I can't believe I'm contemplating this. But in order to reach my big, hairy goal in the sky in a few years (the type of goal that makes your palms sweat just thinking about it), I'll need to learn to swim in the ocean. Which I'm not too keen on. All of the tris I've chosen have had lake and river swims. No ocean. It's not the sharks that I'm worried about. It's how I'll react to the waves. Heck, I take Dramamine for every OW swim I do. I can feel waves on Tempe Town Lake. So how the heck am I to survive swells of several feet? Everyone talks about loving clear water. I hate it. AZ lakes are great because they are cloudy and you can't see anything. The less visual input my brain has of where it's at in the water, the better. If I can see the bottom, that's a bad thing. Then I can see how I'm moving in all directions in the water and it's too much and then the bad nausea sets in. So if I see the bottom, I shut my eyes for the part of my stroke where my face is in the water. It kinda messes up the sighting though.
I've been looking at the La Jolla Rough Water swim. There's a video here. As a member of US Master's swimming, I can be in the women's masters wave. I would definitely be doing the 1 mile swim. If they allowed adults to do the 250 yard kiddie swim, I would do that instead. All I want to do is survive the swim and see if I can swim in the ocean. Funny, this race is the one I'm most nervous about. Ironman was cake compared to this! Oh, and NO WETSUITS are allowed in the 60-some degree water. Wonderful.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I did the 3-mile course last year (after learning to swim only a few months prior) in 1h50mins...Based on your swim times for the IM, you would do fine on either the 1-mile or 3-mile. It was the crown jewel of my racing last year, my biggest hurdle that I had to overcome (although I finished too late to be an actual finisher).
Post a Comment