mock tri and open water swim

Last night, I did a sort of mock-tri at the gym. I swam 750 meters, then changed and went to a spin class (55 minutes — I left before the cool-down), then jogged for 25 minutes on the treadmill. I felt great when I was done! Woo-hoo! Happy happy happy :)

I went this afternoon and bought skins.

Tonight, there was an open-water practice swim at the lake. I've decided not to wear a wetsuit (I found it too constrictive in the shoulders — the buoyancy wasn't worth it). The skins were quite comfortable to swim in. I felt pretty exposed — I don't typically walk around in clothes that are all skin-tight — but the self-consciousness mostly wore off (and was not with me at all in the water this evening).

Swimming in a lake is way harder than swimming in a pool. I was surprised. First of all, the lake is kinda gross. I put my head in and could barely see my hand out in front of me. Ew. Otherwise ... it's hard to explain why.

The swim tonight was just up-and-back. On the way out, it was easy to go in a straight line — I swam by the wall and kept my eye on that when I came up to breathe. On the way back, I swam way crooked and ended up swimming quite a bit farther than I needed to. 's OK.

I took off too fast off the line. My stroke was nothing like what it is in the pool. Adrenaline? So it wasn't long before I was completely wiped out. I stopped and caught my breath, but the rest of the swim wasn't great. Now I know and can plan for it. They warned us to start out slow, and I thought, "I always swim slow!" but alas, I did not. I'm glad we had a practice swim :)

Tomorrow is a rest day. Sunday, I am doing a bike race. That'll be good. I can get a feel for it. I've biked a lot, but never in a race. We'll see...

The race is two weeks from tomorrow! Can hardly wait!!