So, in our Puerto Rican holiday madness pretty much everything was closed the day after Christmas. My training schedule had a very nice swim workout but there was no pool for today as it was closed. I knew this would be the case a few days ago, so I planned an open water swim. Mind you, open water swimming and I are not BFFs... To be honest we've been warming up a to each other... a little.
Anyway, I decided to go for a swim in the lagoon, which is where we will swim the swim portion of the Ironman 70.3 San Juan. I thought since the pool was going to be closed, a few friends would join me for this swim... WRONG! I guess after all the rum, coquito, partying and eating during Christmas day people wanted to rest. whoopsie.
Here is where things get quite amusing, except for the only swimmer who decided he wanted to join this "good swimmer" (according to him) . Dude has been a swimmer all his life. So he is not your typical non swimming lover triathlete.
We get to the lagoon and I thought we were going to enter the water on the little "beach" spot that I am failiar with and feel kinda ok with. NO... he decided to enter the water through the dock area the hotel uses for the paddle boards and pedal boats. Thing is... it's full of nasty weeds!!!!!!!! So we hadn't even started and I already wanted to leave! haha . My heart was racing. And as he was trying to convince e that the area he was using to get in the water was ok. Weeds and all. He made sure to put his silver, shining ID tag inside his trisuit. I decided to avoid the weeds by jumping on a 2'x2' space that I spotted. And started swimming right away!
We were swimming towards a little white buoy that was about 800 meters away if we swam in a straight line. We got there with just one quick stop to make sure everything was ok. Oh, because I told the poor man "do NOT swim away from me". About 20 times. No joke. We kept going and about 200m away from the buoy.... I swam into a huge patch of floating algae... I stopped. Tried to remain calm. Started swimming again. Stopped again because I could not get over the freaking algae tangled in my hands. Breathe. Brave on. Start swimming. Got to buoy. My friend asked if I was ok. I was... alive.
He then decides to swim to the bridge and swim under the bridge to cross the way we would if it was race day. NO way... I said please man. easy does it. Another day... Let's just swim to where the race would start and we agreed. Started swimming and although I'm swimming pretty fast and fitness is good, my right shoulder, the one I broke, still gets tired and achy after a while and it seems because of the extra buoyancy or something, I found myself over compensating much. Thing is I started falling behind. Not much, but I wasn't smacking his feet, just following his bubbles. I did NOT like this. The feeling of being in this huge lagoon with no one close was driving me crazy. He WAS CLOSE, but since I knew I was drafting, and my arm was tired, I didn't know for how long I'd b able to hold on to the draft. And he wouldn't even notice, or so I thought. I stopped a LOT. Fear was really getting to me.
Took a few deep breaths and started swimming. Could not help but to swim FAST... until I got to a spot where it was so shallow that I thought my arms and body were going to touch the weeds and rocks (yes, the place where animals hide) . Stopped. COULD NOT GET MYSELF TO SWIM. Rolled on my back, trying to think of how I was going to get out of that spot. um. DUH! There is just one freaking way. Swimming! I rolled again on my tummy and tried to swim, one stroke. NO! I Couldn't reaking get myself to swim. ROlled on my back and tried to swim backstroke. Oh wait, I don't even know how to swim like that! So there I was, doing some sort of snow angel like movement. Not really moving much. Until my friend finally noticed I was "trapped" (inside my mind of course) and came to my rescue. He guided me to a spot where it was deeper and I could swim. By then I was emotionally distraught and all I wanted was to get out of the damn lagoon.
After a gazillion stops we got to the small beautiful, beach like area where the IM San Juan starts. I wanted to get out and walk to the hotel area but had no shoes and there are all kind of glass and stuff that could ruin our feet. So we had to exit using the same spot we did to start the swim. I was freaking out, so my poor swimming partner decided to show me that if I stayed close to the Mangroves, it was all soft sand and i could just walk. I did so until we were about to get out of the water and then.... WEEDS! AND ROCKS!!! ARRgghhhh He had to come back to me and literally give me a hand to convince me to get closer. He shook his head and said "girl we need to do something. You are such a good swimmer and yet are so scared of the water"
I was mortified because as much as I wanted to get the hell out of water, today was a day of swallowing my pride BIG time. Mind you I almost never complain in the water. And then.... he says oh, stay still and look!!! I froze ... and then we saw a baby of one of this "cute" creatures. A FREAKING BARRACUDA!!! Remember I mentioned he made sure to put his pleated ID tag inside his tri suit? He did so because he's seen them before and he knows they go after things that sparkle because the fishies they eat are kind of silver looking.
Anyway, I decided to go for a swim in the lagoon, which is where we will swim the swim portion of the Ironman 70.3 San Juan. I thought since the pool was going to be closed, a few friends would join me for this swim... WRONG! I guess after all the rum, coquito, partying and eating during Christmas day people wanted to rest. whoopsie.
Here is where things get quite amusing, except for the only swimmer who decided he wanted to join this "good swimmer" (according to him) . Dude has been a swimmer all his life. So he is not your typical non swimming lover triathlete.
We get to the lagoon and I thought we were going to enter the water on the little "beach" spot that I am failiar with and feel kinda ok with. NO... he decided to enter the water through the dock area the hotel uses for the paddle boards and pedal boats. Thing is... it's full of nasty weeds!!!!!!!! So we hadn't even started and I already wanted to leave! haha . My heart was racing. And as he was trying to convince e that the area he was using to get in the water was ok. Weeds and all. He made sure to put his silver, shining ID tag inside his trisuit. I decided to avoid the weeds by jumping on a 2'x2' space that I spotted. And started swimming right away!
We were swimming towards a little white buoy that was about 800 meters away if we swam in a straight line. We got there with just one quick stop to make sure everything was ok. Oh, because I told the poor man "do NOT swim away from me". About 20 times. No joke. We kept going and about 200m away from the buoy.... I swam into a huge patch of floating algae... I stopped. Tried to remain calm. Started swimming again. Stopped again because I could not get over the freaking algae tangled in my hands. Breathe. Brave on. Start swimming. Got to buoy. My friend asked if I was ok. I was... alive.
He then decides to swim to the bridge and swim under the bridge to cross the way we would if it was race day. NO way... I said please man. easy does it. Another day... Let's just swim to where the race would start and we agreed. Started swimming and although I'm swimming pretty fast and fitness is good, my right shoulder, the one I broke, still gets tired and achy after a while and it seems because of the extra buoyancy or something, I found myself over compensating much. Thing is I started falling behind. Not much, but I wasn't smacking his feet, just following his bubbles. I did NOT like this. The feeling of being in this huge lagoon with no one close was driving me crazy. He WAS CLOSE, but since I knew I was drafting, and my arm was tired, I didn't know for how long I'd b able to hold on to the draft. And he wouldn't even notice, or so I thought. I stopped a LOT. Fear was really getting to me.
Took a few deep breaths and started swimming. Could not help but to swim FAST... until I got to a spot where it was so shallow that I thought my arms and body were going to touch the weeds and rocks (yes, the place where animals hide) . Stopped. COULD NOT GET MYSELF TO SWIM. Rolled on my back, trying to think of how I was going to get out of that spot. um. DUH! There is just one freaking way. Swimming! I rolled again on my tummy and tried to swim, one stroke. NO! I Couldn't reaking get myself to swim. ROlled on my back and tried to swim backstroke. Oh wait, I don't even know how to swim like that! So there I was, doing some sort of snow angel like movement. Not really moving much. Until my friend finally noticed I was "trapped" (inside my mind of course) and came to my rescue. He guided me to a spot where it was deeper and I could swim. By then I was emotionally distraught and all I wanted was to get out of the damn lagoon.
After a gazillion stops we got to the small beautiful, beach like area where the IM San Juan starts. I wanted to get out and walk to the hotel area but had no shoes and there are all kind of glass and stuff that could ruin our feet. So we had to exit using the same spot we did to start the swim. I was freaking out, so my poor swimming partner decided to show me that if I stayed close to the Mangroves, it was all soft sand and i could just walk. I did so until we were about to get out of the water and then.... WEEDS! AND ROCKS!!! ARRgghhhh He had to come back to me and literally give me a hand to convince me to get closer. He shook his head and said "girl we need to do something. You are such a good swimmer and yet are so scared of the water"
I was mortified because as much as I wanted to get the hell out of water, today was a day of swallowing my pride BIG time. Mind you I almost never complain in the water. And then.... he says oh, stay still and look!!! I froze ... and then we saw a baby of one of this "cute" creatures. A FREAKING BARRACUDA!!! Remember I mentioned he made sure to put his pleated ID tag inside his tri suit? He did so because he's seen them before and he knows they go after things that sparkle because the fishies they eat are kind of silver looking.
Pretty friendly creatures the ones that live in one of our playgrounds eh? After that I went running. It was a really SLOW and short run. But after today's swim? It doesn't matter. I'll take the slow, short, crappy run!!!!
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