I have been keeping a log of how many miles I have swam, biked and ran by month over this past year. End of July and all of August has been rough due to work and remember I took a 2 week break from training to do crossfit to reset. Also remember that the fucking pools have been closed for 2 damn weeks so getting a swim in has been hard. When I added up my mileage for August it was super disappointing. I literally only swam 1.7 miles which equates to 1 time in the pool. ONE FREAKING SWIM IN A WHOLE MONTH? WTF???? I need to step up my game.

I purchased a whole bunch of open water swims but realized that I couldn’t use but a few of them due to scheduling issues. My last open water swim was this week and I need to accomplish two things:

  1. I needed to swim 2.4 miles in open water to know I can do it (there isn’t a doubt but if you have done it once than you know you can do it again). I have done this distance in a pool many times but never open water.
  2. I HAD to use my wet suit during this swim to make sure I could swim in it.

Swimming in my wet suit for this swim was important because I couldn’t wait until race day to swim in it for the first. I also couldn’t rely on pool swims to know what it feels like completely. I needed to know what it felt like and how I functioned in it in open water. Surprisingly (to me at least) I was consistent on all legs of the swim. I maintained the same speed throughout each leg which makes me happy. I was also only about 10 minutes slower than when I swam the distance in the pool which is refreshing to know.

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Luckily there was a tri coach at the swim so I was able to get a lot of good and useful info from her on my race. She kept going on about my wets suit. I bought my wet suit when I moved to Switzerland so it was a scuba suit vs a triathlon suit which means it is heavier duty and more durable. I also have zippers on my wrists and ankles which means easier removal.

After my swim I easily removed my wet suit and went straight to the water jug. I was super thirsty but surprisingly not super tired. That would come later. The next day I was soooooo sore in my shoulders but it was a good hurt.

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I accomplished something that needed to happen!! Louisville….I will see you in about 5 weeks!