Sunday, October 18, 2009

Lake Pleasant Open Water Swim

Yesterday I did my first 4000 meter swim of the year. I haven't done any swim approaching this length in open water or the pool for eighteen months. There's a reason for that. I am slow. It takes me about two hours to do a swim of this length. It is tedious in a pool. Unless I am training for a ironman I have no motivation to swim this long. In open water unless you are trained for it, swimming this long can be an ordeal, because there is no faking an effort of this magnitude. Shorter swims you can get away with being undertrained, but if you are not comfortable in open water or if you lack good swim technique, getting tired in a long swim the middle of a body of water can be terrifying.

Last year I did a 2.4 mile swim, which is 200 yards shorter than 4000 meter, before Ironman Arizona and I hated every minute of it. I got tired, cold and it was pychologically totally uncomfortable for me. It was beneficial, however, because when it came time to do the ironman swim I was much more confident I could do it.

The swim this year, I was nervous, but once I started I felt in control. I kept up a steady effort and I didn't get the desperate tiredness that I did in the swims last year. The first two 1000 meter loops I did in about 30:30". At this point the swim was still enjoyable. The water was smooth and clearer than what I usually swim in. I could not only see my hands, but swimmers passing by me as well.

In the third loop, the wind was picking up. I saw a pack of swimmers bypassing the turn buoy. I thought to myself I guess I will be a dork and actually not cheat. The lake was getting choppy and I thought it was because of all of the cheating swimmers passing me, but it was like that in the fourth loop when everyone had finished and I was swimming mostly by myself. By this time, the swimming was just becoming a lot of work. I finished this loop in 33". I tried not to think about being the only swimmer out there when everyone else was finishing.

The fourth loop there were swells and chop. Who would have thought there would be swells in a lake cove? I was really tired of swimming by now, so I picked up my pace so I could get the swim over with. There were a few shadows darting by me, but not many. Finally I could see the end. You were supposed to swim up a small lane, but by now my brain was befuddled and I just went over the rope. It took me a minute to try to stand up because the bottom was rocky and my legs wouldn't work. This loop took 27". Total time 2:02". This is an improvement on my ironman swim time, because subtracting the time for the extra 200 yards, it would be a sub-two hour swim.

I thought I was last, but amazingly there were two people behind me. I get frustrated with swimming in general because I put a lot of time into improving technique, endurance and speed and I'm still slow. More efficiently slow, but still slow. People are by nature competitve and when you are always on the bottom you take it personally. I guess if I wasn't slow I wouldn't have as much motivation to improve. I have to be happy with cutting minutes off my time and no longer having the heebee jeebeeies everytime I am swimming in open water.

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