July 25th & July 26th - Swimming with the sea lions...

July 25th - 30 mile bike ride in Marin

Sang every Pink Floyd song in my head as we rode 30 miles on our bikes this morning. It gets kind of boring when you do that long of a ride. It wasn't that hard of a ride today, but I was still pretty tired when it was done. I had an impulse buy after the ride and bought clips for my bike! I have to learn how to ride with them. This is the beginning of it getting tougher mentally.

July 26th - First day of ocean swim at Aquatic Park and Run

Met the team bright and early at Aquatic Park near the Marina in SF. I was dreading the cold water of the ocean, but it was nothing like the fear I felt once I did the swim. I actually wasn't worried about swimming in the ocean before we started, but after today I'm afraid I will have to mentally prepare for what's to come. The coaches chatted with the team for awhile this morning about safety and what to expect before getting in the water. They warned us that in the first 2-3 minutes of getting in the bay you will feel sharp pains in through your body from the cold and they warned us if our hands curl in a fist, it means we probably should get out. Basically, they named every scary thing that could happen...they even mentioned sharks! Ok, so I knew the bad stuff...but I thought it would be ok. The temperature today wasn't even as cool as normal...only 63 degrees...usually it's going to be around 50. It wasn't really the temperature that freaked me out once we dove in. It was the fact that you can't see anything in the water. I practiced sighting in the pool (focusing on one spot while swimming as to not swim all over the place in the ocean)....sadly all my practicing did not prepare me. I had a mini panic attack when I could barely swim without feeling like I was going to drown. I couldn't understand why the ocean was so hard to swim in vs. the pool. I'm a strong swimmer, yet I felt like a beginner. I figured out my problem pretty quickly though and started to make myself put my head in the water and swim like I was in the pool. I was using too much energy in the beginning with my sighting. It's still a lot slower to swim in a wet suit. We only swam aquatic park one lap today. It took us an hour to figure out just that! After the swim, we quickly threw on our shoes and went for a 50 minute run. The swim took a lot out of me, so I was in slow motion. I need a lot more practice with the ocean swimming. I'm worried once we do the tri their will be a ton of people in the ocean with us. I need to feel strong with this swim so I don't panic. Oh yea...their were sea lions in the water today. yep...apparently they are like dogs. You can do a stare down if they come too close. Lovely!