Go Jump in a Lake!

Went to the beach today with the kids, which gave me a great opportunity to do some lake swimming.

This was only my second real lake swim (the first was the Try-a-Tri!). It was nice to get the time to get a bit more comfortable.

Differences from the pool:

• Cold water - makes it harder to breathe, the lungs don't seem to want to take in as much air, or give it up when they've got it.
  
• Deep water - Not being able to touch the bottom makes me anxious (actually just being in a large body of water does too!)
  
• Visibility - better this time, but still not great.
• Weeds - feel gross on your fingers
  
• Fish - distracting and weird... and their ability to swim so bloody fast and breathe underwater made me jealous
• No lines painted on the bottom - made it hard to maintain a straight line
  

Experience and a wetsuit should take care of most of these!

I didn't have a wetsuit today, but despite that I was able to get everything working quite well. It just took a little while to get comfortable, but once I was my swimming was close to how it is in the pool. Every so often I'd hit a cold patch, and my breathing suffered... I'm sure that's what hurt me the most in the Try-A-Tri, I gave up bilateral breathing pretty early on as I didn't feel I was getting enough air.

My next open-water swim will be in Lake Ontario at Enduro Sport, and will be my first time using a wetsuit. Can't wait!