Yogi's first swim

This weekend was the 2nd race in the Triangle Open Water Mile Series - the Jordan Lake Open Water Challenge. While wetsuits were allowed yet again (grumble, grumble), the "naked" DAMA swimmers put up an excellent showing. Out of the 125 swimmers, I was first overall female, Heidi Williams was 2nd overall female, Sarah Todd got 3rd in the 25-29 age group, Derek Parr got 2nd in the 35-39 age group, Matt Davis got 3rd in the 35-39 age group, and Gretchen Van de Carr got 3rd in the 50-54 age group!

The real hit was Yogi, who came along to go for his first swim.

Its awfully early for a field trip...

Sand! It's like dirt, only tastier

You get in first, dad.
I already swam today. You get in, Yogi.
No, I'm just a puppy. You get in.
Your brain is the size of a walnut. Therefore you have to listen to me. You get in.

I'd rather eat more sand

Yogi swim for a minute or so, before he got out and returned to his adoring fans on the beach.

For us swimmers, there are certain disadvantages to swims run by triathlon rules (wetsuit rules, extra fees for USAT insurance), but I am finding that there are advantages too. Namely, they are run more smoothly than a lot of swimmer-run races. With the help of chip timing, results were accurate, awards were prompt, and official results were posted online that very day!

Compare this to the Masters NC state open water championships, held last weekend. Nearly all of us had some gripe or another (or 2 or 3 gripes) with the results. As for me, a whopping 30 minutes was added to my 5K time when results were posted. Our coach Andrea is very organized and sent a list of our grumbles to the race directors. She sent the following:

1) Joseph Caruth was not registered, did not pay and did not swim in the 800m. He is currently listed as NS.

2) Heidi Williams age is listed as 46 but she is actually 40, her DOB is 03-21-69

3) The five minute delay was not yet subtracted from the results posted.

4) Matthew Davis (DAMA) 36 is listed as David Mathew in the results. He also swam in the 800m and finished the first Masters men but was not listed. His time was approx. 9:15, he paid 15$ and added this event at registration. He was the first male Master's and received a medal that day.

5)" DAMA" stands for Durham Area Masters Aquatics, in the team scores we are listed as Durham Aquatic Masters.

6) Roerden, Jeffrey is not on our team, yet is listed in the results as DAMA.

7) Tommerdahl, Kathy is not on our team either, yet is listed as DAMA.

8) Mary Anna Hovey 66 is actually on our team yet is listed as unattached.

9) Mark Medendorp 31 is also on our team yet is listed as unattached.

10) Our team relay was not included in the results yet we paid 20$ in cash to Andrea (short brown hair) and wrote our entry on a yellow legal pad with the names on it and gave it to her. There were no relay forms available for us to fill out.
Heidi Williams 5K
Mark Medendorp 3K
Kim Sarah Rice 2K
Matthew Davis 800m

11) Kim Sarah Rice finish time was 1:18 in the 5K yet is listed as 1:48. She was the first Masters female and received a medal after the race.
12) Erik Crankshaw finish time was 1:13 in the 5k yet is listed as 1:29:53. He was the first male Masters to finish and received a medal after the race.

13) Mark Savoldi 42 is on our team yet is listed as unattached.


Yes, even with his walnut brain, Yogi could have done a better job with these results! For a championship race, this is disappointing to say the least.

My suggestion to the Triangle OW series organizers - why not put in a bid to run the USMS championships next year? We know you would do a better job!!!

Week 22:
With the Swim Around Key West next week, I've been cutting down my yardage a bit. To not lose any aerobic fitness, I've been trying to walk and run more.

Mon: swim 3800 yds
Tues: swim 3700 walk 4 mi
Wed: stormed out of practice; run 5 mi
Thurs: swim 8,000
Fri: swim 3300
Sat: walk 5 mi
Sun: swim 3500, walk 3 mi
Total: swim 22,300; walk/run 17 mi

Not swimming related - but Yogi is just so damn cute. Here are more pics:

Oops, I did it again...

Last weekend ended with me fizzled out and run down. I wasn't sure why until on Sunday night, when I started coming down with a nasty virus. I felt terrible and didn't swim for 3 days. On Thursday, I started to perk up, so I decided to ease back into the pool. I was coughing up hail-sized phlem, but a funny thing happened - my arms felt great! Three days of laying around sick left my muscles feeling tapered. I glided through the water without the usual fatigue and muscle knots that accompany weeks of heavy yardage. I was excited about racing the Low Country Splash on Saturday where I hoped to take advantage of my unplanned taper!

The race was 2.4 mi down the Cooper River, in the Charleston Harbor. We would start at Hobcaw Yacht Club, swim along the Mount Pleasant shoreline, continue under the New Cooper River Bridge to pass the USS Yorktown Aircraft Carrier, finally finishing at the Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Center. The race is always fun because there are a lot of competitors (over 450) and there is a very strong current assist. What's even better is that they have kegs of beer for us at the finish!

It was a mass start, and with so many people I knew that I needed to start out fast so that I could break away from the crowd quickly. The gun went off and I broke into a sprint. With the current behind me, I was cruising! My arms felt great and I decided to try to maintain the pace for the whole race. Woohoo! Before I knew it, there weren't many feet ahead of me. I kept swimming farther and farther down the Cooper River, building up speed.

The New Cooper River Bridge was getting larger. I sighted to the right of the midpoint of the bridge, right between the 3rd and 4th piling, like thought I remembered from the prerace meeting.

I kept swimming and soon there was no one in front of me. In fact, there was no one behind or next to me either. Where was everyone? I started getting nervous. There were some very fast age group swimmers there and it made no sense for me to be so far ahead of the pack. Boats were going by and the wake hit me - hard. The boats felt close. What was going on?

It was then that one of the safety officials kayaked up to me. I was swimming into the shipping lane - WAY off course. I needed to swim to the left of the midpoint of the bridge, between the 1st and 2nd pilings, not the 3rd and 4th. I wasn't swimming alone because I was ahead of the pack - I was alone because I was to the RIGHT of the pack. I looked over to the race course and felt like crying. I was swimming so hard, sprinting the entire way, but it was for nothing. I was going the wrong way!

I felt like giving up, slowing down, and resigning myself to finish somewhere in the middle of the pack. How could I possibly do well now? Still, I swam back to the course, trying to maintain my pace. I joined the nearest pack and found that they were holding a quick pace. I guess I wasn't that far behind after all! I dug deep, trying to catch up to the frontrunners as much as I could.

Before I knew it, I was passing the aircraft carrier and rounding the finish. I ended up finishing 7th out of the women and 1st in my age group. I was happy with my swim pace and how I placed, but I was disappointed with how lost I got, yet again. When was I going to learn? Now I'm just thankful that I will have a guide boat for both the Swim Around Key West and more importantly for the English Channel.

Another issue had me and the rest of DAMA grumbling. Since this spring has been unusually cold and the race day water temperature was in the low 70s, the race director decided at the last minute to allow the use of wetsuits. Wetsuits are illegal in all races sanctioned by all major swimming bodies - USA Swimming, US Masters swimming, and FINA - because they provide a tremendous buoyancy advantage and can make swimmers up to 15% faster. However, triathletes like buying expensive workout gadgets so they have different rules. Wetsuits are allowed in triathlons under a certain temperature. The Low Country Splash was not sanctioned by any swimming body, so race officials could do whatever they wanted regarding wetsuits. The water was 72 degrees - hardly a cause for hypothermia concern - but they decided to allow wetsuits anyway, citing safetly concerns.

Most open water swimmers, like myself, are very pleased that more triathletes and beginner swimmers are participating in our sport. However, we are wary of "watering down" the rules, so to speak. Environmental elements, temperature, and navigation are all challenges that separate open water swimming from pool swimming. When wetsuits are legalized, you practically have to wear one to stay competitive. However, that's not a purchase that most of us want to make. If race directors want to legalize wetsuits to accomodate more swimmers, they should do so, but score these swimmers in a separate awards category. That way, those who don't want to shell out hundreds of dollars on a wetsuit and those who want to adhere to stricter, "purer" swimming standards would not be penalized.

Our Charleston trip was short but very fun. Here are some pictures:

Me with Heidi Williams, another age group winner, at the Battery.

A trip to the dungeon, which withstood both the Revolutionary War and the Civ - er- the War of Northern Aggression.

Week 20:
Mon: rest - sick
Tues: walk 5 mi
Wed: rest - sick
Thurs: swim 5100 yds
Fri: swim 2000
Sat: swim about 4000
Sun: swim 4000
Total: swim 15,200; walk 5 mi

Feeling better

First and foremost, the pug is feeling much better! After 2 weeks on his special diet he is no longer scratching and his hair is growing back! Sneakers is adapting nicely to his new food (I think he realizes that ounce for ounce, he has the most expensive dinner in the house.) An added bonus - Sneakers no longer has crusty buildup in his wrinkles. We used to call him crusty old man (because of his face, and because he loves staring at naked people in the shower, but that's a story for another day). Now the nickname only halfway applies!



Daisydoo is also raking in the benefits of Sneaker's new lifestyle. She is getting his old, weight maintenance dog food (the one he can't eat anymore because of his allergies). Because Daisy needs higher calorie food, we have been mixing the dog food with Jason's homemade chicken stew (which to us was a culinary experiment gone bad, but to Daisy is a delicacy).

I have been feeling much better too. I am getting used to the increased yardage and am no longer so on and off at practice. My 10,000 yard long swim on Friday felt like a sprint!

First Open Water Swim of the Year

Today, Jason and I ventured out to do our first open water swim of the year. It's early in the season so we thought it might be a little cold, but it was a sunny day and we were feeling dizzy from doing so many laps in the pool. We decided to try out Beaver Dam, since we had never been there before and we have a race there in a few weeks. What's nice about the lake is that is it closed to gasoline powered boats so it is very safe for swimmers.

I told Jason that I didn't want to swim if the water was below 60 degrees because I thought it would be unsafe, since we had not yet begun to acclimate to the cold. He readily agreed. We took out our trusty ducky thermometer...

And it read a toasty 70 degrees - bathwater by channel standards!

Of course, if we had 2 ounces of brains between us, we would have realized that it would be much colder in the middle of the lake that in the ankle deep water by the shore (we found out later that the temperature in the deeper parts of the lake was 65). But of course if we had that much brains our lives would be much less interesting.

It was COLD! Initially Jason stopped me every five minutes to make sure I was lucid. Eventually we got used to it, warmed up, and lasted for about 3 miles. Clearly I have a long way to go to adapt to the cold!

Week 13:
Mon: swim 4300 yds, 40 min abs
Tues: swim 5700
Wed: swim 4800, run 5 mi
Thurs: swim 5400
Fri: swim 10,000
Sat: run 5 mi
Sun: swim 4800, 30 min abs
Total: swim 35,000 yards, run 10 mi, 70 min abs