Zack's Triathlon Blog

After a short run in the rain yesterday with Amanda it was finally time to tackle the San Francisco Bay. I arrived at Aquatic Park shortly before 8AM. The air was nice and sunny, but the water was a bone-chilling 53 degrees. Everyone was feeling pretty nervous, excited and cold.

The goals of today's swim were to get used to the cold water, learn how to put on a wetsuit, figure out how to breathe normally despite the cold water, learn how to swim in a straight line, and learn how to swim with a large group of people.

1) Putting on the wetsuit, ear plugs, thermal cap, and goggles
We started out with one of the coaches walking us through donning our wetsuits, which included using lots of BodyGlide to lubricate our necks, wrists and ankles and lots of tugging and pulling. I managed to get my suit on without too much difficulty. It fit remarkably well, however the water is soo cold that we needed additional accessories to make us even warmer. We used wax ear plugs which apparently add 2-3 degrees and a thermal swim cap which adds another 3-5 degrees. With all of this stuff on me, I felt a bit isolated, everyone was yelling at each other in order to hear through the 20DB earplugs, and tourists were stopping and taking pictures of us.

2) Getting used to the cold water
After some more words of encouragment we finally got into the water. The theory of wetsuits (for those of you that haven't worn them) is that the cold water rushes into the suit and then sits between the suit and your body and warms up. In other words, the initial rush of cold water into your suit beats the pants off a cup of coffee. I mean you are AWAKE! We jumped around a bit in the water and then swam out to where we could no longer stand. I noticed a bunch of people treading water with their hands out of the water. At first I thought they were just showing off... but after I tried it, I realized that it was a great way to stay a bit warmer. Keep in mind that your hands and feet are totally exposed to the water.

3) Having your face in freezing cold, salty, not-so-clean water
There are many more pleasant things in life than sticking your face in 53 degree water, in fact I think most things would qualify. First of all, the coaches assured us that our faces, much like our hands and feet, would go numb eventually and like all of there other tips, this was true. The cold water also causes you to take quick shallow breaths. After a while, I was able to adjust my breathing a bit to get some deeper breaths and get some more air. Once we got to swimming, I was mostly concerned about the salty water getting into my nose and mouth. The water tastes terrible and burned my nose. I'll have to work on getting less water in both.

4) Swimming in a big group
Finally we started swimming around the buoys. There was a lot of chaos, and with all of the people around, bumping someone was a fairly common occurance. I got kicked in the goggles once, which dislodged them, prompting me to stop swimming and fix them. Swimming in murky water with earplugs and a tight cap on is a very isolating experience. You can't hear or see anything, and you are left to your own thoughts. Despite this, it wasn't as scary as I expected. I did have one moment of panic when I caught up to the person in front of me, the pale white foot floating the water briefly reminded me of movies depicting dead bodies in the water. But I put that out of my head quickly and went on swimming.

5) Swimming in a straight line
Once I got used to the crowd, and the water, and began swimming in earnest, I realized that swimming in a straight line is a lot harder than it sounds. I was going at a reasonable clip, enjoying the added bouyancy provided by the wetsuit and salt water, and I realized that I was no longer bumping people or being bumped into. I looked up and realized that I was swimming was off course. I tried to correct my line, and wound up crossing over the middle and ran into people who were on their way back. After a few zigzags, I managed to get to the end of the swim, but not very efficiently. I'll have to work on that.

Now, being a bay swimming veteran, I realize that these are all things that need a lot of practice. I'm thrilled that the mystery is gone, I know what to expect now, but I am not fooling myself into thinking that I've got it all figured out. Stay tuned to many more bay swims in which I will continue to develop and tune my open water swimming.