I often find that everyone is keen in the spring… but the water is cold… and then in the fall the water warms up… but interest is waning.
But I was proven wrong yesterday, or at least half-wrong! It did finally warm up… it was 69F/20C, (just like I knew it would be!)… but I was happy to be proven wrong about interest… we still had a great turn out… there was still 56 LOSTies out for one of the nicest swims of the year! Cool to see that there was even a half a dozen newbies who were just joining us for the first time!
The warm water gave us one less thing to worry about. But naturally, Lake O wasn’t going to let us off the hook entirely… it was still pretty rough. Not as rough as it was once or twice earlier this year, but still pretty choppy. And as I explained to everyone, this was an “opportunity” to practice swimming in fairly rough water. The wave lengths from crest to crest were probably around 30 feet, which is nice long wave lengths. As I always say, waves are fine to swim in… it’s the “chop” that sucks. And there was a bit of chop too.
Chop is all the little “garbage” waves that are not at all predictable and can hit you from either side at any time. Chop is what can make it hard to breath and interrupt your stroke too. And there was a bit of chop, as well as the decent sized waves.
But in the end, it doesn’t really matter. You get what you get, with open water swimming. So this was just a chance to swim in wavy, choppy and warm water. And it really was nice. And we probably had one of our biggest turn outs for LOST Coffee too!
For me this is a really nice way to start a Saturday and the weekend. Drag my butt out of bed, not always willingly, roll down to the Lake, have a nice dip with some friends and go for coffee and a few laughs after. And when there are 50 of us, so much the better!
See you all at the Pier to Pier Swim with the TCoB gang tomorrow!
And in case you were wondering when LOST Swimming ends… I don’t know… we aren’t on a schedule, we go as long as the Lake will let us… which, judging by this means we still have a few more weeks!
Cheers,
Rob