2010 October | Rob Aquatics Masters Swimming Blog

Sunshine, Salt Water and Sea Otters

although Chad has exceptional form, you can't beat the masters

I showed up to the beach with some new found purpose today. I’m very excited to have sneaked in one more open water race for the year, and in New York City no less! But swimming 5k in NYC in November means making sure my cold water tolerance is in full effect. Luckily (?) the ocean didn’t disappoint today. Niel is still waiting on a new thermometer, but the group consensus was somewhere around 55-56 today which is plenty cold. We did have the advantage of sunshine however, although the rest of the central coast was fogged in this morning.

Niel playing human thermometer

We had 4 swimmers today and while they were getting wetsuited up I walked down to the water to start my cool down process. I figured I might as well get a jump on them so nobody had to wait for me. It’s funny how I can tolerate a lot of frostiness, but I’m such a baby about that first dunking :) I probably had at least 5 minutes to myself before the rest of the guys joined me. I had managed to freeze myself out up to my armpits at that point and it was just a matter of getting my head wet when they decided to go.

Niel and Chad getting in

Pete right behind them...

me still kinda working on it :)

Today’s route was a repeat of Wednesday (the point and back), but without the accidental detour past the reef buoy. We swam out to the buoy line, regrouped and decided our next stop would be in line with a big retaining wall up on the hill which would put us about half way between the last buoy and the cliff face. On the way out I aimed to hang onto Niel and Chad. After a couple hundred meters their paths converged into a single line and I fell in behind them. I wasn’t focusing on going fast so much as swimming correctly. My left arm is still swinging too far in underneath my body and I really have to stay conscious of that and correct it.

regrouping part way to the point

At our meeting point the three of us hung out and chatted a bit as Pete caught up. At this point there was still a pretty well defined line of fog on the outside of the bay but you could tell it was burning off and was going to leave us with a beautiful day.

fog starting to burn off enough to see Shell Beach

Once we were all together again we swam the last little bit towards the point. It was really messy out there. Lots of chunks of kelp and free floating sea grasses. We had some decent swells roll through on us but nothing was breaking that far out. Once we had everybody again we set our sights on the buoy line and followed that all the way back to the pier.

Pete swimming at us

We took our time out there at the buoy line before we turned it back towards the beach. It was nice enough I could have been easily talked into a little extra distance. Since it didn’t look like anyone else was in search of it we swam it in. I waited around in the shallower water for a while to try and surf something in. I caught a piece of a good one but I sort of rode it from the inside somehow. Like I had to dive into it a bit to catch it but that left me a little under the surface but still moving with it. A little weird but fun.

the guys hanging out before we swam back to shore

After our swim I went home and had lunch and decided to go back to the beach for some kind of paddling. I was thinking SUP or kayaking. Judging by the white caps that were starting to kick up that I saw from the freeway on my way there SUPing was out. I’m not good at it enough to deal with a strong wind. I rented a kayak and tooled around in Port San Luis.

beautiful day to be on the water

It was relatively calm on the way out and I found a gang of sea otters just chilling out in the the kelp-ier area of the port. They were all a little suspicious of me even though I kept a pretty healthy distance between us. A few decided to dive underwater and pop up in various spots around me to asses whether I was friend or foe. It was funny to see them pop up prairie dog style and kind of give me the stink eye. I figured it was best to be on my way and let them get back to their afternoon.

I think we were equally interested in what the other was up to at this point

I aimed for the Poly pier but never made it there. The wind was proving a challenge and was directing my boat a little bit. Things were texturing up and a fair amount of chop was building. Since the wind was blowing away from where I needed to drop the kayak back off at I figured now would be a good time to start paddling home since it might take me a while to get there. Whenever I paddled fast I got wet because the bow of the kayak would bounce on the chop and splash it all back at me. Luckily I don’t mind being a little wet :)

I like kayaking because it's sneaky exercise disguised as fun

On the way in I saw a pod of what I think were sea lions playing and jumping out amongst a group of birds. After watching them for a while I turned back towards the port again (the wind had blown me all the way back around), and resumed paddling. I found my sea otter friends again and this time they were far less concerned with me. Apparently they had a meeting and decided that I was ok. I spent a while just watching and taking a couple pictures. This time they were all packed together and set adrift in the current. It’s not so often we see sea otters around here so it was very cool to see that many (maybe 10ish total?) just hanging out and playing.

a flotilla of otters

Open Water Tour Encore! Going to NYC!

After having the idea planted in my brain a while ago by Marathon Swim Machine David Barra, I really really wanted to go do this Veteran’s Day 5k swim being held at Coney Island next week. The stars were not aligning however. I didn’t have any days off to use and the flights I could take based on frequent flyer miles would get me to New York too late to make it to the swim. I had given up all hope and officially ended the 2010 Rob Aquatics Open Water Tour with the 12.6 mile Distance Swim Challenge. However something reignited the thought in my head the other day and just to torture myself I went and looked at United one more time to see what I could get accomplished with my saved up miles. Apparently I had some new points show up in my account from somewhere which pushed me over the edge for a new tier of flights that would actually get me to NYC early enough to get to the race! Sweet! I scooped up the last available ticket and entered the race. It’s going to cost me a whole $10 round trip from San Luis Obispo to New York City!

I am super stoked to add 4 more air planes, 1 more ocean, 1 more state, 1 more airport, 1 more event, and 3.1 more miles to my 2010 World Tour!!! This will be my first taste of the Atlantic Ocean and obviously the best time to do this is November… in New York City… haha… awesome :)

Appropriately enough this Veteran’s Day swim also happens to be a fundraiser for the Wounded Warrior Project and the Service Women’s Action Network. If you’d like to support me by making a donation to the cause you can do so here at active.com. By the way for those of you that didn’t know, I’m actually an Army veteran myself…

this probably wasn't the best picture available to prove that I was in the Army...

I Swam the Whole Thing!

I swam the whole workout today, yay! It wasn’t super long, but I did everything which is a first since coming back from my 12 mile swim in the middle of the month. It was nice and sunny today but the wind was really kicking. If there weren’t lane lines in I think we could have generated a little chop in the water! At one point I got smacked in the face by a flying kickboard… right after laughing at someone else who suffered the same fate. How’s that for instant karma?

We started out with just 4 of swimmers but finished with around 9 which is a pretty healthy group for us. We did an IM sort of workout which I liked since I’ve been feeling pretty good while butterflying and breaststroking, but my back and free are hurting a bit. My left shoulder just isn’t all there yet. Hopefully it gets with the program shortly.

200 swim
200 kick
200 swim

Repeat x 3

1 x 100IM @ 1:45
2 x 75 free @ 1:15 build/easy/build by 25
3 x 50 @ 1:00 non-free
4 x 25 fast @ :40

50 easy with medicine ball

2150 yards total

At the end of our workout I tried this weird belted net with a medicine ball in it thingie that Mike had. I was a little too circumferentially gifted to wear it the right way. It made it up to mid thigh before it got stuck. A little weird but a good toy for some added resistance in the pool. Maybe when I feel better I can try it again while pushing a little harder.

I wrapped up my day with a trip to the gym after work for some elliptical machine action. I really don’t like to do it but it gets me sweating so there must be something good about it. Plus this is kind of the time for me to mix in some other things since I don’t have any big races coming up. No worries of being overly sore or hurting myself. Next up is to tune up the bike and rediscover my quadriceps…

Racing the Sun

The days just keep getting shorter but we keep managing to squeeze evening swims out of them! We met up at the usual time for our Wednesday night swim and the sun was already pretty low in the sky. That part made me a little nervous, swimming at sundown in the ocean isn’t necessarily the best plan but it was too nice to not swim. It had been a pretty warm day and the sky was clear with minimal wind.

We were 4 guys deep today… Niel, Ryan, Pete and me. We decided to take a quick shot to the point and back. They were all wetsuited up so their acclimation process was a lot faster than mine. We didn’t have an official reading today but it was colder than Sunday so I’m guessing 56 for the water temp tonight. It was a little rough for me to get in today. Still a little worn down I guess. The guys took off eventually and probably got 75m+ away before I took chase. We regrouped at the buoy line and then aimed for the point. We did pause at the last buoy just to let Pete catch up a bit, we didn’t want to get too far ahead of him.

3 of us swam in a bit of a pack towards the Point. Niel and Ryan led shoulder to shoulder and I swam just behind in the gap between them. Once we were close enough to the rocks for my taste I stopped to try and spot Pete to get a little visual confirmation he was on track. It took a minute to pick him out of the glare from the sun setting behind us but eventually we saw each other and gave a little wave. When I turned around to see where the other guys were at I was surprised to see that they kept on trucking for that big wall of rock! Yikes, not for me dude. They swam up real close and then swam up it out to the point. I cut a little different line and met them at the end. There were some decent swells rolling though and I had no desire to get tossed onto a rock by one!

When the 3 of us were together we decided to turn back now since the sun was dropping so quickly and just pick up Pete en route. On the way back we were swimming into the glare of a setting sun and then just increasingly dark skies… the sun had dropped behind the mountains. This was making me a little nervous. I stayed right on the side of Niel and let him do the navigating. As luck would have it he got in a bit of a groove and aimed the wrong direction. I felt a little off but couldn’t see anything solid to sight off of so I figured he was right… until I got a chest full of kelp. We were at the reef buoy instead of the buoy line, whoops. After crawling over a bunch of kelp (and when you’re cold that stuff hurts a little!) we were back into some wide open water.

At the real buoy line we regrouped again. Ryan had followed our line through the wrong buoy and was just behind us but we couldn’t see Pete. We spent a while floating and looking for him. We couldn’t find him at all and it was making us nervous. Eventually Ryan spotted him by the shore. He had swum the complete opposite route from the rest of us. It looked like he was on the beach so we got back to the business of getting out of the water. We booked it down to the last buoy and then swung back to the beach.

It was gorgeous out there tonight. The sky was pink and orange and the water looked like liquid metal. I was a little edgy towards the end with the sun coming down, but the sheer beauty of the surroundings of our swim overpowered that. It’s hard to share the experience with someone that wasn’t there… the pictures from today don’t do it justice… but they’ll give your imagination a good jumping off point :)

**view more pictures on the SwimAvila Facebook page!

Still Dragging…

I’m still kinda of sucking in the pool. My left shoulder remains displeased with me and frankly I’m just tired. I think it’s the big build up of all the stuff I did over the summer and now to just be done my body doesn’t know what to do about that. Last night I started to go to the gym again for some elliptical machine torture just to change things up a bit while I let my upper body sort itself out. I still need to plot out my workout plan from here on out to get my self set for next year, but for right now I’m content just coasting for a little bit as long as I keep doing something active on a regular basis.

I came in to today’s workout just wanting to be a little bit better than last week. I made an effort to go a little faster a few times which felt oddly good. I also spent a lot of time just going slow and focusing on my stroke. I’ve been pulling weird on my left side in a way I know is no good. I’m crossing under my body and that needs to stop like right now.

100 swim

8 x 50 kick @ 1:00
300 swim
8 x 50 IM Switching @ 1:00
8 x 50 variable speed @ 1:00

200 swim down

1800 total

Tomorrow we’re thinking about one last post work swim in the ocean. It’s the last Wednesday before the time changes and we’ll be without sunshine after 5pm. There’s been a supposed shark sighting in Shell Beach (within 3 miles of Avila) which sucks, but it sounds a little weak in my opinion. Like people have great whites on the brain and are thinking everything large and splashy is one. There was however a dead sea lion with some holes in it on the beach in Pismo which is a little more concerning to me.

Washing Away Bad News with Rain and Salt Water

letting the lifeguard know our route

It’s been a rough couple of days in the open water world. Within 24 hours we had two very strong reminders that the ocean can be a very dangerous place. There was the fatal shark attack 30 miles down the coast from here on Friday which was followed by the completely shocking loss of Fran Crippen in the hot waters of Dubai at a FINA 10k event on Saturday. Both of these events have been weighing pretty heavily on my mind. I didn’t know either guy personally, but it could have just as easily been me or any number of my friends in the same spot. Heavy stuff, but what am I going to do… stop swimming? Not a chance. I’m going to keep swimming in the ocean and applying my own safety precautions as best I can. Rob’s Ocean Rule Number 1 – Swim with a buddy… if someone would have been watching Fran this whole thing may have just been a scare and not a tragic death. Rob’s Ocean Rule Number 2 - avoid marine life, especially feeding marine life! There is no good reason to swim through the snack bar… if the birds and seals are chowing down, stay away because you don’t know who else might be coming to that party!

Niel en route to get the water temperature

When I got to the beach it was overcast with light rain coming down. Pretty gross. Upside is the parking was easy. I walked down to our meet up spot and saw Niel en route to the pier to get the water temp. I chased him down and we talked a bit while he let the thermometer bob around. It came up around 57.5. Not too cold, but when the weather above the water is as crappy as it was today it makes everything feel way colder. While up on the pier we looked around for sea life that would tip us off to any potential trouble. We saw maybe 5 birds floating around and no seals. By our standards, a pretty safe day to go swim because there was nothing delicious in the water to attract our large gray friends.

From here we both ran to our vehicles to get our swim stuff together. It was raining so I put everything in my truck except my keys and a pair of shorts. At the base of the stairs I ran into one of the dudes from the Kelp Krawlers in Monterey who I swam with not too long ago. He was in town for the car show and dropped by to say hi. We chatted a bit on the sidewalk and then came down to the beach to meet Niel since that was the entire swim group for the day.

The rain started to come down pretty good and Steve had to get back to the show. Niel ran over to the lifeguard stand to let them know what we were up to and then we walked down to the water. Just as I was stepping into the water a couple walking their dogs came by and this lady looks at me and asks “You’re swimming? You know about the shark right?” I smiled and said yes we know… but I really didn’t want to hear the “S” word right before I tossed myself into the ocean. She meant well, but the timing was poor. Luckily the water temperature made me forget all about it! Although I’m sure the real temperature was as advertised, it felt substantially colder than what Niel had measured off the pier. No sun plus cold rain made everything feel more like 54. While we stood around waiting for me to acclimate (it was hard today) some pretty healthy waves rolled through. Like spray hitting the bottom of the pier big. Once there was a break in the set we took off.

The swim to the buoy line was longer than usual because the tide was way in. We stopped for a minute just to make sure everyone was feeling ok before we took on the rest of the distance to the end of the pier. The route of the day was just around the pier since the weather was bad and I’m still not 100% post 12 miler. The water out past the breakers was amazingly calm. Really smooth and glassy, but rolling. There were visible swells on their way to the beach, but they didn’t really disturb us any.

taking a break at the end of the pier

We paused at the end of the pier and talked for a while. It was very serene. Smooth, rolling water with a light rain falling on it. Despite the bad weather and the cold it was a perfect little moment in the ocean. It’s things like this that almost no one else gets to experience that continues to draw me back to the sea.

On the swim back down the other side of the pier the rain picked up for a while. I let the rhythm of the rain distract me from any negative thoughts about what else might be out for a swim today. Niel paused briefly at the buoy line to make sure we were both on pace and then we swam it the rest of the way in. I tried to body surf a couple waves with my camera but it didn’t really work out that way. Oh well, it was fun trying :)

Back on the beach we pretty much split in different directions once we gathered up our gear. It wasn’t exactly a hang out on the beach kind of day with the rain and total lack of sunshine. I’m really glad I got in today. I feel better about some of the things that have gone down this week… the rain and salt water sort of washed a lot of it away.

Bad News… Another Fatal Central Coast Shark Attack

Pacific Sunset by Benjamin Preston, on Flickr

This is really just awful news. The details are still just coming out, but a 20 year old kid body boarding out at Surf Beach off of Vandenberg Air Force Base was killed by a shark. They’re saying it took his leg and he bled out. My heart goes out to him, his family, and the guys in the water with him. What a horrible thing to experience as a victim and a bystander. High five to the friend that got him up on his surfboard and paddled the victim back to shore after the attack, I commend you for being brave enough to stick around and do the right thing. You can read more here or I’m sure it’ll be on the news and all over the rest of the internet soon enough.

Surf Beach is about 30 miles down the coast from where I swim in Avila Beach… also home to a fatal shark attack back in 2003. Two fatal attacks this close geographically and chronologically really isn’t sitting well with me. As an open water swimmer I get asked all the time if I’m scared of sharks. Hell yeah I’m scared of sharks! But guess what they live in the ocean and I want to be in the ocean, so I need to get over it. I try to keep in mind that statistically I’m more likely to get mauled by a bear or struck by lightening than get attacked by a shark. Something awful is more likely to happen on the drive to the beach than in the water. Sharks are highly specialized apex predators with a taste for big fatty marine mammals. Although I’m not a slender gentleman I’m no elephant seal. If a shark takes a shot at a human it’s probably a mistaken identity thing because we’re not particularly delicious to them.

I’ve already traded some email with my Avila training partner Niel. He’s more concerned with the forecast for rain and the ensuing agricultural run off that follows it than great whites, and you know what he’s right. We’re much more likely to get attacked by bacteria than a giant toothy fish. As long as the water is clean I’ll be in the ocean on Sunday for my regular training swim. Will I be a little scared and a little jumpy? Yes. Will I let this get in the way of my love for the ocean? No.

Yup… Still Hurts

I went out for another nice mellow swim today, I’m still in recovery mode and my shoulders are a little angry when rotated which is troublesome for swimming. It was overcast and a little rainy so the pool was fairly empty. Maybe 5 or 6 of us masters were there this afternoon. Mike had a desire to get in about 3000 and I made it abundantly clear that I would be incredibly unhelpful with that :) I was going 1500 max today. I ended up swimming 1300… I’m hoping to swim a real workout again next week. I think not swimming a monster open water race over the weekend will help with that!

Here’s what I managed to get in today…

200 swim
200 kick
200 reverse IM

400 swim
300 swim

1300 yards total

Once I decided I was done I took another crack at filming a bubble ring…

getting closer...

I did however one up all of you that can blow perfect ever expanding bubble rings… I managed to mesh 2 bubbles in such a way that it looked like me! Check it out

see it! It's either me or Homer Simpson

The Rob Aquatics Open Water Tour By the Numbers

**edited 7NOV10 to reflect my last minute trip to New York for a 5k!

Well my last open water race of the year is done, large portions of the adventure beard have been burned down (although I continue to maintain a goatee of epic proportions), and it’s time to take a look as just where this year’s open water season has taken me. As it would turn out, a lot of places! My original plan called for about 11 open water races… I finished with 20! Whoops :)

In looking back I figured I’d take a minute to break down some of the numbers involved in making this happen. I skipped the travel costs though for a few reasons… 1. I don’t want to know 2. I don’t like math 3. flying out of my town is expensive and probably not representative of the costs most other people would have to do this.

Total Open Water Races: 21 (some events allowed multiple races on one day)

Miles Raced: 65.74 miles or 105.8 kilometers
Shortest Race: .75 miles in Lake Del Valle, CA
Longest Race: 12.6 miles from Manhattan Beach to Santa Monica in the Pacific Ocean

Masters Events: 12
USAT Events: 2
Independent Events: 5
Entry Fees Paid: $1625 (approximately)

States Swam in - 8 for Open Water (California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, New York)… plus 3 for pool events (Nevada, Wisconsin, Georgia)
National Championship Events – 5 USMS open waters, plus one in the pool (ATL)
Oceans Swam in – 2 – the Pacific… a lot, and the Atlantic twice
Lakes Swam in – 7 – Lake Del Valle, Shadow Cliffs, Chris Greene Lake, Noblesville Reservoir, Lake Water Valley, Lake Michigan, Lake Norman
Bays Swam in – 3 – San Francisco Bay, Chesapeake Bay, Alamitos Bay
Rivers Swam in – 1 – James River
Islands Circumnavigated – 3 – Naples Island, Alcatraz, some man made island in a lake in Colorado

Planes Flown On for Open Water – 40 – add 14 more for pool meets
Airports Visited for Open Water – 15 – San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Detroit, Baltimore, DC, Richmond, Charlotte, New York (JFK)… add 4 more for pool meets – Las Vegas, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Atlanta
Bags Lost – 1 – shockingly low really… just once through Phoenix and I was reunited within 24 hours

Nights in Hotels for OW Swimming – 24
Marriott Rewards Status Attained – Gold, currently 10 nights from Platinum!
Free Nights Stayed - 7 with a few more saved up

Waterproof Digital Cameras Destroyed – 2
Adventure Beard Grown – 3.5 Inches

People to Thank: Way too many! For everyone that supported me, let me swim with their clubs while traveling, hang out with their teams at races, took pictures for me, invited me to lunches and dinners, hung out with me in airports, and helped me have fun and feel welcomed everywhere I went…. thank you!!!

12 Miler Cool Down

A few days later I’m still pretty stoked on my swim from the weekend and a little sore. Nothing like that first night, but my body still hasn’t fully forgiven me for our little 12.6 mile swim up the coast! If you want to read some more about the Distance Swim Challenge, Steve Munatones has been posting some good stuff over on the Daily News of Open Water Swimming (Check out these three articles). He also sent me a rad picture from the start of the race. Can you spot me? It’s pretty hard :)

if you still haven't found me here's a hint... I'm the non rubberized swimmer

This afternoon was my first trip back to a body of water larger than a bath tub since the Distance Swim Challenge. I had 2 major goals for today… 1. stretch out my shoulders 2. learn how to blow bubble rings :) I needed a good diversion that was in water but didn’t necessarily involve upper body exertion and I watched a GoSwim video on it last night so I figured why not? I spend a lot of time in water, why don’t I know how to do that yet?

this is just the view straight up from the bottom of the pool but it looks like a super suave painting to me

I ran into Duke in the parking lot and he asked me a bunch of questions about the swim and made sure the kids at the pool check in desk knew that I swam 12 miles over the weekend. On the deck I rehashed parts of the swim with the other guys. The major question was how long did it take… 8 hours… still wrapping my head around that number… that is a long time to do anything.

this is how I spent most of the workout

Anyways, after messing around on deck for a while I dove in and did parts of the warm up. They had like 900 yards for it, I probably did 700 of it. From there I just messed around for a while and was out of the pool by 12:35. I did successfully blow some bubble rings which I’m excited about.