Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...

Yesterday morning, I went out for a swim for the first time since my last tri over Labor Day weekend. Nine months ago.

Mr Crampy's from Issaquah put on a swim clinic at Beaver Lake yesterday morning. Medusa_Ann on BeginnerTriathlete posted it on the Washington forum, and I looked it up on Mr Crampy's Facebook Page. Sounded like a good time, and since I can't run for a while, I kind of wanted to do that for a workout.

The morning was clear, and we loaded up the wetsuits and headed into the plateau, arriving just before it all started. We slithered into our seal skins and donned caps and such. They divided us into two groups at first -- those who were relatively new to open water swimming and wanted some work with swimming in a group, going around buoys, and sighting, and those who were comfortable in the water "and can swim 400 yds or more in a pool in a single stretch". My wife chose the first group, as she's had issues with dark water. It kind of freaks her out. The latter group broke up further into a clinic group, and those that just wanted to swim the lake. I chose this last group.

So divided up, we who were swimming the length of the lake took off second, going around the buoy line (and the first group stopped there) and continued on around the horn to "the rock". I started off feeling smooth and with power, staying with the leader. I thought, Hey, I've still got my speed. Well, after we got past the buoys a ways, the leader started to pull away. I tucked in behind him to draft... No dice. Yeah, I had my speed, but my endurance is crap! I guess that makes sense having been out of the water for 9 months.

After several course corrections (I was tending to veer left), I finally made it around the horn and to the rock. It looked very inviting from a distance, but up close and underwater, it was kind of disgusting. But it seemed the right thing to go all the way to the rock and touch it before heading back. That was .6 miles, so I was told. I have no real idea. I wasn't impressed with the time split to that point, though...

On the way back I was pretty much alone the whole time. I was swimming straighter, but I also noticed that I was falling back into some OLD (and I thought well behind me) had habits of dropping my elbows. Oh well, Dory from Finding Nemo got stuck in my head... "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."

I got back to the bouys, and found my wife... She wasn't wearing her goggles because the strap had come undone. I gave her mine, and then went around the buoys once with her before we headed to shore.

It was a good workout.

But wow, am I sore this morning.