3rd time's a charm!

Yesterday was our 3rd open water swim training -- it was at Aquatic Park in San Francisco, yes, the cold SF Bay/Pacific Ocean. Aquatic Park is home to the Dolphin Swim Club of San Francisco (aka, the crazy swimmers that swim in the frigid waters of the San Francisco Bay...year round!) and according to their website the water temperature in Aquatic Park vary from about 50 F in January to about 61 F in September. If you've read my other open water swim posts, you know just how much I just love swimming in cold water -- NOT! So this 3rd attempt at open water swimming was definitely going to be a challenge...

When I got to Aquatic Park at 7:30am, it was actually sunny and not as cold as I had expected, that is, if you were standing in the sun, otherwise, it was quite cold in the shade -- but having lived in the city for several years, there was good indication that it was going to be a beautiful day: the sun was out, and the skies were clear so that you could actually see the GG and Bay bridges. When I met up with team, a few of my teammates were staring at the water where we were about swim -- this was our first "ocean" open water swim this season -- so, many of us weren't quite sure what to expect. After we got into our wetsuits, our coach told us to swim for about 45 mins or 3 laps from buoy to buoy (3 laps? yeah, sure, I'll be lucky to get from buoy to buoy!) He also told us that if you're one that takes in a lot of water when you swim (that would be me) to expect and be prepared to take in the salty water...but the salt in the water would also give you more buoyancy (buoyancy is a good thing in my book, it means you won't drown!) So armed with that knowledge, we all walked onto to the beach and took off into the deep blue of the Pacific...

Well, most of us took off...I slowly walked into the water...when it got to about chest deep, I stopped. It was cold. I was looking around for any of the coaches to make sure someone was going to stay with me -- I had a coach with me at every open water swim, you know, just in case I totally freaked out and needed to be rescued, drug onto shore and resuscitated...just in case....So as everyone took off, I just stood there in the water trying to acclimate to the cold water…after about 5 mins, one of the coaches handed me a snorkel and told me to use the snorkel to breath. But that was unsuccessful. The snorkel actually made it more difficult to breathe because now I had to learn how to breathe using the snorkel – and I already had issues breathing without it – not helpful. So I gave up the snorkel idea, onto Plan B. The coach then told me to just dunk my head a few times in the water and just blow out bubbles (again, back to the basics). After doing that a few times, I started to feel a bit more comfortable or maybe it was the numbness starting to set in? After about 10 mins of “blowing bubbles” in the water, my face and my hands started to get numb – I couldn’t feel them, but most of all, I couldn’t feel the “cold” water anymore – this was actually the best thing that could have happened. The fact that the cold water wasn’t bothering me anymore allowed me to concentrate on other things…like trying to swim! So I took a few strokes and was actually able to breathe properly without gulping in air as I had done in my previous open water swims. As unbelievable as it may sound, (dare I say) I was actually getting pretty comfortable in the ocean! The coach then told me to try to take 12 strokes – so I did. Easy peasy. Then, 14 strokes. Piece of cake. Then, 16 strokes. Even better, how about 22 strokes! I then went from 22 strokes to 28, then from 28 to 33, then 33 to 38 strokes. After about 3 sets of 38 strokes, I had made it to one end – and boy, was I exhausted! Now I just had to swim back...but that wasn't too bad. Even though I was exhausted, I was still able to stay calm and with the help of my coach, make it back to the other end without too many issues. Although the “forces” no longer against me, there was a new issue – swimming efficiently. I definitely have a lot of work to do when it comes to swimming efficiently – but I'll worry about that later...the fact that I swam in the ocean, could breath properly, didn't have a bloated stomach that made me want to burp with every stroke, and was able to keep both contacts in my eyes -- I would say that this swim attempt was a success!
It was a good day =)

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Danette's Open Water Swim tally:

* Swim attempt #1 = failed...miserably...
* Swim attempt #2 = getting there...
* Swim attempt #3 = success...finally! =) Woohoo!