Solo 200

No one was able to join me for a swim today, so I popped over to the lake by myself at lunch time. It was beautiful out - 30 degrees with sun and almost no wind. It felt positively balmy compared to some of the recent weather. When I got to the lake, though, it was so frozen in! Even though both agitators were going by the docks the area that we usually swim in was covered with a thin (but not insignificant) layer of ice, leaving me only a short space by the shore on either side of the docks to swim. At first I was like "well that's it, I can't do it." But then I calmed myself down and made a plan. There may have been a little more space on the far side of the dock, but it was in the shade and I wasn't so excited about swimming there. The side where we usually swim was at least in the sun, and there was enough space for about 15 or so strokes with each arm before turning around. I was a little nervous, though, because there's a spillway that pulls water underground near the dam, and it was bubbling a little. So, I decided to swim on the sunny side, but to turn around well before the bubbling. 

I've been trying to acclimate my hand and feet, and went for my first dip without booties yesterday. My feet were so cold! I didn't wear booties again today and they were much better. I also wore my thinest gloves instead of the nice cozy mittens. Because my feet were bare I decided to step in off the dock, walk up to my waist, and go from there. 

For whatever reason, it was actually a pretty easy swim today! In part because I had to stay close to shore and so when I turned around I could put my feet down and push off (something that you can do on race day) and in part because of the sun. I did have to swim shorter laps of about 10-15 strokes in each direction, but I still went to about 175 strokes with each arm, which should have been a 200. For whatever reason my watch didn't pick up the distance correctly - maybe because I was swimming such short laps? At one point I did run into the ice shelf and cut up my arm a bit, but otherwise it was uneventful. When I got out I was cold, especially my feet, but not freezing. I did a quick change, got into my car, and came on home.

It's hard to believe that the Big Swim is just 11 days from now! I'm hoping to get in three more practice swims before the event. That's just 4 200's left this season hopefully. Then I can go back to playing on the ice shelf :)