Saturday, March 05, 2011

Latex and Lake Water

I am fortunate that I have the ability to leave work a little early on Fridays...that is, when it's not the middle of busy season. Also, I am fortunate that busy season is finally behind me. (I think) So my friend and fellow tri-girl, Kelly, agreed to pick me up on the way to our favorite swim spot - 288 Lake!

I'll admit, there were a few things that I was nervous about:

1) I haven't had an open water swim in almost a year
2) My swim workouts have been non-existent for almost 2 weeks
3) I was wearing my new wetsuit for the 1st time!

Here is the lake...it's definitely the best spot around for OWS practice:

Once we made it out to the lake, we pulled on our wetsuits....hmmm, that makes it actually sound easy. Pulling on a wetsuit is hard work! So, 15 minutes later we felt like we already had a workout! We donned our swim caps (that's where the latex comes in) and goggles. Then, we eased into the water....the air temp was in the mid 70s and the water temp was mid to high 60's...it wasn't too bad with the wetsuit on! In March of last year, we actually got into the water without wetsuits and it sucked. This was so much better! There was some wind, so that caused a bit of a current in the lake, but overall not too bad.


Here we are in our new wetsuits...just call us aquagirl and elastigirl...



At first, I major issues with the material around my neck. I felt like the wetsuit was choking me...a feeling I recognized from my 1st OWS with a rented wetsuit two years ago. But after a couple of adjustments, everything felt better. We decided today was more about getting re-acclimated to the water and to get used to the wetsuits. We swam a small loop (about 600 meters), then did a few out and back swims. By the end of our swim, we felt pretty confident that we were going to be okay with out wetsuits. I could definitely tell I had been neglecting my swimming, because I was out of breath a couple of times. But, it was great knowing that I could stop swimming for a minutes and my wetsuit would keep me afloat...not that I intend to stop during a race. Now that things at work should be calming down, I have got to be more consistent in all of my workouts!!!

I'm hoping that these OWS practices can be a weekly occurrence between now and my 1st race!

4 comments:

Anne said...

Sounds like a great way to break in the new wet suit.

Julie said...

Hey girl! You are doing so well and keeping super busy with all of your training! Yay for the swim:) You are looking pretty good in the wet suit...cute picture! Take care!

Unknown said...

I think I'm going to need to buy a wetsuit this spring. How did you know which one to buy?

TX Runner Mom said...

@Meg - I was fortunate to have lots of friends who are part of a tri training group. That group had some samples to try on and we could order at a great discounted rate. It was good to be able to try them on beforehand. You should check out your local tri shop and try some on there to get an idea of how the sizes run for different brands...then look online to see if you can find better prices.