The Tale of the First Falls Lake
An all-round fantastic Sunday morning swim. Lisa, Liz, Bill and I swam at the Beaverdam swim area at Falls Lake, and it was perfect. Easy to get to – I just took Edwards Mill the whole way, beautiful sunny weather, gorgeous scenery, great company, and the water was 64 degrees and I’ve still got it, baby!
For the last 10 years, the coldest water I’ve swum in was probably at one of the spring Jordan Lake races, low 70’s at the absolute lowest. So when I waded in today, it was the coldest water I’d been in for over 10 years. It may not feel like it’s been that long (it doesn’t), but I confess to a non-trivial amount of concern about how my (aging?) body would handle it.
The answer seems to be that it handles it just like it handled it a decade ago. If anything, I’ve been so hot lately that I actively welcome anything that is not sweltering. We got in and acclimated, swam to the right and back, and then Bill and I swam to the left and back (about 2 miles).
Here’s the map – I had not yet downloaded Strava to my watch, but I’m hoping for a non-dark map next time. (Right and left are switched from my facing-the-water-from-the-beach perspective)
Then I got out and stood in the 59 degree air. And felt awesome. And walked around. And still felt awesome. Forgot my flip flops down on the beach and went to get them. In nothing but a wet swimsuit. And still felt awesome. This is more than a little comforting.
I got changed and back into the (nice and toasty) car and drove home. I did chill down a bit as the blood in my outer parts reconnected with the blood in my inner parts, and I’m still a little cold as I write this. But all of that was normal for me in my days of frequently spending hours in 60 degree water, so I’m not concerned.
I am mentally checking “cold” off of my list of things to worry about for the Channel (1 down, 300 million to go). I’ll train it; I’ll continue to acclimate; it shouldn’t be a problem. Which is good, because swimming in a glass-calm lake only emphasized how much harder it was for me in the ocean last week. Much work to do there. (Hopefully the mulch was at least a factor. No more mulch – yay! So I’ll find out next week). I would also like to experience some cold AND dark in the not-to-distant future. I’ve done both, but never together, and we don’t want no surprises here.
Oh, almost forgot – tested drinking from a water bottle with carbo pro in a swim buoy while floating. I was able to drink out of it, but it was less than ideal. Liz made a good suggestion – camelback in swim buoy. I will try it next week.
[2020 Commentary – Tried it. Twice. The pressure of the inflated swim buoy forces the liquid out of the camelback. Que Sera.]
