The guy who usually runs our noon workouts is finally back in full effect this week. He’s been off to coach places and ASCA and all that stuff, but now we’ve got his full attention again. Since this is kind of the start of his “season” we’re dialing the yardage back a bit and focusing on technique… not exactly where I was planning on being right now but I’ll take technique days where ever I can because my stroke is definitely not perfect!

I think we had about 6 swimmers today and we put in about 2000 yards. Most of it in small pieces and some of it with fins on. There was a lot of different versions of one armed swimming drills and stroke counting going on. On the 100′s stroke count I swam 13,13,12,13 each time so I guess I’m pretty reasonably consistent. At one point in there we did 10 x 37.5 dolphin kick which I thought was kind of fun. I’ve always liked doing 25′s from mid pool to work on turns so this was kind of up my alley.

Although we didn’t go far today I feel like I got a pretty decent workout. I’m a very uncomfortable driller so when we drill I try to slow way down and do it right. It’s hard for me to do things differently from how I want to do them and I really need to think about how to isolate a movement or stop myself from doing something I’m not supposed to. It sounds like Thursday’s workout is going to be more of the same and then as the weeks go on we’ll pile more yardage on top of this thing again.

Chilling (in multiple meanings of the word) out at the end of the pier

Today was round 2 out at Avila. We had essentially the same conditions as yesterday, there just weren’t as many birds or seals patrolling the water today. We ended up with 8 swimmers total and one of the guy’s kids on a paddle board following us around. A lot of the faces today were new to me but not to the group. They had been regulars back in the day but hadn’t been around in quite some time. I think there was an impending Alcatraz swim coming that had gotten them out and into the ocean.

marching into the ocean

Getting in the water today was just as hard as it was yesterday but at least I had more company in the non-wetsuit department! I think we were half the group today! That’s pretty major for our Avila Beach swims. The front end of our plan was to swim out to the right hand side of the buoy line and then swim way down towards the point and eventually swim to the top of the pier. From there it was negotiable.

On the way out to the point I kept running into free floating chunks of kelp. I swam through one section that was all kelp bulbs and it felt like I was swimming through slimy Christmas ornaments… a very odd sensation for sure. Since there was a big spread in speeds today I spent a lot of time just waiting and treading water. Luckily I was doing pretty well with the water temps after I managed to get adjusted. Once we swam to the pier I probably spent at least 5+ minutes just chilling (literally) off the tip. I could feel the cold in my fingers and toes, but as long as I kept them moving I was ok. During this period is where the group split up. 4 swimmers continued on down to the last buoy on the other side of the pier and then back in. 1 swimmer went straight in along the pier. And 3 of us swam way out to the Poly pier and then back to the buoy line and in.

negotiating the rest of today's route

Duke, Niel and myself set a course for one of the big cross braces on the Poly pier and got to work getting there, it’s a pretty decently long stretch. I tried to just hang on to Duke today on the way there but he was pretty quick today. Instead I just navigated off of his bright orange cap. Once we got to the pier I think he was the one to mention that he hadn’t seen any seals yet today, and right on cue we heard a big wet “pfffffffft” behind us. The seals were out, they just didn’t feel like making themselves known until we were at the furthest possible point from the beach! Jerks :)

Duke and Niel out at the Poly Pier

I was feeling pretty good temperature wise at this point but Duke was getting pretty chilly and wanted to split right quick. Normally we would stop and regroup once we hit the buoy line and the pier but he just kept going to keep his insides warm. Me and Niel were fine with this since all 3 of us are Avila regulars and knew where we were going. Plus we all hold pretty similar paces in the ocean and the regroupings would have really been just a formality anyways.

Once back on the beach we were set up for our regular post holiday swim pot luck action. We hung out and ate and talked about swimmer stuff… water temps, sea life encounters, events past and future, and whatever else anyone had on their minds. During this time is also when a couple thousand birds decided to swirl back into a big ball off the left hand side of the pier. Luckily they showed up after our swim this time! The fact that they keep showing up makes me a little uncomfortable though… how many little fish are there out there to eat right now?

After hanging out on the beach for a while I made my way down to Port San Luis to meet up with a friend for a quick Stand Up Paddleboarding excursion. We rented some boards from SLO Coast Kayaks (“hey aren’t you that guy from yesterday?”) and after some brief instruction they pushed us off into the water to go do our thing. Although I’m not actually good at it I had the advantage of doing this once before and tried to keep things real slow while my friend got her bearings on the board. We ended up cruising through the parked boats and out towards the Poly Pier. The sun never broke all the way out but it was still pretty nice on the water. There was a bit more wind than I would have liked though which made paddling a little harder in some spots. Like yesterday we had plenty of seals and pelicans diving and popping up all over the place. At one point I had like 30 seals aimed right for me jumping and diving over the tops of each other and then like 20m from my board the all just disappeared underwater. I really wonder where those guys go when they dive and never come back up.

each black dot is a seal head and they were all pointed straight at me!

Although I had a few “balance challenged” moments today I never took a tumble… probably because I already knew how cold the water was! But I did take a knee a couple times to reboot my balance-o-meter because I almost took a swim a few times :) As we made our way back to the rental shop I tried to paddle a little more aggressively just to see if I could build up any real speed. I think I did pretty well… I got some really solid pulls and cruised along quite nicely. Next time I go out on one of these I’ll have to really attack it and see what happens.

me in the heighth of paddling fashion... rash guard, pink kangol cap, adventure beard, and $5 girl's sunglasses

After our SUP excursion we went back down to the touristy part of Avila and got some smoothies and stood in the ocean drinking them. Our feet and calves were pretty tight from holding our balance on the boards and it felt really good to let the cold water rush over them! Tomorrow I’ll be back to work and hopefully back into the pool with my Santa Maria friends… in the meantime I need to sleep off all the fun I had this weekend in the ocean!

cruising towards the Poly Pier

After today’s swim I ran home and had lunch before turning right back around to go to the beach again… but this time the sun was out! It was a gorgeous day and I wanted to go back out on the water. I drove down to the port and made my way to SLO Coast Kayaks. My initial plan was to rent a stand up paddle board and cruise around Port San Luis but the rental place was all hired out at the moment. I opted instead to hop in a kayak. I like doing both so it was no big deal, but I think I might go back tomorrow and try to get my hands on a SUP again.

Down at the shop they got me all outfitted right quick and tossed me in a sit on top kayak. From there I went exploring the Port area of Avila Beach. We never swim down this way, probably because of all the boats parked out here and all the fishing that goes on. I paddled through all kinds of little sailboats and kelp. Everywhere you looked there were pelicans out fishing. Today they were all being followed by other smaller birds hoping to get in on whatever action the pelicans were finding for themselves. There were also a lot of seals out there. I could see pods of them a little bit of everywhere. Oddly they seem far less interested in me on top of the water as opposed to in it. They still would go out of their way to see what I was all about, but they weren’t quite as aggressive in their curiosity as they are when it involves a swimmer.

I paddled out towards where I usually swim to get a view of my usual swim area from a new vantage point. On the way to the Avila Pier I floated along a massive raft of seabirds. As I was passing them a big chunk of their flotilla decided to move a little further out to sea. In order to do this however they flew right at and in front of me! Like hundreds of birds aimed right for my head! Totally crazy! I held up my paddle in front of my head in a just in case deflectionary kind of maneuver but luckily these birds were all paying attention and I didn’t end up with a beak in my forehead or anything. I got a little bit of video from the inside but not as much as I wanted because the battery in my camera was dying.

From there I went on out to the far buoy down towards the point and then just sort of cruised back to where I started. I followed some seals around (but not too close) just to see how they move and interact with each other. I see them in the water all the time but it’s way different to view these things from above as opposed to at their level in the water.

All told I probably paddled 3 1/2 or 4 miles and really enjoyed my time on the water. There were a lot of instances where I just stopped paddling and let myself drift and listen to the ocean. I was out all by myself and could just do things on my own time and not worry about anything. I need to do this more often… and for $15 an hour I don’t see why I don’t! After tomorrow’s swim I’m thinking about going back down to SLO Coast Kayaks and getting myself more time out on the water… it makes me happy. You really can’t duplicate that kind of good time on dry land!

all the little black dots in the water are a pod of seals

We were back down to about 57 degrees in the water today and it felt even colder since there was no sunshine on top of it! We were 7 swimmers deep today which was pretty good for our group, and we set of to swim about a mile.

Duke waiting for everyone else to catch up

There were pods of seals messing around on the left side of the pier so we opted to swim the buoy line on the right side first. Not that there weren’t seals over there too… we just couldn’t see them from the beach so it at least seemed like a better deal :) On the way into the water I took my sweet ass time and Sylvia (the other non-wetsuiter) was on the same plan. I kept waiting for a wave to come and force me to get all the way wet but the water was so flat this morning it just wasn’t going to happen. Eventually I tossed myself headlong into the water and did a little sprint to catch up to the group that was out in line with the buoys waiting for everyone to regroup before they swam under the pier.

hanging out at the buoy down by the creek

On the way down to the far buoy by the creek I wasn’t feeling too fast. I was steady, but noticeably slower than usual. I’m thinking it’s because my workout week was all messed up between work, life and Wednesday night’s monster bait ball that cut our swim short. I still ended up one of the first 3 or 4 guys down at the buoy, and as has been the case recently all kinds of bonus heads started to pop up around us. That corner has been really popular with the seals. We probably had at least 6 or 7 cruising around and surfacing here and there around us. Once everyone got to the buoy I was pretty ready to split and leave our pinniped friends to go back about their business.

one of our seal friends trying to figure us out

On this longer stretch of our swim I got into a little better rhythm and was nice and distracted by all the boats parked in near the pier. Out at the end of the pier we could see various pods of seals roaming about and there were people up on the pier taking pictures of us and the wildlife. Sylvia was our last person into the the group and she had 3 seals chaperoning her in to us. They always seem to pick who ever is at the back of the pack and follow them around. I have no idea why though… not sure if it’s curiosity or if they have some other strategic plan for following swimmers.

Sylvia with her seal escorts

me staring back at the beach where it was a little warmer than 57... look how pink I am!

The next leg from here was down to the last buoy on the other side and then back to the pier and in. I tried to turn up the speed quite a bit on the way to the beach just to get that fast feel I had been missing all day. I managed to really pick it up but I had a hard time maintaining it. The good news is I get another shot at it tomorrow and I’m hoping my muscles are a little more on board with the whole swimming like I should be swimming plan!

random sailboat race today!

bait ball starting to build

So that was the fanciest way I could think to say our swim got shut down half way through due to a couple thousand birds chowing down on a big bait ball off the pier :) I can’t complain too much about today’s swim because at least we got in. Before I left for the beach I got a call from Niel who had driven down early. He said Avila was majorly fogged in (you couldn’t even see the buoy line from the beach) and that there were big groups of birds on either side of the pier. I decided to go to the beach anyways and just hope the birds would split and the fog wouldn’t be so thick that a swim was out of the question.

By the time I hit the beach the fog was most definitely in full effect over the water even if it was pretty clear in town. There were birds flying around but I didn’t see them grouped in any major way from the shore. We had 5 guys total show up and we decided to give it a go and hope for the best. As we waded out into the waves I could see a lot more bird life flying and diving but it wasn’t too crazy. I was a touch apprehensive but I wasn’t going to give up an ocean swim over it.

getting in for whatever swimming we could get in

Since there was a ton of fog and major glare to the right hand side of the pier we planned to keep close to the buoy line and swim at the sun first so that when we swam back down the length of the buoy line the sun would be at our backs. We ended up swimming under the pier a little closer to shore than usual because there were a lot of guys fishing in the spot we would usually cross under. The water on the other side of the pier was decidedly colder than what we had started with! Niel had measured 60 degrees on the left hand side… it felt closer to 57 on the right. On the way down to the last buoy on the right side I saw more birds cruising around and lots of little splashes from diving. We paused to regroup at the end of the line and we were surrounded by a lot of seals. There were some big boys in the mix too! I was starting to feel a little more uncomfortable. Lots of birds and lots of seals has a tendency to leads to a couple of sharks and I didn’t need any of that in my day.

playing it cool while a gang of seals mean mug us

a couple of our new seal friends

From here the plan was to swim back under the pier to where we started and then down to the other end of the buoy line. I hung right on Niel’s hip the whole way there. With all that wildlife floating around I felt better a little more buddied up with somebody than forging my own line through the water.

one of the guys after crossing back under the pier... lots of fishing going on behind him

you guys want to keep going?!?

When we paused on the other side of the pier the bird activity had gotten much heavier. We debated the merits of actually continuing from here. Personally I was pretty cool with bailing out. The flotilla of birds that had been forming was pretty formidable already and I could see a solid flow of birds en route to the spot that apparently no one else could see just yet. The guys decided to take it just a little bit further and see what happened… Well it just got thicker! After about 200m we all kind of stopped and looked at each other to reassess our decision. 3 out of 5 decided to not tempt fate. Me, Niel and Pete made a left hand turn for the beach and watched our other 2 disappear into birds and fog.

screw you guys... I'm going home < /cartman >

I took some video from the beach that gives you a little better idea of what we were dealing with. The fog kept me from getting anything too great, but you can see lots of birds and the seals cruising the outsides of their circle.

Eventually Ryan and Eric came back to the beach… I’ll admit they made me a little nervous. Especially since we couldn’t see where they were due to the fog. There’s a good chance those of us that got out were a little overly cautious, but seeing as Avila Beach is the home to a real live fatal shark attack within the last 7 years or so you really don’t want to put yourself into situations that don’t look good if you don’t have to. We’re planning to go back out on Sunday and Monday (Labor Day) and hopefully the oceanic snack bar isn’t right in the middle of our swim course next time!

Today’s workout didn’t exactly fit the time allotted. We had a pretty good crowd today… 6 swimmers and 2 of them weren’t regulars… but everybody except me was a little late. I was already 300-400 yards deep into my swim by the time the lanes around me started filling up. I ended up just chilling out for a little while as everyone caught up and I think that’s what put us off track enough that the workout wouldn’t fit inside of an hour. Some of the intervals in the main set were a bit too fast for some of us, but there was a nice big rest at the end of each round that let us reboot and get started together again so it at least felt like we were all doing the same thing. We wrapped up around 10 after one and I had to hustle to get back to the office on time today!

300 swim
200 kick
100 drill
50 bonus while waiting

8 x 50 choice @ 1:00

100 free @ 1:40
2 x 50 @ 1:00
2 x 50 kick @ 1:00
100 free @ 1:30
2 x 50 choice @ 1:00

Repeat x 3
150 moderate @ 2:30
150 drill/kick/swim by 50 @ 2:30
150 build @ 2:30
50 easy @ 2:00

3050 yards total

I’m doing pretty well with keeping to my goal of 3 grand or better at these lunchtime swims. Unfortunately I’m going to have to miss my regularly scheduled Thursday swim due to work. I’ll have to try and motivate myself into an after work solo trip to a pool. I’m about a month and a half out from my big swim of the year now and I need to get in all the training I can!

me and my adventure beard floating in the ocean with the Santa Cruz Boardwalk in the distance

“You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion.” – G. K. Chesterton

I pretty much always have facial hair of some sort going on… a goatee type thing or the occasional fu man chu is in action at all times. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen my chin and I often wonder what it looks like hidden way in there. Undoubtedly it’s nowhere near as tan as the rest of my face… beyond that who knows… let’s just assume I have some sort of manly cleft in it.

This summer I’ve been working on what I’ve dubbed the Adventure Beard and determined it’s a must have for any open water swimmer (of the male persuasion… ladies, feel free to skip figuring out how to grow beards) on an expedition involving cold salt water… I’m still not 100% sure where this beard is taking me but I’m convinced it will lead me in the right direction.

I’m not the only one of my friends who is or has recently sported an adventure beard. My buddy Dave VM recently completed a 12 mile crossing of the Santa Barbara Channel, his adventure beard was in full effect for the swim. Cliff who just swam with me here in Avila Beach pretty recently had a pretty healthy adventure beard in play for his Catalina Crossing as well. I’d like to think their salty beards played a role in each successful venture. As a side note it looks like Cliff is still rocking his adventure beard which leads me to believe he has some new aquatic excursion brewing in his head :)

ready for adventure

Some people have encouraged me to at least cut the beard back if not shave all together and to that I say no… not until I’m done adventuring. It just seems like the right thing to do. Think about people who do big things at sea, they all have beards… it’s pretty much the law. Pirates, boat captains, King Neptune (Poseidon if you’re feeling more Greek-y), fishermen, Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway – all had awesome beards. If I ever hope to do something truly epic at sea the beard is pretty much a prerequisite to oceanic greatness. Also I think it has some kind of magical effect upon my cold water tolerance. More Beard = Colder Water.

So although I may see my chin again someday, today is not that day. Waters from all over the country have flown through this ridiculous beard and it’s thirsty for more. Me and my adventure beard will see you in the ocean!

I was up bright and early this morning to get to Alamitos Bay in Long Beach (the same place as the Naples Island Swim) for a training swim of a TBD length. I had made plans to get out and swim with Beth who is going to be my kayaker on the 12.6 mile Distance Swim Challenge coming up in October. Beth is the local go to Kayaker for hire if you want to do a long distance swim, especially a Catalina Crossing… you can check out her website over at ikayak4u.com. This was our opportunity to meet each other in person after plenty of emails and feel each other out on the water in advance of the race.

Beth from ikayak4u.com!

I got to Long Beach a little bit early, but was probably a minute or two late getting to the dock because I spent a bunch of time at the car getting ready. I had to get into a suit and grease myself up a little bit. Since I was anticipating a pretty long swim I went with the Bag Balm today around my neck and armpits and then just some TriSlide on my legs where my suit would rub. I also filled up a water bottle with some Gatorade and packed an extra bottle along with some Gu packets into my bag I was bringing along for the swim. When I walked out to the dock Beth was waiting for me in the water ready to go. We talked a little bit about where we were going and how I wanted to do things. In pretty short order I realized I had no idea what I really wanted besides the boat to stay on my right since I very seldom breathe left. Since she’s the expert I let Beth dictate the feeding stops and she settled on a 25 minute interval which turned out to be pretty much perfect.

feeding time!

Somewhere around 7am I hopped into Alamitos Bay and it felt colder than it was a couple weeks ago for my Naples Island Swim race. We probably topped out around 60 degrees. I floated around for a few minutes soaking in the cold and chatting with Beth until the water temp was largely neutral for me. The initial plan was to swim around Naples Island (a little less than 3 miles) and then play it by ear from there. I was pretty stoked with this because even though I’ve raced here 3 times now I’ve never done a complete circumnavigation, I always do the 1 miler that goes through the canal as my annual open water how-am-I-doing swim.

Once I got down to business and started swimming I felt great. The water was perfect for me and having a kayaker there just for me was very glamorous. Very minimal sighting was required on my part even though I did it occasionally anyways out of habit. Swimming with Beth as my guide I settled into a really good rhythm and I was taking nice big long strokes. Beth took my stroke rate occasionally and I was cruising along at 50-52 pretty consistently through the whole swim. In comparing it to what I see from other swimmers that’s really low and I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. I figure I don’t really need the heat generated from spinning the wheels faster since I don’t tend to get cold, and less strokes saves the shoulders from burning out. Either way once I fall into a pace on a long swim that’s pretty much what you’re getting out of me for the rest of the day.

I love swimming here

Once we got half way around the island we ran into a gas spill from a boat. I didn’t even notice but Beth stopped me and asked if I wanted to charge through or have her call a lifeguard to give me a ride back to the beach to avoid swimming in it. I took a harder look at the water through my heavily mirrored and tinted goggles and noticed a definite technicolor sheen to the top of the water, but it was just a film. I decided to keep going and just not drink it… which I don’t really ever want to do with salt water anyways! I figured the beard would keep me safe … I just had to remember to not stand close to any open flames later just in case :)

Having a kayaker guide me around the island really let me dissolve into my swim. I didn’t have to think about it, just keep moving. I played a little internal radio and contemplated where my hands were going. We stopped for a feed just past the last bridge (2nd street) and Beth gave me a few options of how to continue since a second lap around the island wasn’t really on the menu seeing as we’d have to swim through that gas again. I could either stop at 3 miles, do a little loop that got us to 4, or stretch it out way down the beach over by where we started and make it around 5 miles. I opted for the 5 miler, I needed the mileage to get ready for my bigger swims.

At this point more people were awake and in the water and traffic control was a little more important. Beth kept me out of the path of various rowers and even helped stop a group of unescorted swimmers that weren’t paying too much attention from getting run over by a tiny row boat! I continued to feel good all the way down to mile 4 and was just happy. Close to our turn around point we had a feed and chatted a little bit. She let me know I was looking really good… strong and steady. It was good to hear that what I thought I was doing matched the reality of what was going on!

all done with our 5 miler

From there we did a slow curve to port and angled back toward the beach we originally launched from. We had a few different row boats get way up in our business but they kept just clear enough that I didn’t get smacked with a paddle or anything exciting like that. Upon arrival back at the beach there was a water polo tournament going on in the bay! Totally weird but very cool. A friend of mine had told me about it on Friday, but I didn’t realize they’d still be playing today. Once Beth dropped me off and paddled back across the bay I watched a little polo and soaked up the sun. When I made my way back towards the street and started to put some clothes on I realized I had left my car keys in her dry bag on the kayak! Oh crap! I didn’t know her phone number off the top of my head and needed to get some internet access and borrow a phone to make it happen. My first few attempts to get this accomplished failed… who knew there were still so many people out there with flip phones? Eventually I found a cop who was just hanging out on the street keeping an eye on things because they had closed the street down and he helped me out. He too was rocking a flip phone, but there was an internet connection in the cop car! Score! We pulled up Beth’s website and he let me borrow his phone to call her up. She shuttled my keys right back over and we both laughed about it pretty hard. I’m just glad she’s not telephonically elusive like I am because my phone and wallet were in the car and it was going to be a long day if I couldn’t get to either of them!

water polo tournament in the bay... weird but in an awesome kind of way!

Once me and my keys were reunited I went back to the car and got into dry clothes and started to arrange swim number two! My friend Merritt who organized this year’s Naples Island Swim lives in Long Beach and wanted to go for a swim when she saw I’d be in town. We set it up for around 11:30 which gave me a little time to go find something to snack on and rehydrate.

the view from where swim #2 started

We met up by the beach up towards the bridge at second street. Her plan was a swim across to the island and then to jam through the canal in the opposite direction of the Naples Island 1 Mile swim which she said was about 1.7 miles. This version was a little more death defying than the usual race just because it was the middle of a beautiful day and tons of people were out on the water. Kayaks, boats, paddlers, etc were all floating around out there. Waaay more sighting was involved on this swim than my morning excursion!

one of the Pirate statues scattered throughout our route

We were pretty clear on the way to the mouth of the canal but traffic picked up once we got in. We stuck to the left hand side of the canal but still had to dodge the occasional gondola or tourist kayaker. Those gondolas were pretty stealthy… a black boat hidden under a bridge is pretty much invisible until you almost swim straight into it. We stopped to regroup every couple bridges or whenever there was a turn mainly because Merritt was kicking my ass. I have a perfectly good excuse for this however… she’s substantially faster than I am :) After our swim we grabbed some lunch in town before I had to embark on the big drive home.

Merritt at the entry to the canal

It’s almost not fair how good my weekend was… I got to spend a lot of time around people I like and a lot of time in or on the water! A definite win on all fronts!

in my happy place... cold salt water

I made the way out to the beach this morning with a friend and despite being right in the middle of Orange County things were looking much more like a Santa Cruz kind of swim. It was gray, a little overcast, and we had plenty of cold water. They were announcing anything from 58 to 61 depending on where the reading came from. I would say 58-59 is about on point with how it felt. Not too tropical! There were way more wetsuits on the beach than you would normally see at a Masters event today.

Santa Cruz or SoCal? Hard to tell today!

On the beach I caught up with some friends that I had swam with last week in Laguna. Since it was so cold a lot of people didn’t want to get in and warm up, but me and Natalie decided that we needed to go spend some time underwater to get acclimated. It took a minute to get used to but once I was all the way wet I felt fine. 58 is a pretty warm day at my house, but that first contact with the water never gets any warmer no matter how often you’re in it! We swam out to a buoy and just floated and talked a little bit. The conditions weren’t too bad, the waves weren’t a big deal and the chop was definitely manageable.

just enough chop to be fun!

Back on the beach everyone asked us about the water temperature. There was a lot of temperatural apprehension in the air. Eventually we got a little bit of a course briefing and they had us get lined up on the beach for the start. While waiting for the start I ran into a guy that swam with me at Alcatraz (a fellow non wetsuiter!) and we got to catch up real quick, very cool to see him again.

The start of this thing was the roughest crowd I’ve dealt with all year. I don’t think people self seeded so well. I got caught up in a lot of people slower than me and little traffic jams were building all over the place. I kept having to move laterally to try and find holes to swim through, that wasn’t going particularly well however. Everywhere I tried to go, roadblock. Also I apologize if I crossed of the top of anyone or cut them off… I try to avoid that but this was kind of a mess. As we neared the first turn buoy it only got worse as the pack tightened. I got squeezed in on by somebody and they seriously smacked me in the head like 5 times. In the meantime I was swimming right up into a pocket of people that were going slower than me. As much as I was trying to not touch anybody I’m pretty sure one of my strokes landed square into someone’s butt cheek. I would have swam away from them but I had no where to go with the impending buoy. The upside was at the turn I managed to get the inside line and was able to start distancing myself a little bit.

on the beach waiting for the start

The long leg at the top of the rectangle we did was interesting. I hung to that inside line and tried to aim as directly as I could for the next buoy, the vast majority of everyone else arced waaaay out to the top. It was a little lonely on the straight shot line. I’m not sure how that happened and it made me a little nervous that there was another buoy in the middle that I wasn’t aware of. Turns out 85% of everyone just decided to take the long way to turn number 2. Although a little odd it was fine by me! I think I moved way up in the overall scheme of things on this leg just because I cut like a 100m off of what everyone else was doing.

I turned tight on the next buoy and just tried to continue with an inside line. People were playing this particular leg a little better and I was passed by one or two people. I don’t like getting passed but it was a good wake up for me. I had settled into a groove that was a bit to slow for a mile long swim and it was a good push to speed it up a bit. Had to remember 1 mile is basically a sprint in Open Water!

The last long leg back I tried to hang on to the guy that passed me and draft off him a bit. I did this with varying degrees of success. We got separated a few times though because of big strands of kelp in the middle of the course. I hate scraping over the top of that stuff but I didn’t want to go around it either so I just took the free full torso exfoliation in stride.

On the last turn to the beach I tried to catch the guy in front of me but I just wasn’t quick enough. I even tried to catch a wave on the way in to speed me up but I didn’t quite get it. I maybe got 5m out of a little one and then it pushed on without me. I stood up to run in too early because I could see the bottom and though it was closer than it was. At home if I can see the bottom it means I’m about to hit it… apparently CDM is much more see through! I did an awkward high leg run thing through the last couple meters of the race and and jogged it up into the chute. I didn’t see a clock and haven’t caught my time yet, but I felt like I did pretty well. I was like 50th out of 200 (including wetsuits) which is right about where I think I should be right now. I ended up 3rd in my age group and got an In-n-Out gift certificate for my efforts :) The guy that won my age group was out from Virginia and I had the pleasure of losing to him repeatedly in various national championship swims this summer. We got to talk for a couple minutes and I’m impressed with how well he dealt with the cold water out here considering the hottest swimming I did this summer was all in his state!

After hanging out and watching awards and talking to people on the beach a few of us went to go eat. Apparently the place we were going had changed hands like 3 times since anyone had been there and it had gone from a breakfast burrito kind of joint to a Vietnamese/French restaurant. Odd, but why not right? Lunch was good!

standing on a board in Newport Bay before my first unplanned swim in the bay...

Once we finished up with lunch me and my friend Bekah went out and spent some time on Stand Up Paddleboards. I’ve been wanting to do this forever so it was tons of fun to finally go do it! We did almost 3 miles around the harbor and only took a couple of unplanned swims on our way.  My balance was suspect for sure… I think my feet got the biggest workout in the whole expedition just trying to hold the other 225 pounds of me steady on this floating board! My first fall was a pity fall as I was watching and laughing at Bekah while she went headfirst off her board into the water. I followed soon after… instant karma for sure. Way on the other side of this island we circumnavigated I took another tumble that was best I could tell for no good reason at all. Apparently I just spaced out, leaned too far one way and went face first in slow motion. I wasn’t excited about this, but some people in a passing boat enjoyed my unplanned dive so at least it was good for somebody :) Well and I guess Bekah too because she got to laugh at me without falling in herself like I did earlier. I totally need to go do more of this. It’s fair to say I’m not actually good at it… but I had fun! All told super good day so far, tomorrow I’m off to do a somewhat longer training swim… in the meantime I need some dinner and an adult beverage…

Bekah sneaking past a sailboat

Men’s 5k
Men’s 5k with wetsuit

Men’s 2.5k
Men’s 2.5k with wetsuit

Women’s 5k
Women’s 5k with wetsuit

Women’s 2.5k
Women’s 2.5k with wetsuit