… to steal a line from one of the greatest albums of all time… The Clash, London Calling! But in this case it’s giving notice that “it’s safe to go back in the water!” (okay, that’s the last cliche line, I promise!).
I have to say that the first week we had good attendance (36 swimmers), but only because they didn’t know how cold it was (48F!)… and the second week the attendance fell off (16 swimmers) because it was still pretty chilly (52F)… and although I wouldn’t have said so at the time, I wasn’t holding out much hope for this week either, as the weather still seemed to be crap and the Lake wasn’t warming up. But I was wrong.
It was still only 56F, which granted is pretty chilly if you are swimming “naked”… but it is very comfortable in a wetsuit! And it seems like the collective intuition of the group knew this because we had another good turnout of 36 swimmers!
It didn’t hurt that it was a beautiful morning, sunny and not a ripple on the Lake. And when I started doing the pre-swim announcements there didn’t seem to be too many there… but they just kept rolling in!
It seems like we’ve got the band back together too! Mel had the registration down to a science… and it was great to see Elizabeth back manning her clipboard for the check in/check out… it was nice to have Mike and his kayak back too… and speaking of kayakers, we came up with one great improvement to help out the kayakers, we’ve added buoy’s to mark the course this year… and it worked great!
The idea for a circular course for the buoy’s (as opposed to the “out and back along the shore” route) was for safety reasons. Last year we had as many as 85 swimmers out and it was very hard for the kayakers to man that kind of distance effectively, so this makes things a little more compact (but far from tight!) and more managable. The added bonus that numerous people said they loved was that it gave them practice at sighting! Which is a VERY useful skill for triathlons and open water swimming!
I’ll give credit for the idea to Alex and Joe… but putting the words into motion was Kayaker Bill! He came up with the great idea of putting exercise balls in mesh soccer bags tied with a rope to a weight… brilliant! (and cheap, we always like to be cheap so we can keep the costs as low as possible to make this as inclusive as possible!) Atta go, Billie! Also a big thanks to newbie, Laura, and everyone’s favorite coffee man, Brett… both of whom came down and manned a kayak so we were well taken care of!
As for the swimming… it was great. Of course, 56F / 13C, is still a bit chilly to get into… but after Bill had set up the triangular, 400m loop, we all took off and swam it. I was thinking that might be enough for most people, due to the cold. But you know what… by the time you got around on lap… it was fine. Most people did 2 laps… and lots did 3! You could tell at the end of each lap that it wasn’t that cold… because people were standing around in the water chatting and socializing… and let me tell you… nobody was doing that when it was 48F or even 52F!!!
The distance was nothing to write home about, but it was more about having our first “swim-able” day! We’re back in business!
So hopefully we’ll see a bunch of you out this weekend… it seems to be warming up by about 4F per week, so that should put us around 60F this weekend, but even if it doesn’t… 56F was fine. We’ll do some experimenting with the buoys too and keep setting them larger until we find that happy medium.
PS. I’m away this weekend doing the Half Ironman at Mt Tremblant with Joanne and a few of the gang from TCOB… and it ain’t going to be pretty… training has been a little lacks… I’ve only done 2 rides since IM Canada 20 months ago… 2 swims since swimming the Lake last summer… and I’ve been injured running… but I’m feelin’ pretty good about my transitions! So I’ve got that going for me. As David aptly put it…. “My money is on Joanne!” Just thought I’d get all my excuses out on the table beforehand!
Cheers,
Rob
