Same Lake, New Beach

I got up three hours earlier than normal and went to a new beach. I met up with V and her friend J. I almost never get to swim in daylight, so it was a real treat to be out during the day and to be able to make it to a group swim. I didn’t even mind the 35-minute drive. 

It was cold outside, maybe 45 F, and starting to rain. Neither concerned me because I don’t give two poops about the weather. If I want to go for a walk or a swim, I’m gonna go. That’s the one benefit of growing up in the midwest: playing outside even on wind chill days makes you mentally tough. Or crazy? And running cross country. Nothing will ever be as hard as that was. Plus, the whole point of having the right gear for open water swimming in December is protecting myself from the elements. 

I arrived after V and J, so they sat in their cars and talked,  kindly waiting for me to get my gear on. I’m pretty good at getting the wetsuit on now. I still take my time to do the folding and scrunching, slowly unfolding the suit up my body. We entered the water, and I took V’s advice from our last outing to walk back and forth parallel to the beach in chest-deep water to acclimate my body. I actually love doing this because I practice my “silly walks,” marching with high knees, skipping, pointing my toes as I lift up my front foot, hopping. 

J hadn’t been in the lake in months, so wasn’t sure how long she would last. But she got right in, and started swimming toward the speed limit buoy. This buoy seems much closer than the buoys at other beaches. I love swimming out and back. I get to accomplish a goal. It feels more substantial than paddling about in little spurts in between periods of treading water. I do that sometimes because I’m too tired to swim or I just want to look at the water and the view. Most of the time I’d rather have my face in the water and really swim, but I’ve given myself permission to just enjoy the water and not worry about what I do so much as try to stay in for 15, 20, 30 min. I need to get a cheap digital watch so I can set a stopwatch and keep track of how many minutes I’m in the water. 

I took my time trying to swim and surveying the bottom of the lake. The shallow area had a sandy bottom, but then it quickly dropped off to deeper water that was packed with a dense forest of ugly sea weeds. They are so creepy because they’re all fluffy and leafy and not green. I think they were light brown and maybe a reddish brown. I watched the bottom while I did four in-and-outs to get my face used to the water. I didn’t have to go far before I couldn’t see them anymore. The water gets deep fast. 

We all paddled around, doing our own thing for awhile. Then I couldn’t see V, so I swam over toward the buoy. There she was. I swam all the way up to V and J. We tried to chat, but between their earplugs and my snug hood, they couldn’t hear me. It was really nice to be out with other swimmers. It was raining a little bit, but I barely registered that. I wouldn’t have noticed except I saw the little pings where the rain hit the water. I don’t even remember if it was raining by the time we stopped. 

I swam for a bit, then tried the crawl, which I’ve decided I don’t like. Too splashy, and my hood moves around too much, which means water gets into my suit. It’s easier to do my weirdo breast stroke with my feet sticking up in the air. I try to be conscious about using good form on the kicks – as good as I can with the water movement and the buoyancy of the suit. When I’m able to swim on a regular basis it keeps my hips strong, and that keeps my right knee working and pain-free. Better than doing squats in my kitchen. 

Every time I swam up to my buddies today a huge smile came across my face. Like it happened without my effort, and then I was happy to realize I had a huge happy smile on. YEA! I can’t even remember that last time I had a smile like that. 

I floated for a long time today. Blank blank blank all I have to do is breathe. I love it so much that I’m tempted to time myself and see how long I can do it, but I think I would never swim. Floating is the closest thing to blissing out I can get right now, so I love letting go and miraculously (not at all miraculous because WETSUIT) I stay afloat. The top of my snorkel falls into the water so I can’t breathe out of my mouth (it shuts off if water gets in it). Instead I breathe out of my nose. Sometimes it’s tricky ‘cause my nose is stuffy a lot of the time. I’m probably allergic to something in the water. The only problem with floating is getting cold, and then I know I need to get out of the water. Sometimes I feel like I can stay in the water a long time before getting cold. Other times I do something like floating or switching from swimming to marching in the water and – bam – the cold hits and I have to get out.  It’s kind of weird how some days I really don’t feel cold at all until I get out of the water. Other times I change what I’m doing and get cold fast. 

When I got out of the water today I first spent some time exploring the shallow area, hoping to find a little treasure. I didn’t find anything, but I did try the underwater doggy paddle. Surprised by how quickly I moved. 

V and J got in their cars and took off; they drive home in their wetsuits. Actually, V backed her car up next to mine and waited for me. Thank you. I have an awesome system now. I keep a huge quilt on my back seat, so I can sit on that and remove items. At teh same time I can hang my Blanocho around my neck so the blanket covers 

V told me I needed to put my gloves and BOTH pairs of socks on before my wetsuit. I’ve been wearing my gloves on top of my sleeves, and the water just gets into my gloves. I’ve had better luck with the socks because I’ve been wearing one layer under my wetsuit and another layer on top. Duh. But I learn something every time I swim. V is more experienced than me, so when she recommended her 5mm gloves, I took note and ordered a pair the minute I got home. 

I also ordered a pool thermometer because I want to know what the water temps are when I swim. I’ll just clip it to my swim buoy, and hopefully, it will give me accurate readings. I’m tired of having to look up the one weather buoy in the lake to see if it’s active and reporting the water temps. It never gives the same reading as I get off of LakeMonster.com. For example, today it was 51F at the city weather buoy, but the estimate on LakeMonster was 45 F. That’s quite a difference.