The last time I put on my wetsuit was my first open water ocean swim a few weeks ago in Santa Monica. Ever since then it’s only been pool swims. TNT rented the Hansen Dam in the San Fernando Valley for the LA tri teams (Eastside, Westside, and IronTEAMs) to practice. For some, it was their first time in open water. Luckily I had a few open water swims under my belt (Long Beach, Desert Tri, and Santa Monica ocean), so I was somewhat comfortable now. I did have the initial jitters because of the put excitement of it all, but hey, that’s what practice is for.
The plan was to circle the man-made lake four times going counter clockwise around 4 buoys for a total of 2000 yards. The first lap, as expected, as very rough for me as I didn’t really get a good rhythm. I also think that my wetsuit wasn’t properly tucked in, so my shoulders felt a little tight. Second lap was a little better, getting the hang of things. Most of the time, I had to keep a fresh open mind and not let distractions get to me (like the rest of my teammates more than halfway around the lap ahead of me, water getting into my goggles, swimcap getting uncomfortable), and just go with it. Once I had all that out of my mind, the last two laps seemed to go by very quickly! Sure, I zigzagged a bit, but I was happy I finished! After the swim, we changed out to do a six miler, which wasn’t too bad. It got a little hot near the end, but nothing we can’t handle.
We ended practice with a nice potluck picnic, where each team brought a certain type of food. Our IronTEAM resident baker, Holly baked up a pretty awesome Wildflower Nasty Grade themed cake, pictured above. There, our coaches went over more Wildflower specifics because this was our last weekend practice before the event. It’s gametime (soon)!!