Longest swim ever

I got my volume in this week by not swimming much - just 45 minutes on Friday outside, no pool swimming. So I needed to get a big swim done yesterday.

I met my friend Su at 6:45 a.m. for a 90-minute planned swim. The water is still freezing - okay fine, 63 degrees - but it was a gorgeous morning with the sun rising over the lake. It was good to be outside.

We swim buoy-to-buoy between these four buoys about 75 yards off the shore. It's been measured with a GPS device under someone's swim cap, and also on Google Maps, because you can see the buoys in the satellite photos of the lake - and people believe that if you swim eight laps of the buoys plus the out-and-back part to get to the first buoy, it's 2.4 miles. The Ironman swim distance.

I figured in 90 minutes, I should be swimming the full Ironman distance. So I started out thinking, just eight laps. It's not so bad.

The first three were over pretty quickly; I've been doing three each time I swam outside this year, and last year three laps was my most-frequently-swum distance in the lake. The fourth lap brought me halfway done - it was like 47 minutes in, so my timing was pretty good.

But then boredom set in. I think swimming is so mental - there's no one to talk to, not much to look at, and it's just you and your thoughts and your rhythm. Sometimes I think about work or my family or stuff going on outside of training. Sometimes I imagine the rest of the race: what it would be like to exit the water, head to T1, etc. And sometimes, I just count strokes. Counting strokes is especially effective if I am bilaterally breathing.

So once I got to five laps, I realized it was the longest swim I'd ever done in open water. Everything on top of that was extra, right? I started thinking about quitting. But then I remembered what Gordo Bryn said: "You can always quit later." It takes me about 12 minutes to do a lap; so when I finished six, I said, "Well, what's 12 minutes more? After all, I have to stay in the water for Su. I can do 7 laps."

And when I got to seven - the clock read 1:21 - I said, "Well, I have to swim 8 for my Ironman distance. And I have to stay in the water for nine more minutes anyway. Guess I'll finish it out."

Rounding the last buoy on my way back to the first, then back to shore, felt amazing. No pain, no tiredness, and finally the boredom had slipped away. I didn't stop to check my watch at the first buoy; just turned and headed in to shore. When I did stand up at the edge of the water, my watch read 1:34.

I forgot to note this yesterday, but I started wearing earplugs, and it's made all the difference in my ability to bilaterally breathe in open water and my lack of dizzyness on exiting the water. I'd never worn them before, but they're really effective, and not all that uncomfortable. So I might end up wearing them for the race. I did, however, get the post-swim runny nose for the next four hours, which I hate. And I woke up this morning with a runny nose, so I might be getting sick. Yuck.

And in other news that's relevant to my new life as a not-fat person, I went shopping yesterday and got a ton of cute new things - all from the teenager department of Macy's, because I'm a dork and shopping where "adults" buy their clothes kinda freaks me out now. One of the things was a ridiculous prom-type dress (knee-length). I didn't even try it on - I was paying for my other purchases, and I saw this pink and black lace thing tossed on a counter. I asked John to go pick it up so I could see what it was, and I could just tell it would a) fit me perfectly and b) look great. So I got that, too. Now I just need an occasion to wear it...