Last week our tri club had an open water swim clinic at the gravel ponds at Chatfield reservoir, in Chatfield State Park. I have a race coming up and I'm scared of cold water, so I figured I'd better go and get in and prove to myself that I wasn't gonna die. That day, the universe had been conspiring against me as soon as I opened my eyes. Since no one wants to read a litany of bad news [well, maybe you do, if it isn't happening to YOU personally, BUT...] I'll just spare you the list of terrible, awful things that led to me having a terrible, awful day. And then, on the way to the res, traffic was SO BAD, I was over 30 minutes late. (Turns out there was a wreck on the highway, that driver was having a way WORSE day than me, I hope they are OK).
Anyhow I was sure I'd miss the swim, did I really want to pay to get into the park just to run? FINE I was down there, I could see people I knew, do the run, and likely feel slightly better after a workout. So I drove up to the gate and paid the $10 and went in.
Good news to my eyes as I pulled down to the swim area parking lot, I could see the club members standing on the shore, not in the water. Alright, Lizzie, you're goin' swimmin'. I ran up in time to catch some stellar swim tips from Mr. Fish, standing there in his Speedos while nearly everyone else was in their wetsuits. He had great insights about how to round buoys, breathing and sighting in open water and handing different swim situations during a race.
And then we all got in the water. Oh boy. It was COLD. Me and another Floridian were joking about how we were NOT in Florida swim conditions! It definitely helped to be in the water and get acclimated to the chill factor before starting to swim. When we DID start swimming, my heart rate shot up from the cold. This was actually no joke - I was fine, but when I stopped, I certainly noticed my racing heart, and one member had some anxiety and had to be pulled from the water (they were OK). But this is why we do these things, we test and we train and we see what it's like and have our panic attacks now, so we don't panic come race day. Because the race should be fun.
We even had a wheelchair athlete get in the water with us! Talk about inspiration. This guy had more of an athlete's build than many people standing on the shore. He looked like an IronMan champion - that night, he was the Chatfield Gravel Pond Swim Champion, for sure.
After the swim, we did a short out-and-back run, heading off into the sunset. On the way back, I was trying to catch this woman just as a marker for myself that I could set my sights on a person and reach them. I ended up getting her on the last half-mile. She and I talked for a while afterward, turns out she is in the middle of passing a kidney stone, so the fact that she was even there doing a workout, well, she's the female athlete champion of the night. I was telling her about my grandma, she knew a lot about Hospice and it was really nice to just talk to someone out loud, and not in my own head, about the shitty and wonderful state of having a loved one going through Hospice and the end of their life. And I got to meet a woman I train with virtually, in real life and she is DELIGHTFUL and I can't wait to see her more. I really felt a million times better than I did when I got to the park. Seems one solution for turning around a bad day is to go for a swim in cold water with strangers, you'll all be friends in the end.
Other takeaways: I need more open water practice. My goggles are terrible, but hey, they're twenty years old, at least and I should probably get a new pair. Of course when I spoke that aloud to my husband, the universe decided to make me grateful for those goggles, by forcing me to do a pool swim WITHOUT THEM, later that week. I accidentally left the goggles in the arm of my wetsuit, so when I got to the pool Thursday, SURPRISE! No goggles. I did the swim workout anyhow. I do NOT recommend ever doing that again, if the pool is chemically treated. My eyes burned for a good 24 hours and I used a LOT of eye drops. Again, I didn't die, but... swimming in a chlorinated pool with no goggles is really no way to live.
I did buy myself a new pair of polarized goggles Friday. And I decided to get more open water practice by going BACK to the res on Sunday. The new goggles? I LOVE THEM. If you swim outside, get yourself a pair of polarized goggles! I feel like they give me a HUGE sighting advantage. I also ran into my new kidney stone friend, and met another woman going to Oregon 70.3, too on that Sunday swim. The radio was full of great songs about living life to the fullest, taking advantage of the good days, etc. OK, Universe, I hear you.
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Swim links, also posted at the sidebar at left for future reference:
Chatfield Reservoir information - scroll to the bottom for swimming conditions and water temp info.
What kind of goggles should I get? This page at yourswimlog.com is a great starting point to answer that question.
Swim n Things - if you're in the Denver, Colorado, area, they have sample goggles you can try on to see which ones fit you best. And this is a great store for anything swim-related, both competitive and fun.
I bought a pair of Tyr Special Ops 2.0 Polarized goggles. (Mine are a lot more colorful!)
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