Oh. My. Goodness.What a difference a wetsuit makes!
Yesterday turned out to be a crazy day... sunny all day and then BAM! Thunder! Lightening! As I looked at the forecast until Sunday, my heart sank. Rain, thunder, more rain, more thunder! I was not relishing trying this wetsuit for the first time at a race, nor had I done ANY open water swimming yet (and we all know how much I love that!).
But 5pm rolled around, and it looked like we had an opening, so we blitzed it over to good ole Puffers "Iceberg" pond.
We get there and I wrestle the wetsuit on. Great fit. Look at the pond. It's *fuzzy* with pollen. Gah. Oh well. So this man starts asking me about my wetsuit (popular already!). He asks how I like it (it's great!) and what it's like swimming with it (I'll tell ya in a minute!). That shut him up :) I kind of laughed a little when he said that he had tried on a bunch (here I am... I just looked at the sizes on line, shopped around and hit PAY.) Nice guy, but a bit strange.
Finally got in the water. COLD! MURKY! Can't breathe. Err, well, I can, but I'd rather prefer to be breathing OUT when my head is in the water. I drink about half of the pond. My training partner is trying to be helpful. She's really sweet until she starts to get a little impatient. "Just stick your head in!" I wasn't mad. I really needed the push. We laughed about it later. Sometimes tough love works best.
I finally did it. I realized what was freaking me out was the sometimes very cold pockets (like *maybe* 60 degrees!). And not being able to see *any*thing... I fixed that problem by closing my eyes a few times. Finally I got going.
I came back to shore, and she tells me that she's going to come in (this girl is *tough*) with no wetsuit. Helps that she grew up in glacial lakes I guess. So, she gets in, and we head across the pond (about 250 yds). Made it just fine. Chatted for a bit, noticed the wind kicking up again and figured it'd be best to head back (didn't want to be crispy and all of that!).
What a GREAT swim. And, the wetsuit *totally* helps. I mean, there's just no way to drown. I didn't even have to tread water in the thing, I just bounced up to the surface... *Plink!* Might have something to do with the *extra* fat I have now, but I'll take it.
So, here I go! I'm ready now!
6 comments:
HEY!! Glad I clicked over here from Wil's site!! Finally another New Englander I can blog with!!! I'm doing Fairlee too!! In fact I live in Fairlee so if you want to come up and ride the course with me between now and July, consider it an open invite!! I did the Timberman Sprint last year and it's a BLAST...so much good energy and a really fun course. I wanted to do it again this year but it conficts with my second A race, the Cranberry Country Tri in Southern MA... Going for the Timberman Half next summer so I'll be back. You'll have a great time. Looking forward to reading more!!!
Good stuff.
I find that the cold water....when i first get in, i cant' breathe. But once i warm up, things are easy.
I am still struggling with the open water and wetsuit. Solution? Keep at it....until i learn to love it. Or it loves me :0
is that a zoot? gotta get my hands on one of those soon.
Ah come on, a swim in lightning would be fun!! You have a rubber wet suit right?? :) Thank God you got to give it a quick tri before the tri though...GOOD LUCK Sunday!!
I love my wetsuit, too! BTW, thanks for the feedback about the woman in your running club. I then posted the question re: treatment on my two tri team yahoogroups and got many more responses like yours. I'm not getting hopes up, but I am calling my primary on Monday to get a referral for a 2nd opinion. If I can at least throw my trainer on the front porch and spin at low resistance, in addition to swimming, that would be great!
oh, PS! Good luck at Ludlow. That one was on my list....crossed out due to the fx.
HAVE A BLAST!
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