Another brick...with an epic open water swim!

Although I have done one mini open water swim on my vacation over 4th of July, I wanted to get a serious open water swim (OWS) in before the triathlon this weekend (5 days...OMGZZZ). So, I enlisted good friend, KG in spotting me out at Percy Priest lake on Sunday.

Source

So we headed to a nearby recreational swimming area at the lake at 8:30 Sunday morning after drinking a pitcher of margaritas the night before. Haha, we know how to train, y'all.

There were already a few people out in the water when we got there (and a couple cars in the parking lot with "swim, bike, run" stickers...I felt like I was crashing a cool kid's party). One intense woman was running out of the water when we approached the beach area and when she came running back she said a friendly, "hello!" I had no idea what 400 yards looks like (the distance of the race), so KG asked professional triathlete lady about it. She gave great guidance I was confident with.

After figuring out what approximately 400 yards would be (or so I thought) I set out into the water.

It's a bit blurry, but it's also an AWESOME photo of me, haha!

I have this issue in the water where I go out way too fast. Well, actually I do that in every sport. So, I swam from the beach to buoy #1 to buoy #2 back to #1 and back to the beach for what I thought at the time was approximately 400 yards. I was huffing and puffing when I got out of the water because I rushed it and my breathing rhythm was off. The swim felt labored and KG reported it took around 6 or 7 minutes or so. Hmmm...that seems awfully fast for me on a 400 yard swim. My average time in the pool for that distance is about 9 1/2 minutes. What happened?

Well, my morning brain THOUGHT I had estimated 400 yards, but really it was 200. Ooops....back to the water.

This time, I started down at the end of the beach to swim out to buoy #4 then back. Easy peasey. I made myself slow down and just swim rhythmically. I typically alternate what side I breathe on every 3 strokes. I'm still learning how to sight in open water, but I practiced that too. It was a lot better than the first run. So much better that I passed buoy #4, got a little past buoy #5 and realized I was way farther than I intended to swim out. Ooops #2

But no worries, I got back to land safely.

Swimming in

Back on 2 feet!

Out of the water

I feel confident in the open water, but I am still expecting the worst on Saturday because swimming in a calm lake is nothing like swimming in river with potential current AND with 600 other people flailing around in the water.

After the swim, KG joined me for a 2 mile run. Can I tell you how much I hate putting socks on damp feet? Ugh. I struggled with the run and walked a lot more of than I hoped for. It was hot by that time (9:45) and I was under hydrated. 2 miles got done though and back to the car we went.


All in all it was actually a lot of fun (well, except for the run part) and I'm really looking forward to Saturday (in an excited/scared sh*tless kind of way). And I think I found a great new place to get some swimming in without having to be a member of the Y!