bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
75 degrees
Biked with STA over to open swim. Biking doesn’t seem overwhelming this year. I think it helps that I’m biking on very familiar trails and, that when STA and I are biking together, I go first. You would think it would be best to have the person with better sight first, but I’ve realized that when someone’s ahead of me, I can’t use my peripheral to spot upcoming obstacles/hazards–approaching bikers, potholes, etc. Biking first makes it much easier for me to use my remaining central vision.
swim: 3 miles/ 4 loops*
lake nokomis open swim
75 degrees/sunny
*the course was a little shorter today, so 1 loop did not equal a mile
I just realized that this is my first Sunday swim of the season. Wow. They didn’t have enough life guards so they left out the green buoys and shortened the course. Not a problem. It was a shorter course, but almost as wide. I loved being able to swim far from the orange buoys, and far from most other people.
things I noticed in the lake
- the little bubbles my hands made as they entered the water in front of me
- at least one dragonfly hovering above the water’s surface
- the air felt heavy and harder to inhale during this first loop, the water felt thick
- I listened to water lapping over my head and the word, “sloshing” came to mind, then the question: what’s another word for sloshing? splishing or splashing or flowing over or overflowing?
- at least one plane above me, taking off or coming in for a landing
- as is often the case, there is no standard route between a swimmer’s start at a beach and the first buoy. Often this leads to confusion and near misses. I almost ran into a few rogue swimmers. My rule: if the course is on the left, stay as far to the left as you can when heading to the first buoy. I am bothered that this doesn’t seem to make sense or matter to some other swimmers, and I am bothered that this bothers me
- Crowded–is Sunday the biggest day for open swim?
- As I neared the far right white buoy at the little beach–the one I like to swim around before I head back to the big beach, I could see the muck on it just below the surface. This muck didn’t look that different than what ends up on my skin, under my suit, after a long swim. Gross
- I stopped to go to the bathroom between loops 3 and 4. Many swimmers just pee in the lake as they’re swimming, especially if they have a wetsuit on (at least I think they do), but even if I wanted to–and there have been a few desperate times when I’ve really wanted to–I can’t. My body won’t do it. Is it just because I find peeing in the lake gross? Not sure. Anyway, it’s a big hassle to go to the bathroom. You have to get out of the water, walk several hundred yards to the bathrooms, possibly wait in line at the bathroom, pee, wash your hands, then walk all the way back. When I got back in the water and started to swim, everything felt strange. I was sore, but also more buoyant. Floating
- The water was smooth and there were no pockets of extra cold or extra warmth
- I think my safety buoy is leaking air which would explain why it feels more like I’m being weighed down then lifted up by it
- As is more often the case, my apple watch died mid swim. It’s old. I’m thinking of not getting a new one and trying to exercise without a watch. Not sure if this is a good or bad idea
Fog-thick morning/ Lorine Niedecker
Fog-thick morning—
I see only
where I now walk. I carry
my clarity
with me.
This poems doesn’t quite fit with the theme of water, but it’s how I feel when I’m swimming–in a fog or dream or daze, nothing clear or easy to see. I sight using my past knowledge of the course or my shoulders and the strong, straight, sure strokes they produce. My shoulders, I think, are my clarity.