Sometimes I’m an exciting guy, haha. Yesterday I went to the beach in hopes of catching some sun and a few waves but only one of the two showed up. Since there was nothing to surf on I ended up taking a pretty glorious beach nap. When I fell asleep there were a handful of people on the sand and it was fairly overcast. When I woke up there were like 200 more people and lots more sunshine… still no waves though. Once I had my fill of the beach I took off on the rest of my day and spent a few hours working on a picture project that I think might be pretty cool… I’ll let you guys know in a couple weeks when I have the finished product in hand :)

Today started pretty similarly… overcast with no waves. I got to the beach early enough that I got a really good parking spot right in front of the beach, score! Since I had a lot of time I walked over to the Custom House for some breakfast out on the patio looking over the ocean. I kept trying to will bigger waves with my mind so that I’d have something to play on later but it didn’t work, damn.

When I worked my way back down to the sand Sylvia was already there and getting set up for the day. We had a few others join us soon after. I laid out a towel and laid down with my hat over my face to sneak in a cat nap. I was awoken to an announcement of 60 degree water! Whoo!

Ultimately we had 9 swimmers get in the water and 4 different swims going on. 3 started early and swam the buoy line, Niel did the buoy line by himself sans wetsuit in preparation for Santa Cruz next week, 3 swimmers did the classic triangle, and then Duke and I did a double triangle swim good for probably about 2800-3000meters.

Although the water was extremely calm in the morning there was a chop building that was blowing right to left across the beach. By the time we got in and started swimming it had developed to something a little difficult to swim in but not too crazy. The one thing we all seemed to agree on while getting in was that it wasn’t 60 degrees. Niel must have lucked out and found a patch of that warm water that flows in from the creek when he dropped his thermometer from the pier. If I had to guess I’d say it was more like 57 in most spots. I felt good out in the water today but was dragging a bit. Chad and Duke managed to pull out a good distance in front of me on all legs. I sorta just found a rhythm and stuck with it even though it wasn’t all that fast.

Once we’d gone all the way around to the buoy nearest the other side of pier we lost 3 from our group leaving just Duke and I to swim back the way we came. Since it was just the two of us we cut out some of the stops in favor of just swimming through turns. We took a quick break at the tip of the pier and then again at the last buoy before swimming in. It was a solid swim all the way around and probably 2800-3000m, I didn’t have my gps with me today so my best guess is the best I have to work with on that one.

After our swim it was back to the beach and time to lay out on my towel again. There’s something extra nice about napping on the beach :) I should be back out in the ocean tomorrow for a private swim session and then some boogie Monday action assuming the water actually has waves in it…

Wednesday night I got in a quick swim with Ryan. Normally Niel would be there but he had work stuff to attend to. Ryan is fresh off of a half ironman so we decided to just take it easy and cruise the triangle route and call it a day.

The water was probably 57-58 based on my human thermometer and what the nearest buoy was reading. Normally pretty warm for me but I had a bit of a chill getting in. I think it was the mean crosswind we had blowing. It was going left to right parallel to the beach. While I was half in I felt pretty cold but once I finally just tossed myself through a wave and started swimming I snapped out of it and warmed right up.

We made a quick stop at the first buoy and then swam headlong into the chop to the end of the buoy line. It was a really tightly spaced and persistent chop which made it a little hard to deal with. Luckily once we rounded the buoy it got a lot easier to cut through at our new angle. We made a stop at the tip of the pier to regroup and there was a dude up there fishing off the corner with a line pulled way out by the current. Ryan asked if he’d been catching anything and the guy said he reeled in a big bat ray the day before… I couldn’t tell if he said 18 pound or 80 pound ray though… both are impressive but one is a lot more intimidating than the other! It gives me one more creature to think I’m seeing in the murky water underneath me when I’m swimming :)

When we started back up we swam in between the pier and this guy’s line since it was so far out. As we neared the creek buoy there was a major bump in water temperature. Like a 7 or 8 degree jump, it was pretty crazy. It felt good but we were definitely suspicious… random hot water in the ocean can’t be a good thing right? The warmth lasted all the way to the buoy and then down to the next one on the way back towards the pier. And then as quick as it came into our lives, boom! Cold water! That was a shock to drop so much all at once. It took me a minute or two to reprocess the cold and get my body back on track.

I finished up my swim with one of the best bodysurfing waves I’ve ridden in a while. There were 4 other people lined up with boogie boards that were working on catching this wave, I rode it in further than any of them and I was the only one with no board :)

Tonight I was planning to follow up Wednesday’s swim with a nice dip in the lake but we found signs like this that discouraged that idea:

Jason and I knew that there’d been some icky algae bloom type activity out there but wanted to see for ourselves what was going on and if it was getting better. First we stopped at our regular beach and it was hard to tell what was up because the wind was blowing real hard and the surface was choppy and covered in white caps. We drove around to the wind surf cove to look there and it was way more obvious how much the muck had overpowered the lake. It was green and cloudy under the surface and it didn’t smell so great either. We decided to call it a day and drive back to town. Hopefully this algae thing subsides shortly, I’d like my alternate swim spot back!

no on topic pictures today so here’s something totally random :) source: break.com

Today was my first trip to the pool this month! All my swimming so far has been open water swimming and well… I’m totally ok with that :) It was good to go see my Santa Maria pool friends though. The bad news was the pool was packed. People everywhere and major lane encroachment was in effect. Typically we can hold about 3 lanes at a minimum for our group but these summer only types didn’t get our subtle putting all our stuff down hints. Ultimately Kelly and Patty split two different lanes with strangers and then Mike, Chad, Duke, Dani and I all squeezed down into one lane for our workout. It was quite the travesty, and I may be a little spoiled haha

None of us is particularly used to circling so it was a little messy… there were some bumps and goosings during the first 1000 yards while we were getting our act together. Mike made up a workout with short pieces to account for our “predicament” since we were running people of majorly different speeds inside one lane.

200 swim
200 kick
200 swim

6 x 75 @ 1:30 odds fly/back/breast, evens free

10 x 50 @ 1:00 kick

Repeat x 4
50 fast @ 1:00
75 cruise @ 1:30

2050 yards total

After about 30 minutes the lanes started to thin out a bit and we got to spread back out. I jumped in Patty’s lane and we split for the rest of the workout. We didn’t go super far today but it felt good to cruise in a controlled environment and swim some strokes other than freestyle for a minute. I should be back in the pool on Thursday for some more of this… although I hear the surf will be up that day… hmmmm :)

Monday night I went out for my usual boogie board adventure. I think I’m officially retiring from regular surfing, it doesn’t jive well with my bad back/hips/knees/ankles that also get in the way of me doing terrestrial sports like running. And I mean really, what’s better than sports where you get to lay down? Swimming, bodysurfing, boogie boarding are all super fun and you don’t even have to stand up :)

Dani came out to the beach as well but couldn’t get in because she had the not fun kind of massage where they beat the hell out of you. Instead she waded in thigh deep and observed me rip up some monster foot tall waves, whooo! I would have liked some bigger waves but it’s still fun to mess around on the little stuff.

I was trying out some new fins and I have mixed feelings so far. The Laguna Surf Fins are really comfy compared to my duckfeet and I like that the strap is adjustable. The power transfer felt a little wonky with the soft foot pockets, I got plenty of propulsion though. The one upside I was anticipating from these fins was not destroying my feet (they are such a mess already) but I didn’t quite make it out unscathed. When I got out I took my fins off I was bleeding pretty well on my left foot. In fairness to the fins I think a rock got in there or something and got pressed through the skin by the pressure of my kicking. Whoops. I think I need to start just wrapping my chafe points in duct tape like I’ve read some people do… that might save my feet some of this trauma… I have holes and scars all over the place right now, it’s not sexy.

After the Santa Barbara 6 miler I ended up taking a week off of swimming. It wasn’t completely planned, I probably needed it though… nothing wrong with regrouping occasionally right? Although it was a “break” I was in and on the ocean plenty. There was a lot of bodyboarding in there, I just didn’t officially swim.

Anyways, my first swim back was a fun one in Avila on Sunday. We had great weather, calm water, and a group big enough that we split it in half to do 2 different swims! Niel had an idea for a new route that we’ve never attempted before. We’d go to the tip of the pier, over to the 3rd cross brace on the Poly Pier (we typically don’t venture past #2), down the Poly Pier to the 2nd cross brace, and then back towards town and where we started.

Randomly we separated into a guys’ swim and a girls’ swim. The ladies did more of a pier and buoy line type adventure while us guys took off to the Poly Pier. We all got in together and it was a little cold, Niel had measured 56. I had a hard time convincing myself to get all the way wet but a short set of larger waves helped make that decision for me.

I felt a little rusty on the swim down the pier. I was swimming fine but I wasn’t really all there just yet, I could tell it was going to take a while for me to get into gear on this one. By the time we got to the tip of the pier what fog there had been in Avila was officially gone and we had clear blue beautiful skies. Once our last swimmer caught up with set sights on the Poly Pier.

At the beginning of our longest leg of the swim I took the liberty of drafting for a little bit at the beginning before just settling into my own rhythm and picking my own line. The water temps were a little patchy out there and I found some colder spots on the way. Out at the pier those of us that got there first spent some time talking and I think I’ve come up with a fun out of the ordinary swim for August… still deciding how to go about that though…

On the way down to the next set of cross braces Niel decided that he wanted to swim under the pier since the pilings are set in such a way that you can do that pretty easily without hitting anything. I didn’t want to join him, but I was curious as to what it was like in there. He said the pier made it look like the ocean was curving down and away from him, pretty cool right?

We couldn’t see the buoy line in the glare so we just aimed back for about where it might be. We ended up hitting it at the 2nd bouy and ran into Sylvia and Yvonne right there who were in the midst of their own adventure. We all joined forces to swim the rest of the way to the pier, under it and then back to the beach where we started. On this last part is where I finally started to swim a little faster… naturally :) I bodysurfed a pretty sweet wave in and then dried off and changed pretty quick. There was a free concert across the street at the Golf Resort. It was a pretty good time… lots of sun, booze, fancy popsicles, good company and decent music… hopefully there’s more of these on their schedule!

I went on a little Stand Up Paddleboard adventure on Saturday with my friend Dani that didn’t involve a whole lot of standing up. I got to Morro Bay early to cruise the embarcadero and poke around through the shops a bit. I saw some big orange jellyfish from the shore and the usual birds and sea lions messing around in the water.

Around 1pm I met up with Dani over at Central Coast Stand Up to see Matt and rent some boards. We were a little concerned with the weather because the wind was building and we didn’t want to get stuck anywhere or accidentally make this a paddle and swim adventure. Matt suggested that we paddle across the bay to the sand spit and then follow that out towards where the rock is before swinging back to the other side of the bay and letting the wind push us home.

We got some boards down in the water and pushed Dani off first. There was a good amount of wind and chop coming but she was holding together well. I followed soon after but paddled on my knees while I felt out the balance thing. I do poorly in the wind since I’m such a big target, plus I was having a bad back day and my balance was a little suspect. I ended up staying on my knees almost the whole time.

The paddle over to the sand spit wasn’t easy but it wasn’t too bad. I got there a little before Dani probably because I was catching less wind. When we hit the really shallow water we turned and paddled head on into the wind. It took some doing! After a while I tried to stand up but was super shaky. My leg muscles were all twitchy from being down in an odd position that whole time and kept shaking. I was having a hard time controlling myself so I gave it up and got back down and paddled from my knees again.

Eventually we got to a point where we were just getting tossed around too much and decided to turn and paddle back towards town. The chop was coming right at us on the left side and made for a challenging paddle. When we hit town again we were hoping for a nice easy downwind paddle but that really wasn’t the case. The wind was being counteracted by the outgoing tide and we still had to fight it the rest of the way back. I definitely got a workout! Just before we landed at the dock Matt was taking off with two other renters to give them a little instruction. So Dani and I just hung out with our feet in the water shooting the breeze until he circled back around.

On the way home I stopped in SLO and sifted through the fin selections at a few of the surf shops. Most of them didn’t have much and you really had to go searching to find them. Eventually I found something new and interesting to try out at Moondoggies. I bought some Laguna Surf Fins for bodyboarding and bodysurfing. They have a fairly rigid blade but a neoprene and cloth foot pocket for comfort. As someone with really chewed up feet from my duckfeet fins I’m very intrigued by this and curious if the softer foot pocket is going to cause any power loss or odd feelings while kicking… we’ll see Monday night when I get them wet for the first time!

Wednesday

Been busy busy busy this week between real life and the ocean. I started the week off by taking some days off. After my Monterey excursion I was doing this really cool thing where I hurt on the inside if I took a deep enough breath… not so good. I slacked off until Wednesday morning when I had a personal training session to run.

I got down to the beach early and watched the guards do their workout. They were swimming from the beach to the 1st buoy on the left side of the pier and then back to shore to run around and do some exercises. They did a few rounds of this. The interesting part was they were all wetsuitless for a change. This is the first time I’ve seen them just trunking it in the water. I figured it must be pretty warm and my thermometer confirmed it was 60+. I don’t know what happened that the water temps broke so dramatically out of the low 50′s funk they’ve been in, but I’m not complaining! I’ll take it while I can get it!

When Kurtis got to the beach we got down to business pretty quickly in hopes of beating the 50 or 60 kids from the Junior Guards program into the water. The plan was to swim a backwards triangle. This would be the same general distance as our last swim, but with all new lines and angles to make it harder and more interesting for him.

The water that morning was amazing. Warm, mirror flat and even clear below the surface. It was a very weird swim, but in the best possible way. We rounded the buoys and the pier easily and he’s looking really good. We finished with a quick drafting explanation and practice and a little bit of me swimming on top of and in his way to simulate the irritations of a mass start.

From here it was back to work for the rest of the day although I had one more swim on the agenda. I was back at the beach around 5:30 for my regular training swim. We had just 3 of us swimming and everyone that missed it should be mad at themselves because it was great. Niel measured a freakishly hot 67 degrees. Frankly that doesn’t even make sense to me… we never ever get this warm.

Since the water was nice I knew Niel would be down for a longer than usual route. He wanted to take on a triangle but using the point as the far end instead of just the buoys. That gets us closer to 1.5 miles than just 1. I was totally down for that plan and probably could have been talked into even more if somebody brought it up.

We had a really good swim. Only light chop on the water, to the point that it was barely chop. I took it pretty easy since it was swim number two for the day. I was just cruising and trying to focus on my stroke since I wasn’t going to get a pool day this week and you gotta do that stuff somewhere.

Post swim Ryan took off running, Niel moved towards the showers and I had to bounce in a hurry to meet somebody at a different beach. I normally like to linger a little longer, but I was already a little late and I really dislike being less than on time.

Thursday

Normally Thursdays mean a trip to the lake for a fresh water open water swim, but not this time. There’s some sort of algae bloom going on and the water is a little chunky. Not so sexy. We decided to pass and I ended up boogie boarding at Avila with Dani instead. The water was still super nice and we had a really good time. The waves were really spaced out, but every once and a while you’d get a really big one! Part way through I traded her boards to try the one she’s been bringing. It’s pretty nice but small and I was curious how it would do for me. Turns out it rips! Super fast… hmmm… I may need to upgrade my board in the near future now… whoops

Friday

Today turned out pretty fantastic. I started with a little trip to the Chiropractor to get my back, shoulders, and ribs all put back together correctly. I think this is really helping swim with less pain, I’m all about that! From there I spent a couple hours in my regular office and then transitioned to my “other office” aka the ocean.

First up was another swim with Kurtis. Today the plan was to just run him for a full hour with minimal breaks so he could see what that felt like. We started with a straight swim down the pier. We accidentally made some fisherman friends. We didn’t hit any lines but one guy moved his rig as we pulled up. I saw the bobber in motion, looked up at who was doing it and said thank you. He in turn called me an asshole and said we shouldn’t be swimming this far out. Can’t be friends with everybody I guess :)

From the top of the pier we swam the Port side of the triangle and then retraced it back to the top of the pier. We swung incredibly wide on that leg however just to not have another altercation with the fisherpeople. I had a feeling that guy was the kind of dick that would cast hooks at us if we got close enough again. We finished up by swimming the point side of the triangle and then back in. It turned out to be a 2600m swim and a huge jump from his previous biggest open water swim. We’ve got one more session before his Alcatraz crossing next weekend and I think he’s going to do great. He’s calm, strong in the water, and sighting pretty well.

After my swim with Kurtis I called my next appointment to move our venue to the beach. Normally Gary and I swim out at Lake Lopez but again, gross water. Gary was cool with hitting the ocean instead so I just staying in Avila for lunch since driving back to my office would have been a waste of time and gas since I’d only be there for like 15 minutes. While I waited for Gary the weather just got nicer and nicer. You could see the marine layer way off in other areas but we were bright and sunny with tons of people on the beach.

Gary and I have been building up his distances the last couple weeks. We went from 400m to 800m and I wanted to go over 1000m today, he wanted 1500m. We blew both of our goals out of the water today with almost 1800m!

Our swim route was pretty simple. Straight out to the buoy and round and round buoy 1 and 2 on the point side of the pier. Gary put his head down and just got to work. We took very minimal stops and his stroke was looking pretty good. He’s progressed an amazing amount week over week! We still have a lot of time between here and his target race in September so we’re going to get this dude super dialed in before it’s race time, I’m excited!

This weekend I’m off to Santa Barbara for the Semana Nautica 6 mile race. Some of my friends from down south will be trekking up for it and I’m real excited for that! My buddy Dave VM is swimming it too… he also happens to have been on TV talking about his upcoming Lake Tahoe crossing (he’s going the long way)! Check out the segment from KSBY here!