WB DIY Training Camp Day 3
Well, I’ve been here 3 days and:
- My iWatch is no longer functioning
- My super duper sunscreen is running out
- My buoy broke
- My 10-year-old Body Glide does not seem up to the job
Luckily, I’m great at takin’ lemons and makin’ lemonade. I must admit, I’m having trouble seeing an upside to my watch biting the dust, especially since it means that I won’t be able to track the rest of my swims (except for time and stroke rate with my Form goggles). I’m bummed that I lost all of the data from yesterday’s 5-hour swim, especially since we were booking through the channel. I think I might have gone as fast as the last time I did Swim the Loop. (When I was also, admittedly, woefully undertrained.) To do that at the beginning of a 5 hour swim – well, let’s just say I’d like to have seen the numbers.
On the other hand, the sunscreen is a solvable problem, and will ensure that I check my supplies before leaving home next time. The buoy will make me double up on things like buoys, earplugs, etc. on long trips. And as for the Body Glide… F*** Body Glide, vaseline kicks a**! The more you know.
I’m getting tired and loopy (if you can’t tell), so I’ll keep it short – I did two swims today – about 1 h 45 for the first and about 1 h 15 of recovery swimming for the second. Ocean was about 57 degrees today, and the wind was just brutal. Swimming south was like being on an ocean treadmill. And I definitely got tired and cold (and a bit grumpy after getting hit hard in the shoulder by a big wave during the first swim while trying to figure out what we were doing). But that’s 8 hours of swimming in 36 hours – I’ll take it!
I scared some birds giggling at the thoughts I was thinking, so I can’t have been in too bad of shape 🙂
I’m keeping a running tally of my time and yardage as I go. I’ve decided (since my watch broke) that I will guestimate 1000 yards for every 15 minutes of swimming. That’s a 1:30/100 average pace and that was what my watch said I had held 4 hours into a 5 hour swim. So it seems reasonable to assume that I’m not going to average any slower than that. So:
51 / 2700
5 h 10 / 20,000 – 6 h / 22700
1 h 45 / 5000 – 7 h 45 / 27700
1 h 15 / 4000 – 9 h / 31700
