Open Water

In the six weeks since Bigfoot, I've managed to get in 13 swims, all in open water.  I forgot all about sets and drills and just swam, and swam, and swam, and swam. 

Lake Ripley has become by beach of choice, the water is clean(er), the swim area is huge (9-10 minute laps), and it's generally pretty quiet.  Lake Kegonsa scores much better in convenience, but the water isn't always so nice, and the swim area is much smaller (4-ish minute laps).  Swimming at Lake Ripley also gives me the added excuse to stop at Camrock Park to ride the trails.  I haven't broken anything there, yet.

Back to swimming....

On each of my outings I went in with the intent to swim non-stop, or if I did stop, to keep the feet off the bottom and recover like I might have to if say, I was in the middle of a deep(er) lake.  With very rare exception, I did pretty well.   The numbers:

10 hours, 27 minutes

An estimated 28,900 yards (16+ miles)

Most swims in the 40 minute range, several around an hour, and my longest yesterday morning at 75 minutes.  Which incidentally, has left me feeling like my right shoulder is about to fall off.

Enough swimming that I should be confident going into Pigman, and I am, as long as I can wear my wetsuit.  That's the downside, I haven't swam without my wetsuit in six weeks.  Not a big deal, until I get an email from the Pigman race director saying water temperatures are going to be near 78 degrees, and the call on wetsuits will be made on race day.

Frankly, it's almost left me sick to my stomach, my choices, should water temps be 78+.  Don't start, or wear it anyway.  It'll be a race day decision.  In the meantime, I'm hoping for cool weather and trying to figure out exactly how much ice I'd need to dump in the lake to bring the water temperature down a couple of degrees.  I'm an engineer, shouldn't be to difficult.