This morning was our first ‘open water swim’.  We met at Coyote Point in San Mateo, and the first thing we did was pick up our wetsuits (we are very lucky in that we get given them as part of training with TNT).  We had some lessons in ‘how to put a wetsuit on’, and ‘how to prevent chafing with a ton of body glide’, and most people managed to get them on without too much effort.

all about wetsuits

Coyote point was a great place to have our first open water swim.  For a start the water was a good temperature, and given it was low tide we were able to touch the bottom throughout the entire swim!  As usual TNT coaches were awesome, giving us all the support we needed and being out in the water on kayaks in case anyone freaked out (no one did!).  The actual experience of swimming in open water with a wetsuit on was quite different than pool swimming – the cold water certainly took your breath away, and swimming in the murky water took some getting used to.  The great thing about having a wetsuit on is that you literally CANNOT sink!

We ended up swimming for around 50 minutes – and probably did close to the distance of the Olympic tri distance on 0.93 miles – so we are definitely getting closer to being ready  for this! After the swim we did a short 40 minute run.

Here’s teammate Sue and I before we went in the water:

ready to swim in San Francisco Bay!

Last weekend we did another great swim, bike AND run at Burgess Park in Menlo Park again.

My challenge now is a vacation in Australia! I’ll continue my training while I’m there – most likely that will include an ocean swim in Mooloolaba.

And when I’m back in early August we head down to Capitola for our ‘dummy run’ – where we’ll see the actual course.  Stay tuned!

Yesterday we had or first bike/run ‘brick’.  We met at Almaden Lake in San Jose, and started with an out and back ride along Santa Teresa Blvd.  This was our longest ride yet, but it wasn’t particularly hilly.

The ride took around 1:30 (I started my iPhone ‘mapmyrun’ way too early which is why this chart is off).  When we finished the ride we put our bikes on our cars and headed out for a short 2 – 2.5 mile run.  When I first heard we were only going 2 miles I thought that seemed very short, but these coaches know what they are doing and there was a reason it was only that distance!  When I started running my legs felt like jelly and I really struggled to get going.  In addition it was starting to warm up in San Jose, and that 2 miles ended up being quite a challenge.  Certainly a wake-up call, and a realization that you need to get super fit to complete a triathlon – lucky I still have almost 3 months to go until my event.