Fighting Hot Air with Cold Water

It was super hot out of nowhere here on the central coast today! We were up in the high 80′s which is waaaaay too hot for me. I was baking in my office with one thing on my mind… cold wonderful ocean water. Nobody around here has air conditioning so your only real options for cooling off are 1. taking a drive 2. going to a movie 3. jumping into the Pacific. I chose option number 3 :)

I spent the afternoon looking for someone to swim with me but no one else was in. I ended up throwing a boogie board and fins in my truck and just going to the beach… it was busy down there! I lucked out and got a good parking spot and then drug all my crap down on the sand.

I watched the waves for a little while to decide where to situate myself. Like yesterday it was fairly flat with a few bigger waves in each set. Right now there’s a spot right in line with the first buoy on the point side of the pier where the water rushes out creating slightly better than usual wave for surfing… it actually peels to the side a little instead of just crashing over the top. I kicked out to the right of that spot and waited for the right waves to come.

I had a few good rides today. The way the waves were formed I could turn real hard into them and rush along the face for a bit before it closed out on me, fun! My fun ended though when I got separated from my board. I misjudged a wave, aborted at the last minute and had the leash ripped from my wrist by the sea. I had to bodysurf in on the next wave behind it to try and catch up! It took a while but I finally got my hands back on the board and decided to call it a day. The mix of 88 degree air and 52 degree water had balanced me out :)

March 31, 2011 | No Comments »

Back to Normal in Avila

I went out for a Wednesday night swim with Niel tonight and things seem to be back to normal in the ocean. No more crazy big surf and the water looks to have cleared up now that the rain’s been gone for a while. Ahhh… wonderful :)

I’ve been feeling a little not so good recently so I figured a trip into the ocean would either kill me or cure me… so far we’re leaning towards cure but it’ll probably be best to ask me that again in the morning. On the beach Neil and I caught up a little bit, waited just in case anyone else showed up and then hopped in the water. Tonight’s swim plan was to do the “classic” triangle. I figured that way if I got out in the water and proceeded to feel really bad I’d have a few exit points.

Getting in the water wasn’t so smooth. I had a hard time getting acclimated today. Niel measured 55 which is actually pretty “warm,” but when I’m a little sick it throws my whole cold tolerance game off. The waves tonight were largely flat but you’d get a small handful of decent ones at the end of each set. Once we got to the bigger ones I wasn’t ready to go still but Niel was so he swam out and up the faces of a couple waves to flatter water. I waited out the set and then took off in the lull before the next one marched towards shore. Eventually I leveled out in the temperature department, but it was a lot harder today than usual.

On our swim down the end of the buoy line on the point side the wind started to build up a healthy little current pushing out to sea. It was running hard enough that I had a hard time holding my line on the inside of the buoys because the water kept trying to push me out. Once we hit the buoy we floated for a minute and chatted before taking on the next leg. It was really pretty out on the water today… hard to not take extended breaks just to sightsee.

Out at the pier while regrouping we found some fishing line, I totally HATE that! Niel ran into it first so I knew I was going to go over it too. I tried to swim up as flat as possible on top of the water to avoid it but that did work… I ended up with it strung across the front of my neck… ugh, not cool. I carefully peeled it from under the adventure beard and over my head then got away from it in a hurry while being totally paranoid that I was going to feel the tug of a hook at anytime. I randomly checked for fishing line and hooks for the next 400m… I can’t help it, it’s like when you kill a spider on your head and now it feels like they’re all over you when there’s nothing there. Ick.

While we swam out to what would be the phantom creek buoy we came to the realization that all but one of the buoys on that side of the pier have now disappeared! What the hell!?! The port side of the buoy line now consists of one buoy about 5 meters from the pier, the rest is just inferred.

We swam out to about where we figured the line would be if the buoy were there and then turned towards the pier. The current seemed to have died down a bit but there was still a pretty healthy off show breeze blowing. Since the motion in the water wasn’t too extreme we decided to swim in under the pier since we haven’t been able to do that in a really long time. Between the light swells going one way and the wind driven current going the other I had to be real careful to stay between the pilings. I kept my head up and swam real fast and came out unscathed on the other side.

While swimming back towards the beach I hung out for a minute looking for a wave to ride but they just weren’t there. We were between sets and nothing was really going on so I just swam the rest of the way in.

Post workout I grabbed dinner with Niel at the beach. When we left the Avila Grocery we were in the middle of an amazing sunset. Pinks and purples to the east and blazing yellows and oranges to the west… perfect and beautiful. I’m hoping for a repeat tomorrow if I can find an after work swim buddy since I probably won’t be able to make it to the pool at lunch due to some stuff going on during the day.

March 30, 2011 | 3 Comments »

More From the Open Water Safety Conference

I got an email from Steve Munatones of Open Water Source this morning with a video full of pictures from the Open Water Safety Conference in San Francisco that I went to earlier this month. If you were there give it a look and see if you pop up at all in the mix!

The Open Water Safety Conference was put on by USMS and Pacific Masters Swimming. Pacific Masters has another great event in the works for June 10-12 called the Excel Weekend in San Mateo that will feature a bunch of great coaches and special guest Rowdy Gaines! It sounds like a pretty good time to me but I’ll be off floating in the Great Salt Lake that weekend so I won’t be able to check it out in person. For more info on the Excel Weekend check out pacmastersswimmingexcelweekend.com

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I Can’t Be Sick… Not on New Gadget Day!

I felt like crap today… but I also had a sparkly new FINIS Swimsense swim watch in my bag dying to be tested out! Swim geekery won out over wanting to curl up under my desk and die today although admittedly it was close. I had already read the instructions and got the watch all set up this weekend with intentions of taking it on its maiden voyage today so I HAD to go right? It was programmed for my right hand and a 25 yard pool, locked and loaded! I only made it through half a workout, but at least I got to play with my new toy and start to feel it out. So far it’s pretty cool.

I read the directions one last time on the deck to make sure I knew which buttons to push to stop for intervals and stuff like that and then jumped in, grabbed the wall, started the watch and swam. The original plan was to start with a reverse 400 IM kick/drill/kick/swim, but I just swam it to let the Swimsense count my actual swimming as opposed to confusing it with drilling. So far it’s perfect on guessing my stroke as I swim, but it doesn’t have anything to show you when you’re just kicking which is understandable since your arms aren’t going anywhere.

 

400 reverse IM
8 x 50 kick @ 1:00

4 x 100 IM Switching @ 1:40

3 x 200 free @ :15 rest

50 fast-ish (sans swimsense)

1450 yards total

I’m still getting the hang of things and have a lot more testing to do, but in the meantime you can check out a really good in depth look at this thing from my buddy Evan in Chicago. He’s much more data minded and conscious of things like stroke rates than I am so his take on this thing is way more solid than anything I’m going to be able to churn out once it gets to review time. In the meantime I’m going to work on feeling better so I can get back to swimming tomorrow!

March 29, 2011 | 4 Comments »

Breaking Back into the Ocean on My Boogie Board

I’ve been held out of the ocean for what feels like forever due to rain, run off, and general aquatic yuckery. It hasn’t rained since Saturday and the weather was really nice today… I’m still suspicious of the water though. I got a text in the late afternoon from my friend Dani asking if I wanted to go boogie board after work. I decided why not, I’ve been dying to get back in the cold salty stuff.

After work I hustled home and put together my stuff… board, duckfeet, boardshorts, camera and towel… then waited for Dani to swing by and get me. We hit the beach around 5:45 and there wasn’t really anybody there. We still had plenty of sunshine and there weren’t any health advisories posted that I saw so we went for it. It was nice to be cold again :)

We kicked around in the surf looking for something surfable. The waves were pretty bad, blown out and mushy. We had small stuff coming from all different directions that we just taking all the oomph out of each other. I managed to get in a few decent rides but there wasn’t much to work with (not that I’m that good to begin with mind you), but it was fun and I enjoyed it.

After about 45 minutes in the water we called it a night. She was getting cold and I was still a little worried about getting sick. I guess we’ll see tomorrow if this was a good idea or not! Either way, I felt really good afterwards… the ocean really recharges my good mood reserves.

March 28, 2011 | No Comments »

Review: Swim Safety Device (SSD)

Having taken the Swim Safety Device out a few times now it’s become apparent that it intrigues even the most equipment eschewing open water swimmers. No matter how hardcore your stance is on adhering to channel rules you still worry about being visible in the water and having your stuff stolen off the beach while on training swims. For me the Swim Safety Device is going to be the most valuable when I’m swimming in urban settings like San Francisco’s Aquatic Park or Chicago’s Ohio Street Beach where I feel really uncomfortable leaving my personal effects on the beach. It would also be useful for a point to point swim where I want to tow my stuff with me, but it’s not something I want to use everyday I’m in the ocean. For a new ocean swimmer this could be useful as basically a set of training wheels to build your confidence as you get comfortable in the water.

For those of you that haven’t seen one of these Swim Safety Devices they’re basically an inflatable dry bag that you can tether to yourself. It does double duty as a safety device and a dry place to keep your stuff as opposed to unsecured on the beach. It increases your visibility in the water and gives you a flotation device to hang on to if you need one. I weigh upwards of 225 and could successfully support my entire weight with the buoy without causing any leaks.

So using the SSD is pretty easy… you put stuff in it, roll it up, clip it shut, inflate the air bladder and then attach it to yourself. They don’t ship it with any instructions so your best bet to figure out how to do it the right way is watch the video they put out to promote it.

I’ve tested the SSD in a few different situations with mixed results. In all cases I loaded it up with a fair amount of junk, including shoes, to see how it performed actually loaded.

My first test was in Avila Beach and well, that didn’t go so well… I broke it on the way out! The week after the tsunami from Japan we had much bigger surf than usual. I tried to swim out through the waves and they broke the buoy right off of it’s tether! It body surfed back to the beach without me. Luckily someone down there caught it for me and just the clip broke, nothing else. Later I fashioned a high tech fix to the broken clip, string… So far that’s worked pretty well :)

While the surf continued to be up I was determined to find a way to test it in a more controlled setting so I took it to the pool. I looked like a huge dork, but it was a great way to get a feel for it in ideal circumstances. My major concern with the SSD would be that it would impede my swimming by getting tangled in my feet/legs or just hit me all the time driving me nuts. Luckily it didn’t do either. The tether is short enough that the buoy rides in the wake off your butt and it floats enough that you very seldom make contact with it. Not to say I didn’t make any, but it was limited. I tried breaststroking as well and this was also no problem.

Now that I knew it worked in a highly controlled environment I really wanted to see how it would do again in actual open water. Last week I went to San Francisco  and brought it along for a swim in Aquatic Park. Aquatic Park has no surf to speak of but it does get wind and chop and currents. I swam with a group of friends and they all made a little fun of me but then also got a little interested… funny how that works right :) On this swim we swam in a square and I experienced water moving in pretty much every possible direction in relation to me and the buoy which gave me a really good feel for how the SSD would react in a good deal of situations. In wind and chop the buoy will tug at you and get blown around behind you. If the wind/water is moving across you it’s going the drift out from behind you and move to the side. It still didn’t hit my legs much, but I did hit it with my hands occasionally. At the end of this swim I was mildly irritated with the SSD. But it totally served its purpose… it kept my stuff dry at an urban beach where leaving your stuff on the sand is hugely ill advised.

I still haven’t been able to test it in really gnarly swells and chop, but I’m not sure I would want it there. Having broken it once I’d be worried my stuff would end up sailing away in really rough seas.

So to wrap things up, let’s break down my pros and cons real quick…

Pros

  • Floats a large man (me) with no problem
  • Doesn’t leak (so far)
  • Makes swimmers way more visible to lifeguards and watercraft
  • Great way to keep your stuff safe while swimming

Cons

  • Not good at getting through surf
  • Cheap connective hardware
  • Sort of irritating in choppy/windy conditions
  • Chafing potential with the waist belt
  • Mine doesn’t want to fully deflate which is kinda irritating

Overall at about $30 I think it’s a good deal for open water swimmers. You might not want to use it every time you go out, but there’s definitely days or certain beaches where you’re going to want to use it. You can order an SSD through the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

March 26, 2011 | 20 Comments »

Swimming on the Edge of the Next Storm…

Weird day at the pool… cold and windy with ominous dark clouds to one side and sunshine on the other. Although it kept threatening it never broke open with actual rain, I think I’m getting all that tonight… rain started coming down, er, sideways anyways while I was out eating dinner. Looks like Sunday’s ocean swim is en route to getting washed out as well, lame. I guess it’ll be more of a beach clean up kind of day instead.

Anyways, the pool! I’m having a hard time liking it right now… I’m overly oceanically fixated at the moment. If it weren’t for the fact that I really like the people I swim with in the pool I don’t know that I’d be getting in the water much. I just need to regain a rhythm I think… I’ll get there… I’m just distracted with other things I have working.

It was all dudes for our workout today and we were 5 deep. I got a chance to do some more swimming with my new Z2 Gold Fins from FINIS and so far I still dig them. I’m still picking out the small differences in feel. I did a lot of dolphin kicking and the change in flex is a little more noticeable there. It’s not bad, just a little different. The kick action remains pretty much the same. I’m pretty sure that if I weren’t trying to pay attention I wouldn’t notice anything besides the nicer foot pockets :)

800 Warm up (free with fly drill mixed in)
8 x 50 overkick, build to wall @1:00

with fins:
200 fly drill
5 x 50 fly @ 1:00
1 x 200 free
10 x 25 fly @ :30

200 cool down

2300 yards total

My other excitement for the day is that I got a copy of the USLA’s Open Water Lifesaving Manual in the mail today. I’ve only skimmed it while eating dinner, but so far… wow… lots of good information in there!

With the rain I don’t know what my swim schedule looks like the next couple days. I’m thinking at least Saturday calls for a trip to the pool to do some gadget testing. I’ve got a new toy I want to try outside of an actual workout just to learn how it works before I attempt to get at it amongst other people.

March 24, 2011 | No Comments »

Checking Out the New Z2 Gold Fins from FINIS

It’s a good thing I got as much ocean time in as I did last week because all the rain from this past weekend has made the sea pretty gross. There’s a health advisory from Avila all the way down to Oceano Dunes, and I got an email from a local swim friend titled “Poo” to discuss swim plans for the week. Boo run off! So it looks like I’m going to have to spend more time chlorinated than salted this week… good news is I have some new toys to play with!

Today I started with the Z2 Gold Fins from FINIS. The blue Z2′s have been a staple of my swimbag for the last year or so and I was excited to try these out. I kept hearing over and over again from different people at FINIS about how awesome the new foot pockets were on these… how they’re so soft and more comfortable and on and on… ok well now that I’ve worn them I get why they were so excited…I started doing the same thing… “hey guys you need to feel these!” The rubber is a lot softer and almost silicon-esque. I swam about 800 yards with them on today and really liked them. They were easy on my feet even though I actually sized down a little bit for a tighter fit than my old ones. The flex of the fin is a little different than the blue Z2′s, but it still allowed for that quick tight kick. I’m going to replace my old Z2′s with these and keep swimming with them to see how they do over time, first impressions are pretty good so far! If you want to try them out you can get them straight from FINIS here.

400 reverse IM kick/drill/kick/swim
8 x 50 non-free kick @ 1:00
4 x 100 IM Switching @ 1:40

4 x 125 free w/ fins @ :15 rest

4 x 75 fast w/ fins @ 2:00
300 easy
4 x 50 free @ 1:30

run away and get back to work…

2500 yards total

The actual workout today was good… the beginning hurt. The 4 x 100 IM switching was surprisingly unpleasant. I think after so much ocean swimming last week my body just wasn’t ready for IMing. The parts I did in the workout with fins weren’t actually prescribed that way, I changed them so I could try my new fins out. I have some other things to try coming up here… stay tuned, I’m especially excited about one that’s all kinds of fun and gadgety!

*Full bloggerly disclosure: I wasn’t paid to review or talk about fins, but I did get them for free

March 22, 2011 | No Comments »

Still Processing San Francisco

After a great weekend in San Francisco I’m back to real life at home today. My trip started with a swim in Aquatic Park with friends from Chicago and New York followed by a trip to the South End’s Sauna and dinner overlooking the bay. The next day I went on an awesome adventure with Swim-Art (highly highly highly recommend going out to swim with them!) where we swam from the Golden Gate Bridge to Aquatic Park, again followed by a trip to the South End’s Sauna. I hung out at FINIS and got a tour of the offices… no follow up trip to a sauna on this one but I did get some new swim toys to check out :) Eventually I made it to the site of USMS Open Water Swimming Safety Conference. A day after the conference closed down I’m still processing things I learned and contacting people I met there to follow up on some ideas for the future. This was a very good trip for me and very well timed… I have a lot of things I’m working on right now that were majorly benefited by this outing.

At the conference I was really encouraged by 1. how many people came out and 2. how many of them were just concerned swimmers that want to make their sport better and paid their own way. There were plenty of race directors and LMSC representatives, but then there were people like my Laguna Beach Oak Streeter friends Lynn and Roni who paid out of pocket and came just because they wanted to. That’s awesome.

I don’t know that I could do an effective job of rehashing the conference, there was a lot of information and I took intermittent networking breaks that weren’t scheduled into the conference, but my buddy Gords from Utah (who I got to finally meet in person!) took some excellent notes and I’d recommend checking out his post on the conference. I really liked listening to Shelly Taylor Smith talk at the opening of the conference, and I also really enjoyed Chris Brewster, President of USLA. I found the perspective of aquatic professionals not involved in swimming to be very useful especially since they exist completely outside of the sphere of influence of USAS/USMS/USAT and didn’t hold back on sharing their opinions even if they’d be unpopular with NGBs or race directors. I ordered the USLA’s Open Water Lifesaving Manual in hopes that I can learn things from it to make me an asset to my friends in the water if I happen to be present for an in ocean emergency. I want to take surf lifesaving classes but short of applying for a job as a beach lifeguard I haven’t really found a way to get that accomplished, at least with this I can try and get book smart and maybe supplement it with a pool lifeguarding class.

I made some really valuable personal connections in San Francisco and the conference really energized my move forward into a new Rob Aquatics project that you guys will probably start hearing about in a month or so. When the video from the conference gets posted to the USMS website I’ll make sure to post it so you all can check it out from home.

March 21, 2011 | 1 Comment »

Choppy, Whirly Golden Gate to Aquatic Park Swim

I know I keep saying it this week, but wow!!! What a crazy swim!!! This morning I woke up early and walked in the rain to Aquatic Park to meet up with about 9 other swimmers to go do a big swim from the Golden Gate bridge back to the park with Leslie from Swim-Art. We had some  Californians, New Yorkers, Vermonters, an Oregonian and an Illinoisan in the mix. While walking around looking for other swimmers Bob from Oregon yelled out his car window at me to let me know I could hop in his vehicle to stay dry for a little bit. I’ve been friends with Bob on Facebook for a while but this was the first time we’ve met in person… sometimes it’s nice being easily recognizable even in the dark with a hooded parka on :)

Eventually everybody else got there and we gathered up and started talking about the swim. Pretty much everybody was apprehensive about the temperatures because they hadn’t been in open water much since Fall. As the sun started to come up Leslie gave us a briefing and warned us that since the tsunami the water has been a little weird and we might be in for a challenging swim. Fully briefed we walked back across the park, made a pit stop at the South End to prepay our day use fee and drop our bags, and then walked to the zodiacs which were our ride to the bridge.

The ride out started flat but once we came around the breakwater and got up to speed it livened up a bit! We were crashing down on the bigger swells as we neared the bridge. Since the water was so stirred up outside the bridge the plan was to drop us about mid span on the inside. We had to do circles for a while before launching though since the kayakers had to fight their way out there to meet us.

Once it was go time Leslie counted down from 10 and we all spilled over the sides of our boats into the low 50′s water. I was paired up in a pod with my friend Amanda (who was sporting a Rob Aquatics suit today!) and I held by her side as she worked on getting comfortable in the water. As this was going on we got sucked into a weird whirlpool type thing! This has never happened to me before. Amanda and I were getting pulled in a circle while really unfriendly chop cracked us repeatedly in the head. She ended up throwing a hand up because she was stuck and frankly it was kinda scary. The zodiac scooped her up and I powered my way out of it with the kayaker who was trying really hard not to hit me with his boat as the water swung him around as well! They dropped Amanda back in the water a little later so she still got to do some swimming after our little whirlpool surprise.

I tried to get back to work and find a rhythm but it was hard with water being so amazingly rough. The chop was really unpredictable and even though we were riding a big flood tide it didn’t feel like it because you were getting all this cross chop blow in from the city. Our route was to basically aim for the first tower of the Bay Bridge then start cutting in when you saw the warehouses at Fort Mason. I stopped every once and a while to ask the kayaker if I was on course because it was so hard to see anything with the water being so active. He gave me an alternative sighting target up on the hill that was easier to follow.

I slogged along and best I can tell kept an ok line… well best one could considering all the pushing and pulling the water was doing. After the swim other guys talked about hitting over aerated spots that were almost impossible to swim in, and finding other small eddies that wanted to twist them around!

As we neared Aquatic Park the kayaker aimed me to the right of the TransAmerica Pyramid and I had to fight to stay there… now that I was perpendicular to it I could feel that flood tide! I swam right at the middle of the seawall on the right hand side of the entrance to Aquatic Park to make sure I made the opening, I really didn’t want to have to swim around the back door! Once I made it in I could finally relax a bit, but the current was still pushing inside the park. I thanked the kayaker tasked with watching me  and swam it the rest of the way into the South End Rowing Club. At the beach I took a deep breath, looked back at the bridge, smiled a little and then concerned myself with finding a shower.

I found a bunch of the guys up there and we recounted our personal versions of the adventure and then took over the sauna for a bit. I had to bail a little early since I had plans to go visit FINIS in the east bay this afternoon. I ran back to the hotel, packed, changed and hit the road. On the way there the weather really opened up in a bad way, it was some scary driving!

Over at FINIS I met up with my friend Sarah in the marketing department and she gave me the grand tour of the showroom, warehouse, etc. We talked shop for a little while and I got to see some stuff that’s been coming out recently that all looks pretty cool! I also picked up some new toys to try out in the pool when I get home from the open water conference… speaking of the open water safety conference, I’m there right now! I need to go mingle and meet everybody! Hopefully I come away with some good stuff to share with you from tomorrow’s excitement!

March 18, 2011 | 2 Comments »
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