They call this a WARM-UP?!

Rich and I did a "warm-up" swim in the lake today. It was, by far and without question, the coldest swim I have ever done. I had trouble swimming because it was painful for me to put my face in the water. Keeping my head above water does help me a lot with my sighting and swimming in a straight line, but it is a very slow way to travel. My only hope was that my face would become as numb as my fingers were so that I wouldn't feel the pain any more.

After 20 minutes or so in the water it got a little better but it was still a very difficult swim. I was breathing heavy and maybe just a slight bit of panic of "omg, how am I going to stay in this water for over an hour and a half?!" You might think that the cold water would encourage you to swim faster but it didn't work like that for me. I was constantly thinking "let me get my face out the water just for 10 seconds and get some relief" which slowed me down a lot. I was shooting for a 1:30-1:45 swim, I think now it will be more like 1:45-2:00. And to top things off, even though this was just an open practice swim I was STILL getting kicked in the face by other swimmers passing me.

I am absolutely, positively sticking with the swim booties. I didn't want to use them, but I tried them in the leg and any extra drag they give is the least of my worries. When I compare how bad my exposed fingers felt compared to my covered toes, it's no contest.