Yup, the water started this year at 47F… then 53F… and on Saturday it was 58F!
(ok, I rounded up a little on Saturday to 60F, a bit of a psychological boost, if you will!)
No more waiting, it is very swim-able now… and only going to get warmer! (well, okay, except for the occasional “roll-over”, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it!). And this was no polar-bear dip… most swimmers were in there for 30-45 minutes! Well done!
Oh, and no more waiting for this years’ edition of the famous LOST Swimming cap! They are in… so come out and pick your’s up, included in your registration! (replacements only $5, even though they are really nice silicone ones!). Check them out!
Anyway, we had a great swim on Saturday! The stats: 58F/14C… 85 swimmers! It was only 2 years ago when we used to try and “beat the ratio”. And by that I mean, we thought it was pretty exceptional if we had more people than degrees. ie) 58F vs 59 swimmers, was pretty amazing. Now it’s not even close! We’ve had 82, 79, 85 swimmers so far this year… unfortunately I don’t see the water temp making this much of a challenge anymore… unless global warming becomes pretty dramatic! haha.
As I usually say, we get about 8 out of 10 days where the water is amazingly flat and calm. And we’ve had 3 in a row. It was again beautiful flat water, on a sunny and warm day. What a way to start the day and the weekend!
It was so flat that even the flat-water rowers were able to get out of the creek and hit the real open water. At the end of the swim we saw them streaking by! Amazingly fast.
We tried something different this week too, we had a mass triathlon start! Just for practice. It didn’t work that well because the water was still a little chilly to just be sitting there waiting for the start. We’ll try it again when the water is warmer. Just a good skill for the triathletes in the group to practice in a non-stressful situation.
If you missed the post last week about “having some anxiety” while swimming, give it a read. I got some good feedback on it. A pretty common issue for swimmers new to open water swimming.
This week I saw a good question on the LOST Facebook page about being “dizzy” after the swim last week. I’m glad when people ask questions, because it makes me feel smart! haha. Only because after the many years of open water swimming I’ve done everything wrong at some point and if I can save you having to do it wrong, then it’s a short-cut for you… and makes me feel like at least I can salvage something from my mistakes!
So the answer to why you might have been dizzy after last weeks’ swim is: because it was cold. The cold water on your eardrum can make you dizzy. And there are really only 2 ways that I know of to deal with that.
1) earplugs – I’ve broken my eardrums over 15 times each (I stopped counting), so they break pretty easily now. So I always have to wear them. The benefit is that they actually keep you warm and prevent dizziness. You can use whatever works for you. Inexpensive silicone ones from the drugstore or the $100 custom made ones I have, from a hearing clinic at Maple Grove Plaza in Oakville, or lots of other places.
2) you get used to it – lots of people don’t use earplugs… because they don’t need them or only swim in water cold enough occasionally and even then rarely feel dizzy. But if your body doesn’t get used to it eventually then try earplugs.
That’s about it for this week… see you in the Lake!
Cheers,
Rob
Can we just buy a cap for $5? 😉
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