Feelin’ Kinda Salty

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Today after work I went for my first-ever Aquat­ic Park swim. I bor­rowed a wet­suit to fend against the cold San Fran­cis­co Bay water, and went out into it. I’ve tried twice before with­out a wet­suit, and chick­ened out when the water reached my bel­ly. The water, yes, it’s cold.

The wet­suit I bor­rowed feels too small for me, but maybe that’s just a side effect of being prop­er­ly snug. It’s a shorty; the sleeves are long but the legs cov­er about one-third of the thigh. For­tu­nate­ly, that’s enough. My expe­ri­ence before was that my legs accli­ma­tized quick­ly, but my tor­so and arms just could­n’t take it.

I got out there, not know­ing if I could do it. I’ve gone dis­tances as much as a mile when I’ve been in a pool going back and forth, but this was rel­a­tive­ly open water. It was a calm day and still chop­pi­er than I’m used to. The water is pret­ty gross, too. I’ve got to learn how to bet­ter avoid get­ting any in my mouth. Ewww.

Today I did two laps at Aquat­ic Park, which means I did two-thirds of a mile. The first lap was to prove I could do it at all. The sec­ond was try­ing to get into a rhythm. I nev­er real­ly did find a rhythm, but I was even­tu­al­ly able to slow down enough that I could go with­out stop­ping for a few yards. It’s hard­er to trust that there will be air for me when the water is less smooth and predictable.

Any­how, this was enough of a first for me. I’ll try going for the full mile some­time after I get a lit­tle train­ing. I’m sure I’m doing a lot wrong and can’t wait to find out what.

Also, must get my heartrate mon­i­tor fixed. I wish I could find the receipt. I bought it in Feb­ru­ary; I don’t think it was sup­posed to stop work­ing in June. It still tells my heartrate; it just won’t tell me the time or act as a stop­watch any more. Sucks.

Published by splicer

4 Replies to “Feelin’ Kinda Salty”

  2. I think I was too big for my
    I think I was too big for my wet­suit.. I was nev­er able to swim com­fort­ably in it. You might be inter­est­ed in giv­ing it a shot though — see­ing if it fits you. I know we are slight­ly sim­i­lar in size, though I’m prob­a­bly larg­er at the moment.

    MK

  4. Actu­al­ly, I’m very curi­ous
    Actu­al­ly, I’m very curi­ous to see how your wet­suit dif­fers from the one I’ve bor­rowed. I think mine is made to be a surf­ing wet­suit; I’m not real­ly sure.

    I haven’t been get­ting up ear­ly enough in the morn­ing to actu­al­ly do any swim­ming or run­ning or bik­ing or any­thing late­ly. My work­outs have dropped to almost com­plete­ly nil since mov­ing in to the new place, except I have got­ten dragged in to the gym a cou­ple times. Still, that ain’t much.

    So, I’m sor­ry that I did­n’t respond. I appre­ci­ate the offer and I am inter­est­ed in tak­ing you up on it, but I haven’t the begin­ning of a clue when that’ll be.

    I’d real­ly like to go for a bike ride this week­end if the weath­er is good. And I have the cable­car chase to run on Sun­day, which is prob­a­bly a bad event for me to run con­sid­er­ing how lit­tle I’ve been run­ning this month. Ugh ugh ugh.

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