Seal Skin Wetsuit? Possibly the Worst Idea Ever

So I was watching TV and saw a promo video for Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls and he’s stuck on an island surrounded by cold water and needs to swim to the mainland. So far I’m on board. Bear is concerned about the cold water and spots a seal, his idea is to make a wetsuit out of it…. holy crap stop right there!

I can see where insulating yourself from the water makes sense, but you’re covering yourself in SHARK BACON!!! Sure you’re warmer but now your deliciousness quotient has gone up exponentially! Wow… I mean… you gotta watch this…



February 12, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Vote For Rob Aquatics as the Best Swim Blog!

I’d like to start with a little good news… About.com has been working on a Reader’s Choice Award for Swim Bloggers and across the last month they took nominations and enough of you guys nominated me to get me into the top 5! As of about right now you can actually vote for me in the contest!

You can vote for Rob Aquatics here!

For those of you unfamiliar with Rob Aquatics or on the fence as to who to vote for, here’s a few reasons why I think Rob Aquatics is the best swim blog…

  • I’m the only swim blogger with my own line of Banana Hammocks! I also have my own imaginary video game in the works :)
  • I provide year round open water action  and vicarious sunshine for those of you snowed in for the winter!
  • If you don’t actually like reading I have you covered with lots of pictures!
  • I actually show up everywhere! I’ve posted from all over California, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia… soon I’ll be popping up in places like Arizona, Utah and Vermont!
  • I waste all my money on fun waterproof gadgets/cameras/gps so you can see how and if they work before you buy them!
  • Everyone likes a guy with an adventure beard and pink goggles :)

You can also vote for best swimming Twitter feed, I’m on the list but I think there’s better tweeters in there… I voted for Go Swim.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming… :)

I hit the pool in Santa Maria today and we had a really nice day for a swim. Lots of sun, plenty warm, and not too many people at the pool. I think our group had 6 swimmers and 5 lanes all to ourselves which is always a good way to start!

I didn’t read the workout in advance but there was a set in there everyone was dreading. I started to get a little nervous because we had one last week that kicked my ass. Luckily it turned out to be a fly set which is actually not too much of a problem for me, especially when most of it’s drilling with fins on…. phew!

8 x 100 @ 1:40 w/ 10 vertical dolphins after each 100

Repeat x 2 all with fins
3 x 50 fly drill 3 strokes left arm only, 1 full stroke, 3 strokes right arm only
2 x 50 fly drill 2 strokes left arm only, 2 full strokes, 2 strokes right arm only
1 x 50 fly

Repeat x 3
200 swim @ 3:00
3 x 100 interval descends by round

2900 yards total

After we cruised through all that butterfly we had a big pile of pulling to get through. I tend to “forget” my pulling gear pretty much everyday so I just swam it all. I tried to hang with Mike and Tyler who were swimming their 100′s at 1:25, 1:20 then 1:15. I was fine on round one, not quite fine on round two, and accidentally put fins on for round 3 in hopes of actually keeping up. It kinda sorta worked.

After workout I found out what this Saturday’s race pace set is going to consist of… 200IMs…. ouch. Mike, me, and whoever else wants in will be doing 3 200 IMs off the blocks for time. That’s gonna hurt! I think I’m going to recover the next day with a trip to Monterey for a swim with the Kelp Krawlers. I’m assured that the kelp is thinned out and the jellyfish are gone right now so we should have a pretty awesome swim!

February 10, 2011 | 4 Comments »

How to Measure Swimming Distance in Open Water with Google Maps

I wonder how far it is from...

Alright kids, we’re actually going to learn something today! I caught a post out in the vast and deep swimmer blogosphere that wondered how I made the maps that pop up on my site. As many of you know I’ve recently started swimming with a GPS unit tucked under my cap to help measure and record my swims. But what if you don’t want to spend a ton of money on swim gadgets? How to you estimate distance in open water? Google Maps. Doing this is free and fast, but the capability to do so doesn’t come standard and you have to go through a few steps to make it happen.

The first step is to go to http://maps.google.com/, if you have a Google account make sure you’re signed in so that the changes you’re about to make are saved and are ready to use every time you go to Google Maps. Up in the top right corner you’ll see a weird little green shape next to the word “New!” – click that…

UPDATE! About a week after writing this Google made a small interface change that will make a difference to those of you trying to enable this feature while signed in with a Google account… you’ll need to click on a little gear shaped icon in the top right hand corner and then select the labs option. Everything else is the same!

ANOTHER UPDATE! So the only constant with Google is change it would seem… here’s the new way to get to this setting, in the bottom left hand corner search for a link that say “Maps Labs and click it”

This will pop up the box below. The tool you want to enable is the “Distance Measurement Tool.” Click enable and then “save changes” at the bottom of the box.

Now your map will have a little ruler icon down in the bottom left hand corner. Click it to enable and click it again to turn it off.

Once you’ve clicked the ruler you can now click points in the water that approximate where you’ve been swimming. Each click updates the total distance covered in a panel on the left hand side of the screen. A lot of the time I’ll switch from the regular map view to satellite to make it easier to see landmarks we use from the water to determine where to place turns.

So there you go… quick, easy and free open water swim distance estimation! I like to mess with this when I’m bored and play the “I wonder how far it would be to swim that?” game.

February 7, 2011 | 6 Comments »

Super Bowl Sunday Swim

Duke and Niel debating Rogers vs. Roethlisberger... ok maybe not... :)

Normally I don’t really care about football, but I am a native Wisconsinite so the Packers being in the Super Bowl meant I was actually going to watch it this year… luckily the game wasn’t on until 3:30 and didn’t interfere with my Sunday ocean swim!

not bad for winter I guess :)

I was up kinda early today and decided to go to the beach early and just hang around. When I got there I decided I might as well be productive too. I grabbed some supplies out of my truck and did a little clean up. The beach is a lot cleaner than the last time I did this, but there was still a lot of garbage out there. I found a lot of the usual suspects like cigarette butts and styrofoam, but I also found really not good stuff like sharp metal pieces and broken glass down in the wet sand by the water! Glad I pulled that junk out before someone stepped on it!

boo garbage!

When I had worked my way back to where my swim group meets up 1 other swimmer had shown up so I traded my bucket for my backpack. It’s pretty warm here at the moment and I was all heated up so I changed early into my boardshorts and got acquainted with the water while everyone else started to show up. It felt really really cold today. My feet hurt for a few minutes before I could get that all regulated. My body was saying low 50′s today, Niel’s thermometer was at 55 though. Not sure if I was being a wuss or if the thermometer was lying to us… later on everyone else seemed to agree more with my assessment of the situation. Eventually I got all the way wet and tried to catch a wave or two. The way things were breaking I just couldn’t grab one without fins on so I went back to the beach to get ready for our actual swim.

SUP Surfers trying to catch some waves on the break down by the creek

Over in our get ready spot I saw my buddy Monte who had come out to swim. Unfortunately swimming wasn’t on the menu today for him, he’d taken a tumble doing some trail running that morning and was a little bloodied up. He figured ocean swimming while bleeding might not be the best idea ever and I’m inclined to agree with that plan! I stripped down to my regular swimsuit, put on some bodyglide then capped and goggled up.

Niel and Duke getting in

5 of us walked down to the water together. I was particularly stoked to have Duke back in the mix after a long absence which he spent cycling obnoxious distances. The plan for today was to swim the left side of the buoy line then turn and swim back down it all the way to the creek buoy on the right side of the pier. From there it was to the Poly pier and back down along the way we came. No GPS map today because I didn’t charge my Garmin, but here’s roughly what our 1.5 mile course looked like…

After whining for a little bit about how it was still cold I tossed myself through a wave and followed the rest of the group down to the first buoy. Once we had everybody we made our way down towards the point. It was still feeling pretty cold but I was working through it. The water was looking much clearer than usual and it’s always really cold when you can actually see through it.

Niel and Susan at the first turn

Our pause at the far end of where the buoy line should end (we lost a buoy a long time ago to a storm or something and it’s never returned) was brief. We ended up swimming straight through the pier and down to the creek buoy without stopping. On our way we had to swim under the pier and we had a healthy number of folks up there that had stopped to watch the swimmers. I saw couples and people on bikes and random walkers stop what they were up to and watch us until we disappeared under the pier. On the other side I looked back to make sure we had the one swimmer I didn’t have a visual on and saw a few of them had switched to the other side of the pier to keep watching. They must think we’re nuts… little do they know that this is actually fun!

at the creek buoy making sure we still wanted to go all the way to the Poly Pier

Out at the creek buoy we confirmed who was going to the Poly Pier and who wasn’t. Sylvia checked out and the 4 of us that remained made way for the big pier. The water felt a touch warmer out here, but still pretty cold. Good news was the sun was shining on our backs and everything was nice and flat for us.

down at the Poly Pier waiting for everyone to catch up

At the Poly Pier we regrouped and ended up with a couple new pinneped friends. First it was just one and then another popped way up out of the water to get a good look at us. I haven’t seen much seal activity in a while. Although it’s cool to see them in the water at their level, I really don’t like to swim with the shark bacon so we made moves for the creek buoy again to finish our swim by retracing our steps to where we started from.

a couple curious sea creatures

On the way back we split into two groups following two different lines. Me and Duke went more to the left and Niel and Susan swam more to the right. I felt like the line Duke and I were taking was better, but Niel beat us to the buoy by a couple seconds so I guess not. Out here we saw one of the seals had decided to follow us. It was looking at Duke like he was either handsome or delicious… either way that’s a bad ending for him so we kept swimming.

Duke at the creek buoy on the way back to the beach

We crossed under the pier one more time and then arced back towards the beach. I hung behind a little hoping for a good wave that never came. In the meantime I was having a stare down with our seal stalker. He ushered us like half a mile. While I was looking out at the incoming swells trying to find something I could bodysurf this seal was looking right at me… like eye contact stare down looking at me. Very weird. It wasn’t hostile, but it was uncomfortable for me seeing as I was the inferior marine mammal in this situation. A set of waves starting rolling through but breaking out by the seal and not by me. He floated up and down with the first two and then the third one went over his head. I could see the seal inside the green wall of the wave, he went totally vertical inside it and after it crashed I never saw him again… who knows where he swam off to.

this one followed us all the way home!

I hung around for the next set and kinda sorta caught a wave but not really and eventually called it a day and landed on the beach. I dried off and changed quick so that I could get out of there and get in some Super Bowl action. I ended up going to Monte’s parent’s place with him and my friend Dani to catch the game and some really good BBQ. I was very happy to have the game go my way with the Packers winning, and now I can go back to not caring about football for the next 10 years or so :)

February 6, 2011 | 5 Comments »

Semi Scientific Fin Testing

Finis Z2 Zoomers, Finis Foil Monofin, Finis Shooter Monofin

This was the second Saturday in a row that I went down to Santa Maria for some fast swimming. It was just Mike and I this time, and just for fun I brought a big pile of fins to try out. Little did I know my timing was perfect and today’s sprint set was fin based! Score!

Early on in the warm up we had a set of 50′s that was on a way tighter interval than we normally chase after. It helped me realize staying up to 2am the night before and having candy for breakfast wasn’t the right plan for today :) Whoops.

300 mixer

6 x 50 @ :40
300 pull
6 x 50 IM Switching @ :55
300 kick

10 x 50 fly w/ fins on 2:00 FAST!

100 cool down

2100 Yards total

Once we got to the end of the warm up I devised a plan for an impromptu fin testing session. We had 10 50′s fly on 2:00, I decided to start with my Shooter Monofin and work my way down to my Foil Monofin and then finally my Z2 fins.

The main reason I started with the fastest stiffest fin was it’s also the hardest to put on! I started with a base layer of neoprene booties that I wear with my duckfeet fins to keep my feet from getting all chewed up by the fin. Then it was time to awkwardly contort myself on the deck to try and actually get my feet into the fin… man that part sucks… but it’s totally worth it once you start kicking! I think I wore it for the first 3 and kept myself down around 24-25 seconds per 50. I love the speed that comes with this thing! It’s hard to make turns with it, but once you’re off the wall you can really build up some major momentum with it!

4-8 were done with my Foil Monofin. I kept the neoprene booties on because they’re helpful in holding the fin down on my feet. I think mine might be a touch too big for me to wear just barefoot. On these 50′s it was really apparent the difference a big fiberglass blade makes. The motion and the muscles in action all feel largely the same, but the power you can generate just isn’t the same. The good news though is since the fin is dialed back a bit wearing it while swimming is a little more realistic. You’re not going to launch out of the water to your navel in this thing like you can with a conventional monofin. I averaged between 27 high and 29 low with the Foil monofin and felt pretty good swimming with it.

Foil Monofin preparing for action

9 and 10 were supposed to be with my Z2 Zoomers that I wear all the time. I lost #9 to time though… I couldn’t get them on over the top of the neoprene booties I had on and I couldn’t get them off on time either so I ended up having to swim a round with them on and no fins. That 50 sucked! The booties turned into little drag pockets on my feet and I couldn’t dolphin kick in them. I ended up swimming freestyle and barely keeping it under 40 seconds. Yikes, shows you what a little drag can do! For round #10 I finally got the Zoomers on and swam around a 30 high, maybe 31 low. It felt very weird to shift to feet that weren’t stuck together.

oh no, I'm still stuck in Gameboy Colors!

So I realize fatigue and other things play a factor here, but roughly here’s my fin speed breakdown. Shooter is about 3-5 seconds faster than my Foil which is like 2-3 seconds faster than plain Z2 Zoomers. About what I expected overall. I knew the shooter would blow everything else out of the water. Downside with that is it’s tough on the feet and so powerful it can be hard to use for more than just kicking since your arms can’t really match what your feet are doing. The Foil is a good compromise in that it’s easy to get on and allows for more realistic swimming. Zoomers are still the everyday flutter kicking workhorse though. I have a decent fin collection but those are the ones I take with me every time I go to the pool.

After we were done swimming I stayed in the pool for a little bit. I swam a couple slow laps and spent some time sitting in the bottom of the deep end. I was hanging out with a friend last night who was talking about doing some free diving. The hard core “The Big Blue” style freediving scares the hell out of me, but a 20 foot dive to investigate some things in the ocean locally sounds pretty interesting to me. With that in mind I’m going to see if I can expand my lung capacity a bit so I can go out diving with him one of these days.

*Fully Bloggerly Disclosure: My real life job does business with Finis. I did this post because it seemed like a fun way to spend part of my Saturday not because anyone asked me to.

February 5, 2011 | No Comments »

BIG NEWS! Rob Aquatics the Video Game!

Unbelievable right? I figured since the entire swim community is abuzz with the announcement of Michael Phelps’ upcoming Xbox Kinect swimming game this would be an excellent time for me to break the silence and announce my new video game!

So you’re probably wondering… hey Rob which platform is it going to be on? Xbox? Wii? PS3? As if… I’m going with the finest gaming platform of all time, Nintendo Gameboy! I figure when you swim in the Pacific all you see is green so why not make a game that can only come in green? No brainer. So how did this all come to be? Well I went back in time to 1989 and brokered a deal with Nintendo to have the first ever open water swimming game… how did I go back in time? Well that’s a swim blogger secret that I can’t divulge publicly, but we can all do it. Just ask Joel or Tony. Fair warning they’ll probably pretend to not know what you’re talking about because, well, we can’t talk about it… anyways check out this sweet promo shot!

Rad right? It may be too awesome…

Even though I have a pretty serious NDA with the good people over at Nintendo over certain aspects of the game I do have some screen captures and can walk you through parts of the story.

So you start with your swimmer… me!

and I travel around to places like Chicago!

and the Chesapeake Bay!

Be careful on the starts! Press “B” to block the kicks and punches of over aggressive triathletes, and press “A” to hit them back!

Once you hit the water it’s all swimming

Oh no! Jellyfish!

Ahhh Shark!!!! Kick kick kick!!!!

Stop for a feed to replenish your health after that run-in

And from there just keep on swimming!

The final level of the game is a swim from Catalina, I haven’t personally beaten than one yet. To play you basically hit the “A” button to swim… for 10-18 hours until you hit California. You can hit “B” to kick but no one ever does. And just a side note if you actually beat the Catalina level I think it voids your Gameboy’s factory warranty for unnatural abuse.

No word on exactly when the game drops, but I think it’s going to be a winner!

*all the pictures in the post were derived from my own stuff except for the shark picture because I don’t have any of those! That started as a pic on boston.com

February 3, 2011 | 13 Comments »

Questionably Cloudy

So the big question of the day was “why is the pool so cloudy?” For reasons no one could figure out the pool’s visibility was less than spectacular. It didn’t stop anybody from getting in, but it slowed us down a little. Since this pool is usually very clear and wonderfully sparkling on a regular basis I figured we could give it a pass for being a little gross just one time. Plus I’ve been out of the water since Saturday for various reasons so I really needed to get wet. We started with 3 swimmers but by the end of the warm up we were at 5 with a 6th still to show up later.

10 x 100 free @ 1:40

Repeat x 3 all fast with fins
100 free @ 1:30
4 x 25 dolphin kick alt. underwater and on your back by 25
3 x 50 fly

9 x 100 free

2950 yards total

The warm up was mellow, but the main set in the middle turned out to be an ass kicker! Everything in that set was with fins on in the understanding that you’d actually kick and go fast in them. I celebrated by going out entirely too fast on the first 100. I knew it as soon as I started, but once I lock into a pace it’s hard for me to drop it. I finished like 5 or 6 seconds ahead of Mike which let me know I went out way to fast and was about to pay for it in the rest of the set. By the end of the first round I was huffing and puffing pretty severely. The intervals gave me some healthy amounts of rest, but I just couldn’t reset my body inbetween send offs. I made it all the way through the set, but I’m pretty sure my stroke was fairly horrible towards the end there!

I won’t be underwater tomorrow because I’ve got work all day and then a Surfrider meeting to go check out, but I should be back in Santa Maria for some sprinting on Saturday and then the ocean on Sunday.

| 2 Comments »
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