First Group Open Water Swim

Activating the core before the swim.

Yes I did mention that Triathlon training was pretty much over for the year however since I'm a regular volunteer with the TAG Tri-Group I have to do what they're doing:)...well to a point, I refuse to go into the pool. Today was the groups first open water swim and since most of these guys are newbs, most of them had never been in open water let alone the bay. Most of these guys are using their suits for the first time. Needless to say there was a lot of anxiety, hyper ventilating and zigzaging (not sighting properly). Sighting...how do I explain this, it's the practice of raising one's head and looking to make sure you're going where you need to be going. Easier said than done....you open water swimmers know. It was a fun morning. I swam out to the turnaround buoy and stayed there for the duration of the swim. They were doing loops, round and round, more instruction at the beach then round and round again. It was fun keeping an eye on them. My job was to spot those who might be having too much trouble and see if I can help them through the exercise. On my first open water swim I was one of those guys who hyper ventilated, could not put his head down in the water long enough to chain together a few good strokes and kept bumping into people because I was zigzagging through the course. It was in lake and while the group did 3-4 loops around the swimming area, I completed 1/2 of one loop before calling it a day. Fortunately none of these guys were as terrible as I was but there were several folks who were having a bit of a hard time relaxing in the water. Did my best to calm them down but ultimately they just need to keep hitting the bay until they feel more comfortable.

This was followed by an hour run where I chatted with the mid and back of the pack folks. The lead group was gone, fast suckers. These guys are great, nice easy going people and what's exciting is that they've started to gel as a group. New friendships have formed and some of them have started to hang out outside the workouts. Sweet, they are learning new skills, getting fit and making new friends. It's been great for me too. A good balance to the long solo miles of ultramarathon training.

After the workout a group of us went out for lunch and talked about things non-triathlon. A nice time.