in a 1:55 interval on wednesday feel nearly as hard as 1:30 on monday