Monday, May 28, 2007

A long Memorial Day Weekend...

It's Almost over (writing this at 10:00p on a Monday night).

It started on Friday, where I had to work at both jobs, and the same went for Saturday. Sunday after work, I went out for my brick workout (the stats are below). Jackie just rode for a straight two hours.

Sunday morning, it happened...

I GOT TO HANG OUT FOR THE FIRST TIME WITH A TRI - BLOGGER!!!

And who was it you ask? Well it was none other than Wes, who just happens to be up the road from me (actually about 45 min up the road). Wes has been talking about getting some open water swims in, something that I am much in need in, and so I thought I would oblige. Sunday I thought I would send him an email to see if he was still interested, I knew he had a pretty busy weekend scheduled. Lo and behold on Sunday evening I had and email that was in my inbox, and started like this...



"Woo hoo! It's on :-) Dee Dee just asked me the same question. I guess I can't back out now ;-) ..."



Needless to say I was excited. I did not get a great night of sleep since my roommate is having issues with the HVAC running cold, so I did not actually get to sleep until about 3:00am. Up at 6:45am, I quickly got ready and headed out. Made a wrong turn on the way, but Wes quickly guided me back to where I needed to go and soon I was at his humble abode and met him and his wife, Dee Dee. Nothing but wonderful, I tell you!

We were then off shortly thereafter ( I got to see the new ride in person as well, it was sweeet!) and got to the lake close to 8:30. There were a number of cars in front of us, and the gate booth is not as quick and high tech as most things I am used to, so it took a bit longer. There were about 20-30 cars in there as well, and people already grilling, children swimming, etc. Off went the exterior clothes and there we all were in our swim gear, goggles and caps.

I asked Wes how he wanted all of this to go down, and it ended up being like a rectangular swim, close to shore. Which was fine with me, I was not about to get run over by some drunk people piloting jet skis and boats (come to find out later I had some friends at lake Lanier that experienced something similar). We completed 4 laps of somewhere close to 400 meters per lap. We thought it closer to 350, but on the last lap, after the final turn, I stroke counted similar to what I do in the pool, and I came up with about 150M from pole to shore. Who knows.

I think I finished everything in about 42minutes, with breaks inbetween each lap, so in all, not too bad consider we collectively swam about a mile. Wes was sporting some great form, and his sighting was great. He was usually ahead of me, and I would end up about 50 yards on either side of him. For those of us who joke about adding a few meters to our final distance due to getting of track, that was definately me today. Thought I felt a snake in the water at one point, but I think it was a piece of rope coming off one of the shallow bouy markers that I got close to (I hope). Dee Dee was not so fortunate, finding a dead snake in the water, and she was done.

Wes, it is so on for the rest of the year until it gets cold again!!! It is great getting away from the pool and swimming in an element that you will compete in eventually.

That is about all for now, more to come later. Due to the holiday weekend and such, I will forego posting my stats and just let you know that Sunday afternoon I bricked it with a 17mile ride and a 5K, and then Monday was the (some where close to a) mile swim with Wes.


Murtha...

1 comment:

Wes said...

Andy, the pleasure was all mine, bro! But don't worry, I won't fight with ya as there is enough to go around!! Trying to set up something at Lake Acworth for Dee Dee on the 10th. Probably evening but could be morning. Please come if you are interested.