Open Water Practice Mile

This morning Kristy and I got in the water to practice the mile that we will be doing in June. (Scott is also going to do the Flower Sea Swim but he kindly watched Arianna to let me swim.)

We've been swimming around 2000 meters three times a week but felt we needed to get in the water to see what it would be like doing the actual route and to get an idea of what we wanted our pace time to be.

Swimming out to get past the swim ropes

The water this morning was rocky (it may not look rough in the picture but the waves got bigger around the 3/4 mile mark and even small waves when you are in the water make a difference). We could feel the waves pushing and pulling us. There were a number of times when a wave washed over me as I was trying to breathe and it put a stop to my pace as I tried to calm the panic.

It took me 48 minutes total going at a very comfortable pace. I wasn't winded at the end so I could have gone faster. The biggest thing for me was getting the realization that I COULD make it to the end. At the beginning, when I was doing a swim along part of the coast I'd never swam before, I kept panicking because I couldn't tell where I was. Once I hit the beach that we started the 600M swim from, I did much better. Even though we have been doing 2000 meters in the pool (which is more than a mile), I just felt like the open water was different and the mental side got to me. I need to push myself more knowing that I will still have the energy at the end to make it or if something goes wrong I can always swim in to the shore.

My goal for the Flowers Sea Swim in 6 weeks is to cut 5 minutes off that time and come in at 43 minutes. That means, for training purposes, that I need to be doing each 100M at no slower than a 2:45 minute pace. I've actually been doing that in practices so it seems like I need to get a better fix on my panic in rocky water just in case we don't have smooth water the day of the race.