As most of you know there are several of us that are doing some marathon swimming this summer! It is going to be one of the busiest summers ever for Lake Ontario Crossings, with LOSTies making up 5 of the 7 swimmers that are attempting the Lake this summer! Incredible.
Well, needless to say that after a winter of a whole helluva lot of pool training we were all REALLY looking forward to getting out where you don’t have to do 400 turns to swim 10k!!!
So a few of us decided to try our luck at “group” marathon training… it’s harder than it sounds. It’s all about the logistics. Having enough boats to accommodate the various speeds and feedings… but it’s worth it… to have somebody to swim with is very nice. Marathon swimming is a very lonely sport, so just having a kayaker, boater or fellow swimmer there makes all the difference in the world!
The plan was that Francois (who drove all the way down from CFB Borden to swim with us!) Lynn, Michele and I would try to swim as a pack and Francois son, Pierre-Luc, would be our kayaker, spelled off by my son, Dylan. Well this open water swimming… nothing ever goes as planned.
To make a long story short… Pierre-Luc’s kayak was leaky and/or the waves were coming over and filling it up… which kinda freaked him out a bit… and justifiably so! Especially because it got rougher as the day went on… unlike yesterday! So Lynn and I swam on… Michele swam with Francois and Dylan and Pierre-Luc switched up. Problem was this caused delays and a bit of waiting around… in cold water… which took it’s toll on Michele, so she cut it a bit short… and then Lynn was feeling the lack of sunshine and the 58F water… and after an hour and a half we called it a day. Francois and I had to do a bit of “naked” swimming, so we left the girls and just did a quick out and back for a few hundred meters… just for a bit of cold water training, which was fine… neither of us were feeling the cold.
The net result was an hour and half in pretty cool water… in rough conditions. Good training.
Lynn and myself are doing the FKCC Swim Around Key West on June 16, so it was more important to get the distance and open water swimming in than worry too much about the cold water acclimatization… Key West water temp is going to be in the high 80’s! But Francois, Michele and I are all doing a Lake Ontario crossing in August, so we all got a bit of everything. It’s all good.
But the “tough guy of the day” award goes to Madhu! Alex kayaked for him and he swam naked for about an hour or so… not too shabby!
That brought it to 6 Lake Ontario aspirants swimming with LOST this weekend… me, Madhu, Colleen, Michele, Francios and Annaleise Carr. Annaleise came out on Saturday… unofficially… to swim with LOST, as she’s not 18… she’s actually 14 and trying to become the youngest swimmer ever to make it across Lake O! She looked strong. Go Annaleise!
And that doesn’t even count the other marathon swimmers that were out this weekend that are doing Key West… like Lynn, Bud and Art (and Art’s friend, who’s name I’ve forgotten! oops.)
Anyway, a good practice weekend for all!
Cheers,
Rob