At the moment it seems like everyone in my Santa Maria workout group has a race they’re tapering for, but no one seems to be getting ready for the same race. There’s various triathlons going on this coming weekend locally in Arroyo Grande and further away down in LA. Since the tapering triathletes made up the majority of the people in the water a short taper-tastic workout won out.
I did quite a bit of the workout with fins on today to try out a new pair in preparation for my support swim in the Catalina Channel next week. I figured I’d give them a shot since they have a good sized blade and are really stiff which gives you a lot of propulsion. If they turned out to be a total bust for swimming they’re really good for boogie boarding. They were definitely fast in the water, my 100′s were about 11-15 seconds faster with them than without, but they’re also heavy and a little rough on the feet. One of my swim buddies is an ocean lifeguard and he uses them. He says they’ll give you a free trip to blister city if you’re not careful. I used a little bodyglide on my feet to cut down on chaffing, but I think I’m going to have to find some neoprene booties to really protect my feet from becoming chewed up bloody messes.
200 swim
200 kick – fins
200 pull – fins
2 x 50 free – fins
6 x 100 free – 3 with fins 3 without
200 fly
50 easy
1450 yards total
You may notice that workout had a 200 fly in it… that may have been a modification that I made for myself :) It was supposed to be a 200 reverse IM but I figured since the workout was going to be so short I might as well throw something hard in it. I don’t think I’ve ever actually done a full 200 fly in a workout, normally I need the pressure of a swim meet to make me do one. I glad I decided to do that because now I know I can throw down a full 200 when my Summer of Fly series makes a comeback. Me and Mike got all the way up to 125 yards of fly and then our schedules made keeping it all up impossible. So now I guess it’s the half a year of fly… I’ll have to negotiate the rest of our races with him shortly.
Today was another hot one on the Central Coast so I was definitely looking forward to my ocean swim. I needed to cool off, and my upper arms are still kinda sore so some cold water on my muscles sounded like a fantastic idea. When I got to the beach it was just me, Niel and Ryan. Niel measured the water around 60 degrees and there was some motion out there in the ocean but nothing too crazy.
We decided to do the same route as last week… end of the right side of the buoy line to the top of the pier and then back the same way we came. I was ok with this because I didn’t really need or want a long swim. I’m still kind of in recovery mode. I need to keep moving, the momentum I have is good, but I don’t need to be a hero right now. My pace was mellow and steady… and well a little slow.
We started our swim on the left hand side of the pier and then swam under it once we were in line with the buoys. This turned out to be a little more death defying than usual. There was a pretty healthy swell moving through the water tonight and one caught us on the way through. Me and my non-neoprene covered torso narrowly avoided grinding against a piling, it took some evasive maneuvers on my part to make that happen! I don’t even want to know what it would do to me if I scraped bare skin against one of those things…
Once we had everyone gathered back up we shot down the buoy line and then angled up towards the top of the pier. Near the top we hit a major cold patch. It felt like the water dropped a full 4 or 5 degrees… not cool! Luckily the sun was out today which helps make the cold seem a little less cold.
After chilling out for a couple minutes we swam it back to the buoy down by the creek. This time we were moving largely in the same direction as the swell. Every so often while swimming you’d get pushed a little forward and a little to the side. The water conditions were interesting in that there was a fair amount of motion but it wasn’t all choppy so it was pretty easy to deal with.
We finished our swim by swimming back under the pier before turning in. This time I was much more careful and tried to time my crossing a little better. It was still a little dicey but I made it out unscathed. Later I found out Niel smacked his hand on the way through but didn’t do too much damage. On the way in I took advantage of the swells coming through and I caught a good one and body surfed it part of the way in.
Back on the beach we hit the outdoor showers and some little tourist kid that didn’t speak English boosted my towel. It took some doing to get her and her mom to understand that the towel with the USA Swim Foundation logo on it was not theirs. The kid was looking at me like a crazy person while I was point at her telling her “the towel… it’s mine… that thing right there… mine… me… give it.” I guess I would have the same reaction if some big dude with a bald head, tattoos and an adventure beard were pointing at me and speaking a language I didn’t understand. Eventually mom figured it out and reunited me with my towel. She was a little embarrassed and tried to apologize in english… that didn’t go so hot but I appreciated the attempt. The part I didn’t appreciate was having a wet towel to dry off with after a mile of floating around in the ocean, that kind of sucked. Oh well.
I meant to try my new fins out tonight but I decided against it mainly because I didn’t want to have a seal silhouette while the sun was on the way down. Maybe I’m being overly cautious, but it just seemed like a poor idea. I’ll break them in tomorrow in the pool and then find some time later this week or weekend to get them in salt water and see how they do there.
This afternoon was my first real swim since my 10 mile excursion down in La Jolla. I was a little worried with how it was all going to go down since I woke up really sore today. Like worse than Monday! Part of me was contemplating turning that long lunch break into a nap instead but it’s been so hot here the last couple days I couldn’t pass up a chance to go float in a pool. I figured worst case scenario I’d heavily modify the workout to involve floating on my back and evening out the tan on my front side :)
Much to my surprise I felt pretty good in the water! The shoulders are still tight, but we’re not grinding at the moment so life is good. I did add fins to a lot of the workout today but that wasn’t without purpose. Next week I’m going along on a Catalina swim to support someone who is planning to swim way faster than I can really manage unaided. He’s recommending we bring fins so I’m trying to get a little more used to swimming with them in advance of the crossing. Normally I wouldn’t want anything to do with fins in the ocean unless I’m on a boogie board, but it’s not my party… I’m out there for him so I’m on board with anything I can do to make his life easier.
200 swim
200 kick
200 swim w/ fins
Repeat x 2
150 kick w/ fins @3:00
100 kick w/ fins @2:00
50 kick w/ fins @1:00
Repeat x 4
100 IM @1:45
50 free @:45
200 swim w/ fins
2 x 100 swim w/ fins
4 x 50 swim w/ fins
2400 yards total
Seeing as temperatures have been creeping upwards of 100+ degrees again today I had no desire to leave the water, but I had plenty of work waiting for me at the office so it had to be done.
After work I ventured out to get myself a bonus pair of fins that are more speed focused than teaching you to swim better focused. I asked around on Twitter and ended up getting some Duck Feet. They’re pretty long and stiff so I’m thinking I’ll get some pretty healthy propulsion out of them. Worst case scenario I’ve got some better fins for boogie boarding now! Tomorrow I’m going to get out to Avila for a swim and I’m thinking I should probably do the swim in my new fins to try and get used to them in moving water.
Sunday involved a 10 mile swim and a 300 mile drive (through LA and Orange County so go ahead and count some of those miles twice), needless to say Monday morning didn’t feel so good. I felt like I had been run over by a truck so my original plan for today was go to work then go to bed. Early in the morning I got a text from my friend Dani wanting me to go boogie boarding with her. Although I was all about my original plan this sounded like an excellent idea… no real usage of my upper body and some cold water to soak my sore muscles. Plus it broke 100 degrees here and some time in 58 degree water sounded fantastic. I was in.
After work I jammed down to the beach and met up with Dani. We met up at the end of Grand Avenue in Grover Beach. Grover Beach is connected to Pismo Beach, but the beach is a little less crowded. I dropped a bag with my towel and keys on the beach and we took off for the water. I’d say it was 58-59 out there today. Frosty for sure but it felt really good after you got over the shock of it.
We had to float around and kick out for a while until we got somewhere that you could actually catch a wave. They were a little messy but occasionally you’d get something good mixed in. I managed to get in 3 or 4 really solid rides while we were in the water. I still need to learn how to do tricks and stuff. I can turn a little bit but most of the waves here aren’t big enough to do much of anything with.
After our little oceanic excursion I ran down to Santa Maria to hang out with my swim buddy Mike and talk about some ideas for some local swim action. It’s still in the just an idea phase but I think in a couple months I might have something exciting to report from it :)
I guess there's worse places to try and swim 10 miles :)
I was up at o’dark thirty this morning to swim the La Jolla Cove Swim Club 10 Mile Relay as a solo swimmer. Check in started at 6am and the sun was yet to make an appearance at that point. The air was already nice and warm, but I was hearing murmurs about how the water was cold. It turned out to be 61 which is the same as yesterday’s Malibu swim and just where I like it. The water was nice and calm throughout the morning, but it definitely got more lively as the day went on.
what the cove looked like when I showed up in the morning
I got my race numbers drawn on and picked up my goody bag then set up camp. I had my beach chair and a big bag of liquids and various gels and shotblock type things to keep me fueled during the race. While I was getting situated I ran into Dan from Indiana who I traded a few emails with recently. He swam a few of the same events as me this summer in the midwest but we hadn’t actually met face to face until this weekend. I got to talk to a few other people that recognized me from the blog or various corners of the internet, and then a little while later my long distance open water peer pressure buddy Bekah showed up. I’m the one that planted the seed about the 12.6 mile swim in October, and she’s the one that turned me onto this swim.
Bekah pre-race
As the sun came up it was getting closer to go time. I got myself good and greased up since I was anticipating like 5 hours in salt water. I use Bag Balm on these longer races at the suggestion of my friend Laura, it’s worked out pretty well for me so far. They called all the solo swimmers (maybe 12 of us?) and lead off relay swimmers down to the beach to get briefed on how the whole thing was going to go down. Basically we had a skinny triangle course that we had to do 10 laps of. Between each lap we had to get the attention of a counter to take our number and mark off the lap. Since we would be unescorted for the swim you had to come out and climb the stairs up to the park to feed. I planned on getting out every 2 miles to drink and eat something. Around mile 5 I started to eat a Gu packet on while standing in the surf on the odd numbered laps to keep my energy up.
At about 7 they got everyone that was swimming that first mile ready on the beach and cut us loose. I let the bulk of the pack take off first. I had 10 miles to deal with and didn’t want to get caught up in a bunch of people sprinting out just 1 mile. Maybe 10-15 seconds after the start I got to work. I took off a little faster than I felt like I should have, but the rhythm was ok so I just went with it. I didn’t really have any issues with roughness or contact with other swimmers save one person that grabbed a handful of my butt on the way to the first buoy. Not exactly what I was looking for but way better than a punch to the head or a breaststroke kick to the ribcage right? The path down to the the first buoy was totally obscured by glare from the rising sun. I couldn’t see anything out there. I just latched on to the pack of swimmers ahead of me and let them do the work. This sighting problem on that leg persisted probably 3 laps for me. After that I just knew where it was and the sighting was toned down quite a bit.
view of the buoy nearest to the beach
At mile 2 I got out and hustled up the stairs to go hydrate. I wasn’t a fan of having to run up the stairs, but it was nice to remove yourself from the water temporarily. I ate a handful of Gu Chomps thingies and downed half a bottle of Gatorade before I took back off for the water. I took a peek at the race clock on the way down and I was decently ahead of my projection for where I figured I should be at that point. That kind of excited me a little bit to think I was even going a little fast! I started to reassess some goals for the swim. Originally I was thinking I could do it in 5 hours flat but now 4:45 was looking a lot more reasonable.
staircase back to the sea
Through the middle of the race I got increasingly comfortable with the course and my stroke. My brain is usually pretty over active on long open water swims but this one provided lots of distraction. I was constantly getting coated in sea grass and having to figure out how to untangle myself. It kept sticking to my neck and armpits where I had applied the Bag Balm to keep from chaffing. Beyond that I could actually see fish on this swim! I know fish live in the ocean and whatnot but I’ve never seen one while doing an open water swim. The fish in the cove are pretty nonchalant about humans all up in their business. I saw various silver and blue fishes on the far end of the course, and bright orange Garibaldi signaled when I was almost back to the beach to start the next mile loop. Bekah said she even saw a little shark of some sort out there but I didn’t see anything that cool. I wanted to take some pictures of the fish while I was out there, but I’m pretty sure if I did anything not swim related while in the water I was going to cramp up and I wanted nothing to do with that!
At mile 6 I was all kinds of excited because my rough guesstimate 10k time for today totally blew my USMS 10k Champs time from Indiana out of the water! Back in July I figured I could knock out a 10k in 3 hours, but the hot water in Noblesville smoked me out and I came in around 3:23. Today I hit mile 6 around 2:40 which when you add in the other .2 miles would bring me in well under 3 hours. This proved my hypothesis that the colder the water and the more it’s moving the better I do :)
Each time coming into the beach was always interesting. As the day went on the surf and the swells got a little bigger, it was never “rough” but it got respectable, and it was hard to know what you were in for when you tried to land on the beach. Quite a few times I stopped just a little too short to put a foot down only to be tossed onto the beach by the next wave. Luckily I landed on my feet most of the time! At mile 8 I swam in too far and the ocean pushed me chest first through the sand. I kinda laughed to myself, stayed on my stomach and flashed my race number to the soloist counter.
Once I came back down the stairs from my feed at the end of mile 8 I was pretty stoked because I knew I was going to make it. Something really awful was going to have to happen to take me out of the game at this point. My arms were hurting and my shoulders were sore, but they weren’t going to give out in the next hour. Right before I got set to launch into mile 9 my friend Bekah floated down a wave to the beach. She was just about to embark on her last lap. We said a quick “hey what’s up” and then got back to finishing up this epically long swim. Mile 9 went down pretty smooth and I took a short break before taking on 10 to down a Gu packet I had stashed in my suit. The guy who was in charge of counting us came over and talked to me for a bit. He said I was looking really good out there and that I didn’t look cold at all. At this point I wasn’t cold and I wasn’t going to get cold, but interestingly I was much more sensitive to the changes in temperature out on the course. He asked me if I was a channel swimmer, and I had to smile and say no not yet sir but I’m working on it. I haven’t picked a channel or decided to swim one but I have a feeling one of these days it might have to happen :)
random shot of me in a chronologically inappropriate spot in the post!
Mile ten was a weird mix of smiling because I was accomplishing the biggest swim of my life and hurting because I was finishing the biggest swim of my life! When I started this year’s open water season my biggest swim was a 5k (3.1 miles), now I’m up to 10 with plans for a 12.6er! It’s amazing how far out of hand this whole open water distance swimming thing has gotten for me :) I felt great on the homestretch back to the beach to finish my race. When my feet hit sand I think I threw a hand up in the air in victory and got a bunch of high fives and handshakes on my way into the finish chute. I came in around 4 hours and 42 minutes which is awesome because it beat both my original goal and my midswim revised goal!
After the swim I hung out up in the park with some friends rehashing the event and trying to eat something. I couldn’t really do it though, my tongue was all weird feeling from the salt water and nothing tasted right. Eventually they did awards and as a 10 mile solo finisher I got a cool little medal, all right! From here it was just me and the freeway for like the next 6 hours… boo. Luckily traffic was pretty mellow, but I think the drive home was harder than the swim! Tomorrow I’m not doing anything physical, but Tuesday I should be back to the regular workouts… gotta keep my momentum up for my Catalina support swim and the Distance Swim Challenge!
This morning I drove out to Malibu to participate in the Swim for Equality hosted by Equality California. This was a totally fun and positive event, I’m really glad I managed to get into it at the last minute! We’re having a bit of a heat wave in California right now and it was unbelievable beautiful at the beach down in Malibu. Sunny with no wind and really calm water (which was around 61 degrees!).
the view here is ok I guess :)
I got to the swim check in area around 8 and got checked in and numbered. What really surprised me is this was a Southern California open water event and I didn’t really know anybody there. I recognized a handful of faces, but not enough to put a name to them. I talked to a few people that said it was their first ocean swim or first swim like this in a real long time. Hopefully coming out and doing this swim inspires a few them to come out and swim some of the masters races in the area!
As we got closer to the start of the swim I got myself suited up and packed everything that wasn’t coming with me into my bag. This was a 1.7 mile point to point swim so the event staff was taking people’s bags down to the finish for them which was really nice. As tends to be the case in non Masters action I was the one guy in just a regular square leg swimsuit. I did see 2 other people that weren’t in wetsuits, but they were out in racing techsuits so they sort of blended in. Before it was time to go they massed all the swimmers together for a couple pictures and then sent us off into the ocean!
pre race briefing
I was towards the back of the pack on the way to the water (I’m not much for running, plus I was playing with my camera a little), but by the time I hit that first buoy about 200m out I passed probably 3/4 of the people out there. From here there was a small group that pulled away from everyone really quickly and I was swimming in a scattered group of swimmers that was increasingly further behind them. Since this wasn’t really a race anyways, just a fun fundraiser type of deal, I tried to focus on just swimming smooth and steady to get ready for tomorrow’s 10 mile swim. I had a hard time finding the buoys that marked the course but it was just a straight line anyways so I just swam north and hoped for the best. I sighted off other swimmers from time to time and used the lifeguards on paddleboards as confirmation that I was doing the right thing.
from the race course!
As is my nature…. I stopped in the middle for a minute to get a quick picture and some video. The view from out in the water was totally gorgeous. I still can’t get over what a nice day it was!
After my brief cinematographic pause I made a point of trying to catch up to some of the people that had pulled away from me while I was messing around with my camera. I caught up to one of them but the other 2 were pretty much gone.
At the last buoy I came around and popped my head up for a bit just to make sure I was turning in the right spot. I could see a bunch of people on the beach but I couldn’t tell if they were the ones I was looking for. Another dude hit the buoy and was aiming for the same spot so I figured I was on point and put my head down and started swimming. As I got closer to shore I could feel the swells coming in, some pushed me a little forward some a little back. All of a sudden I could feel I had one building behind me that was going to be just right to surf in. I got picked up by the wave and started rushing towards shore. After a couple seconds though I realized I had no idea what kind of beach I was dealing with and didn’t want to end my ride with a head first dive into the sand so I tried to pull up and out of the wave… not the easiest thing to do! I managed to break free before I met the hard packed sand on the beach and then fought my way though the last little waves right there at the shore. The run to the chute was lined with all kinds of people cheering and yelling and it was totally awesome to finish like that. I felt like I won something :)
catching my breath post swim
After the swim I hung out on the beach and watched everyone else finish. My friend Robin joined me as well to hang out on the beach a bit. Once everyone else cleared out we stayed on the beach for another hour just lounging around watching the waves and the dolphins playing off in the distance. It was really a perfect beach day.
hanging out at Zuma after the swim
Around noon we made our way out to Topanga for an after party for the swim. We drove up into the hills and up some squirrelly little roads to get to the house the party was at. The pool on this place was unbelievable. It was an infinity pool that faced out into a big wooded canyon. I want this pool! I floated around in the water for a while and sat around the pool soaking in the view and chatting with a few people. I don’t know why all open water swims don’t end like this… someone should look into that :)
this is the life!
I finished up my day with a drive down to San Diego. In the morning I have to be at the La Jolla Cove to take part in a 10 mile relay… with myself. I’m going to do the whole thing solo and this will be my biggest swim attempt to date. It’s supposed to be a learning experience/tune up for my 12.6 mile swim in October. Hopefully everything goes according to plan!
I’m super stoked that I was recruited to come out and be a support swimmer on the Swim22 Catalina Relay event. I got an email about it just before the 1 Mile swim in Corona Del Mar in August asking if I’d be interested in getting involved, and it took until just this week for me to negotiate the days off to get out there. I’m going to work like 8 days in a row and then escape south to Long Beach to hop on a boat! I’ve really been wanting to get out in the Catalina Channel as a support swimmer just to check it out and experience swimming in water that open… but to land on such a gnarly attempt on the first time out is beyond awesome for me. I’m very appreciative that they invited some weird adventure bearded stranger from the internet to join their team!
If you’re not familiar with what they’re planning, basically each participant CROSSES THE WHOLE CHANNEL and then sends off the next swimmer. At a minimum they’re covering 88 miles. This is a totally epic and unprecedented attempt and really just an amazing adventure. I’m part of Team 4 and will be swimming with the relay anchor, Chris Dahowski. I’ll also be on the boat while Jen Schumacher swims the 3rd leg.
I think I went tanning today with just a little bit of swimming thrown in. It was a gorgeous day in Santa Maria at the pool and no one was particularly motivated to actually swim swim. We had some guys tapering down for a triathlon and that low keyness kind of spread to the whole group. We basically did a drawn out warm up and then talked about what everyone has coming up… I think I won for most ambitious schedule for the next couple weeks! 1.7 miles on Saturday, 10 miles on Sunday, a mystery swim to be announced shortly the week after, and my 12.6 mile swim in the middle of October. I decided this is part of my unplanned taper for this weekend’s 10 mile swim.
In other news… I got a note yesterday from Craig Baskin, artist and open water swimmer, about a painting he did in support of the organization putting on the Swim for Equality event I’m doing this weekend. Craig does lots of great paintings for non-profit events and donates 100% of the proceeds to the event he’s supporting. You can learn more about Craig’s work on his web site CraigBaskin.com or you can read the feature USMS did on him a few months back about how he draws painting inspiration from the open water. The painting he did for the Swim for Equality is below, if you want to put in a bid on the painting you can contact Craig direct through his website.
Craig (far left) and his painting "H2O Equality"
As a bonus, since I have no pictures or anything good from today’s pool swim (forgot my camera at the house) I present you an “Epic Corgi Swimming in Slow Motion” as a distraction :) Stick with it for a while… it gets funnier/more ridiculous over time
Keep an eye out tomorrow for a big announcement in regards to my latest Aquatic Adventure to land on the schedule!
the day's are getting shorter... gotta get in these swims while we can!
I haven’t been to the beach since I got home from all my recent travels and I’ve been wanting to go pretty bad. At lunch I made a run up to San Luis Obispo to hit the triathlon store for some swim supplies for the weekend. On the way up and back I had killer views of the ocean from the freeway and I really just wanted to park and hop in! The wind was blowing pretty good out there and I could see all kinds of whitecaps brewing. I followed my two passes of the ocean up with a Symposium from 1-5 in a meeting room that literally hangs over the ocean. Generally if I’m invited to a meeting at this place while the sun is up I go :) I got there a little early and grabbed some iPhone video of the view from the deck just outside where our event was going on…
Nice right? As soon as we hit 5 I had to split and hop in the truck to make it to Avila for my Wednesday night swim. Niel was out with some work but I figured someone else would show so that I could get in a dip. Once I got to the staircase I found Ryan and Pete… after waiting around it turned out we were the whole group.
Pete and Ryan out in the water
I got deck changed real quick, grabbed my goggles and we plotted the beginning of a route out on our way to the water. There were some seals playing and birds circling off the left hand side of the pier so I figured we’d start on the right hand side and see where things go from there.
I joked on the way into the water that since we had no official reading (usually niel is in charge of that) that I was going to assume it was 72. It wasn’t funny anymore once my feet actually got wet! Holy crap was it cold today. I checked the nearest ocean buoy when I got home and it was reading 53!!! It’s normally warmer closer to shore so we were probably anywhere between 53-55. It hurt… I wasn’t ready for it today. Getting in was a struggle. Eventually the other guys decided to take off while I tried to acclimate. Once they we about 25m out I just tossed myself through a wave and started to spin my arms. I got over the cold eventually, but those first 10 minutes or so were brutal today.
I'm hurting a little right here!
We swam under the pier together and then all the way down to the end of the right side of the buoy line. When we regrouped we decided things looked good and we’d make our way to the top of the pier. The wind and chop were a little bit of a factor here but not too bad. At the pier me and Ryan chatted up some guys fishing while we waited for Pete. We asked if they were catching anything and they asked if it was cold… the answer was yes to both questions. Despite the chilliness it was a gorgeous day out there… here’s a 360 degree view from 15m off the end of the pier…
Normally from here we’d aim for the end of the other side of the buoy line and then in. I decided we should retrace our original path because it would be a little longer and little different. The guys were on board so we set a course for the buoy we had just left. The swim out was good and smooth. I’m feeling a little faster in the water these days, I think all that forced time off last week at the convention was good for me.
swimming away from that last buoy
Me and Ryan were at the buoy first and messed around with my new camera a bit. He wanted some video of his stroke so we did that and I snapped a few pictures as well. While he was doing some glamor swimming we saw our first and only seal on that side of the pier for today. He sort of popped up, investigated us for a while and then disappeared never to be seen again.
Ryan and a seal checking each other out
We finished our swim by heading to the pier and then hanging a left towards the beach. Once I was out and changed I could still feel the cold on me but I wasn’t shivering. I knew I was cold though when the air conditioning in my truck felt hot at first when I started the vehicle! It took a while for me to reheat, but now that I’m thawed out I feel really good. I needed a trip to the ocean.
the beard feels much better with salt water in it
I’ll be back into the pool tomorrow for a swim in Santa Maria. I’m still working on some fundraiser action for my swim on Saturday, if you want to donate or learn more check out www.eqca.org/equalityswim/robaquatics
I don’t know how this event managed to elude my attention until right now, but I found out about the Swim for Equality Monday afternoon from my friend Joel’s blog - the17thman. Since I have to go all the way down to San Diego this weekend for my 10 mile swim in the La Jolla Cove anyways I figured this would be a perfect break on my big drive down the coast, plus it’s a cause I’m on board with. This event is drawing in swimmers from all over the country… I’ve seen entries from California, New York, Florida, Illinois, Ohio and Idaho. I think it’s very cool I managed to sneak into this field that’s limited to about 50 swimmers and includes people you may have heard of (and I’ve recently accidentally run into) like Greg Louganis.
This swim is largely a fundraiser and on that front I am incredibly late to the party. The event flyer talks about “the months leading up to the event,” and well I’ve got about 3 days… yikes. If this is a cause that’s on your radar I’d be highly appreciative of a donation! You can learn more about the event here. You can learn more about what Equality California is all about at EQCA.org
