Air Conditioned Gypsy

Day 18 of training:
Group rides: 3
Solo rides: 3
Resistance training: 4
Spin classes: 2
Pool Swims: 4
Maintenance Runs: 3
Ocean Swims: 2


Sunday is the only day of the week that I have wholly and completely off-- no obligations, nothing specific I need to do. It's also the only day I have to get all the stuff done around the house that I didn't have time for during the week.

So, naturally, I went for a swim.

It was fifty-nine degrees in the cove today, and it's always colder when you're just getting in. It's not only that you're not warmed up yet, it's colder on the way back in too-- something about the way the water circulates in there. I don't understand it, but when your wet-suit first fills up with the stuff, it's not a whole lot of fun. The first few strokes the muscles in your ribcage tighten and it feels like you're not gonna be able to squeeze any air into your lungs. I swim an extra stroke to each breath at the start so I don't have to think about it as often. As to how the long-timers make this swim with no wet-suit, I've no idea, but I see them out there in their speedos each time, and each time it amazes me.

I've learned to gut through the beginning, when you question the idea of going for a swim in December, even in Southern California. As always, once I get a hundred yards out, my body heat has warmed up the water trapped in the suit and it's only cold when an errant movement forces a new rush of water through a sleeve or down the back of my neck. After a while, I was barely even cold; comfortable, but on the cool side, like I was wearing an air conditioned suit.

I expected the swim to be slow and difficult, and slow it was. I wasn't sure I'd go further than the quarter-mile buoy before turning back, but I got there and it seemed like I hadn't been going all that long, so I kept on at it. I swam to the half-mile buoy, or at least, to where I thought it should be, since they take it out for the winter. I tread water for a minute or so and looked out to the shore and back to the cove. I love doing that.

I considered the shore, which was closer now than the cove, but my feet were getting cold and swim or walk, I'd have to get back to the cove to get my car. I didn't want to do that on frozen feet, so I turned, and put my head back in the water and pointed it towards the high palm trees and setting sun to the west.

I made it back in what seemed like no time at all. Slow, but no time at all.