Thursday, April 25, 2013

Reality Check

I swam with Karen for a half hour this morning, then with the full group for an hour around noon. I quickly discovered I am at the back of the bus with this group. There is one guy who is about my speed and he just got into swimming last year as a way to lose weight, so this has been a humbling sort of day.


Ocean swimming is monsterously exhausting. It makes swimming in a pool seem like gliding along on roller skates. Instead of swimming, I feel like I'm in combat with the waves, each stroke a punch through the water that's crashing over me.

The cold is a challenge, but I find the effort to swim in the waves and the nauseating discomfort of swallowing seawater to be the worst. And, being at the tail end --  way behind the pack is disheartening.

We had a nice lunch after the noon swim, then had another swim. I just didn't feel up to getting back into the cold water, but I did it. I swam about 20 minutes and did some breaststroke to see where everyone was. I was way out from the beach and couldn't see anyone near me. I felt pretty gross with food and saltwater in my gut and decided to swim to shore. It took for freaking ever. I was glad to see my slow buddy Gregg also came to shore. I didn't see him in the water, but we must have been close together. I have no idea where Anne was. She was probably nearby, but when I couldn't see anyone, it made me nervous.


With such a crazy ambitious goal, I should be in the water swimming every minute I can. I feel a little discouraged for bailing out of the last swim after a half hour, but it IS my first day of ever really swimming in the ocean. I'll push it more tomorrow.

1 comment:

  1. You're going to be fine Molly. You just totally stepped up your game. If you had an ocean to practice in you'd be just as fast. Hang tough and blog day two.

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