A group of us met at the lake today for some swimming. I was just going to dip and maybe play around on the ice shelf, but my friend who is doing the 200 was all "I'm going to do a practice swim!" and that motivated me to do one as well. I wasn't super psyched about it, but what can you do?
Even though it was warm out today there was no sun and a bit of a wind off the water - it felt colder than yesterday! By the time we had chatted and hung out and such I was already a little cold, but then I reasoned that being a little cold before getting into a 35 degree body of water isn't really a deal breaker. I was so not excited as I put in my ear buds, but now I'm so glad that I did the swim! Just one more on my completely unscientific training plan.
The ice shelf was pretty much in the same place as yesterday but there were more of us swimming. I swam sort of at an angle to the ice shelf and back five times. I wore the thin gloves and no booties. My hands were pretty cold at the end. I know they will be killing me on race day! It was a tough one, but I reminded myself during the swim that I can do anything for 10 minutes and I would be so glad when it was done. Which I was. By the time I finished everyone else was out of the water and someone had poured my water into my bucket again. It felt so good to put my hands and feet into the hot water.
I spent some time reading about swim stroke yesterday and it said that you should imagine that you are rolling your arm over a barrel at the start of the pull to get a little extra oomph, making sure that your hand goes down fast so that you are forcing the water behind you instead of down. I was able to focus on this for most of my swim, and I thought maybe I was moving faster than usual, but when I got out of the water and looked at my splits it was significantly slower than yesterday. So, maybe don't try to change the swim stroke the week before the race.
We are going to go again on Monday and I will try to get in my last official swim then. I am also thinking that I will try to go on Wednesday, just to play around in the water a little, maybe with no gloves on. Or maybe I will go out to the ice shelf again and have a little fun before the big day.
Right now I'm registered for the 200 on Saturday and the 100 on Sunday. We keep talking about doing the 50 relay on Sunday as well. Now I know I can do the 200 two days in a row (of course, with gloves. Without gloves is next level.) I will think about doing all three, but we'll see...
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