Open Water Swim with Current

My goal for the rest of summer is to get in an open water swim every weekend.  Works quite nicely because there are group swims at Brighton Beach on Saturdays and Sundays.  Ideally i will swim Saturdays and then do my long Bike on Sundays and follow with a swim again on Monday's. Finally a warm summer weekend.  I saw Lisa again, the local who swims just about every day and also met two newcomers one who is a seasoned triathlete and another doing her first in about a month and has never swam in open water.  Enjoyed talking to both of them after the swim and shared contact information.  Gina is interested in going on long bike rides with me which is great.  She also works free lance and may be available for week days out there.

I learned about the jettys.  Each is a 1/4 mile apart, so that is helpful in determining how far you've swam.  I wanted to swim for an hour 15 min.  Three of us left to swim half mile and turn around.  We swam with the current and didn't realize how strong it ws until we turned around.  Ultimately took me an hour to swim a mile.  Next time I will swim to start against the current and swim further, ideally a mile and then turn around and swim with the current.  Noticed my HR was about 3BPM faster than the same intensity of swim in a pool.  Felt comfortable in the water except when my goggles fogged and i couldn't see my targets.  Found it difficult to navigate and will work on sighting more frequently on my next swim.

Really a nice day.  David ran the boardwalk while i swam and then we headed home to clean up and go see friends for an evening BBQ.

North Fork Long Bike And Easy swim

We headed out of Brooklyn on Friday for a weekend with family in the North Fork.  Perfect envirnoment for tri training.  Pleanty of open water oppertunities, easy rolling hills (similar to the NYC tri course next weekend) and beautiful open road scenery for running. Today I rode my last long ride before the NYC triathlon.  My intention was to have a good time, get used to race gearing with the new bars and take it fairly easy.  I Rode the first hour at a high cadence (70-85) against the wind.  Didn't realize how strong that wind was until i turned around and found myself back to the cottage 15 minutes sooner than planned.  On the return i worked a lower cadence at lower gears.  Had a great time flying home.  My bike feels really good although i feel the angle of the bars could be changed so my wrists are more relaxed.  Will work on that after the race.

After my ride we set out to explore beaches.  Found a good one for me to do a little open water swimming.  I'll be over on my training hours for the week with this additional swim, so the idea is to just enjoy the water, adjust my wetsuit so it doesn't rub on my neck like the last time I wore it, and to feel what it's like to swim in current.  Only swam about 30 minutes.  Water was actually too warm for a full suit and was surprised by that.   I never felt too warm with my last suit which didn't have sleeves.  Was glad i had the sleeves though because ran into a few jelly fish out there.  Hopefully I won't experience the jellyfish attack at the NYC tri like lat year.  If so, i'm prepared!