Sunnen Lake 2 Mile Open Water Swim "Race"

This was a race but, I had no intentions of actually racing it. The only thing I was interested in was getting in a long open water swim sans wetsuit and seeing how I felt after it.

The swim took place, last Sunday, about 90 minutes south of St. Louis at a YMCA Camp where the nurse used to be a camp counselor/lifeguard. We go down there, got registered and I decided to see how cold the water felt before the race. They said it was low to mid 70s and it felt pretty chilly.

Getting in for the start wasn't that bad but, I did notice the wind creating a pretty decent current against the direction of swimming. After floating around for a minute I was off and I was amazed at how soon I was all by myself. There weren't nearly as many people as a tri start so it was weird to not bump into anyone.

The swim course looked something like this:

The current was noticeable for the first and longest leg. Sometimes it feels like you fly by a buoy during a swim but I felt like I was barely moving around it. After the second buoy you'd think you'd still be swimming with the current but there was a cove and there was also a current into the cove. Lucky us. On the second loop things seemed to get worse. I felt like I was getting tossed around and had a ringing in my ear from the "waves" hitting it. This lake had some mini swells and I sort of felt like I was trying to time my breathing as if I were swimming in the ocean.

For some reason I had 58 minutes in my head but I knew that wasn't going to happen after I rounded the second buoy again. At this point I had no idea how slow I was going. I kept looking back while breathing just to make sure I was getting farther away from the last buoys. The last leg was somewhat of a struggle considering I was in a lake. Then after the last buoy it was 200-300 meters to shore. This part really proved how strong the current was. The "beach" was a 30 meter area between a tiny sailboat and a dock with a pontoon boat. I was sighting pretty far left of the sailboat and after 10 strokes I'd look again I I was headed straight for the pontoon. This went on for a few minutes until I noticed people standing on the boat pointing to my left. I kept thinking, "Yeah, yeah, I know. There's a current. I promise I don't swim this crooked."

I ended up not running into the boat and made it to shore in 1:14. I was a bit dizzy and it took about 5 minutes to recover. Not the time I was looking for but, in the results email the RD mentioned how bad things got after the first loop. So, I guess I did alright relative to the conditions. Then we showered and went to the lunch buffet at the lodge.

This turned out to be a good gauge on where my swimming stands. I definitely need to work on my longer swims. At least this went better than my first 2.4 mile swim. I had never swam more than 1600 meters and signed up for the swim. I made it through in something like 1:45 but was out of it for the rest of the day. Hopefully I can get in another continuous 2 mile OWS in about a month to see if things are any better.

I feel like freakin Goldielocks...

Last weeks ride was really fast, to the point where I could barely keep up on the way out and couldn't hang on with the headwinds on the way back.

This past weekend, the ride was painfully slow on the way out. I kept thinking we would pick up the pace at some point but we didn't. There is nothing wrong with training at a slower pace but, I would have preferred to go a bit faster. I got my wish on the way back when two other guys felt the same way. The ride back was at least 50% faster.

Luckily the Thursday night rides are just about the perfect pace.

Anyone else feel like they have trouble keeping a comfortable pace in group rides?

Also, as it was the last week of open water swims (sadly) they decided to have a mass start race. I ended up finishing 42nd in about 19:30. Not very happy with this time as it was a 1k race but whatever, I almost decided  to go back to bed after I took the puppy out that morning.

Speaking of puppies...

Loki, with his life jacket that will last about a month, on the kayak

He only had to fall in the water 3 times before he realized he isn't the second coming (can't walk on water) and had to stay in the boat. I never thought I'd buy a dog a life jacket before buying one for myself.