It’s Friday, I’m in Kent

A few weeks ago, I’d signed up to do a 2.4 mile swim race in “beautiful” Kent, WA. Why would I do such a thing, you may (rightfully) ask. Well, I wanted to do at least one confirmed open water swim of the distance that I’ll have to race come Ironman day and I always get confused with the suburbs east of Seattle and thought Kent was much closer than it was. The race was at 6:15 in the evening, which ordinarily would be fine, except for the fact that it was on the Friday evening of a weekend I’d planned to spend in Prosser with my friend Erin. D’oh! Luckily, my friend M was up for an adventure and decided to come with me, so I had good company on this crazy adventure.

M picked me up from work and we headed directly to Kent. We left ourselves plenty of time in case of traffic, so of course we were crazy early. This left us plenty of time to check in, wander around, etc. We watched them set up the buoys of the course and yet again I marvelled at how far a 1.2 mile course looks (I would have to do two loops for my race.) Before I knew it, it was time to suit up and get in the water. M was kind enough to take pictures, so here’s the start:

And we’re off:

I started toward the back, as I’d never swum a race of this distance before and wanted to take the first loop nice and easy. I took it probably a little too easy, but made it around the first lap in reasonably good shape. For the first time, I think ever, I stayed right on the buoy line and didn’t swim a lot of extra distance going wide around the buoys. Here’s the pack starting their second lap, or the 1.2 mile race starting, I’m not sure. But the picture is pretty, so it’s here:

And as always with a multi-loop course, I was not excited to start the second loop. It was nice knowing where to site and where I could just put my head down and swim. This is probably me starting my second lap:

It was pretty spread out at the back of the pack, but I still managed to keep ahead of a few people and pass a few others. I didn’t set my stopwatch, but I believe that I probably swam the second lap faster than the first. I managed to do the whole thing in 1:35:30, about five minutes slower than I was hoping for. Given that I’ve never swum this distance, I was pretty happy with that time.

Afterward, M regaled me with some of the craziness that had been going on while I’d been swimming. She’d apparently been told by one of the race volunteers that her cheering was “confusing the swimmers” and they were swimming toward the sound of her voice. (WTF?) She also had some funny stories from the people sitting next to her and I really appreciated that she was willing to freeze her butt off to watch me swim for an hour and a half. As we were getting ready to leave the park, we saw the most ghetto-tastic ice cream man of all time. M was too embarrassed to photograph him with her big camera, so I snapped this stealth shot:

Yeah, that’s a Sikh guy driving a mini-van with stickers on it. It was pretty hilarious and for a minute I felt like I was back on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn. (Except that the guy driving would have probably been Dominican or Hassidic instead of Sikh.) After all of that, it was time to hit the road for a three-hour drive to Prosser. We grabbed some coffee at Starbucks, a little fast food drive thru action and then hit the road.

Erin was nice enough to stay awake to greet us, even though it was midnight when we finally got there. We got to see her cute house and meet her two awesome kittycats. We talked a little about our plans for the weekend, then it was time for bed.

Super awesome Saturday

Tonight M & I took a little field trip out to West Seattle to swim at Colman Pool. Colman is this huge (50 meters long) outdoor pool right next to the water. (Photo courtesy of Flickr)

The weather was grayer and cloudier than the photograph above, but it was still an awesome place to swim. Even with numerous people in the lane, there was room to spread out and not feel crowded. I did manage to get hit in the head and the back (?!) by an oncoming flailing Asian guy, but otherwise it was a nice uneventful swim. M did awesome, busting out 800 meters and generally dominating the easy lane.

Afterwards, M & J had T & I over for Coq Au Vin and old photo night. The food was delicious (especially after all the swimming) and the pictures were hilarious. All in all, it was a super awesome Saturday.

How the other half swims

In keeping with my quest to be more on top of my training this week, I made sure to leave the house a little early for my pre-work swim. I usually don’t leave myself quite enough time, so I get to the pool at the “1 hour until I half to get out of the pool in order to be on time to work” mark. This means I either don’t get to swim for the full hour I have on my plan or I’m late for work. (I’m late for work a lot… )

And all of this is super lame because I work the late shift on Tuesdays and don’t have to be to work until 3:30. There’s no good reason for me not to be in the pool by 2, hence my decision to leave early today. I like to do my Tuesday swims at Portland State’s pool because it’s much nicer than the 24 Hour Fitness pool and it’s hardly ever crowded. The worst case scenario is that I have to share a lane with one other person – paradise compared to my six people to a lane New York YMCA days (shudder… )

Today I make it to campus around 1:30 and as I pass the library I notice it’s entirely surrounded by police tape and clearly has been evacuated. Hmmmm, I’m going to guess bomb threat… Since the building that’s housing the pool is right next door and still open, I decide it’s probably a false alarm and head on inside. I walk onto the pool deck to see six lanes of completely empty pool and three bored looking lifeguards sitting around. Weird. I stretch and get ready to start swimming, still nobody else. I get into the water and start warming up – all by myself. It’s both luxurious and unsettling, plus I was getting a little self-conscious because of the three lifeguards. I started thinking this is how the wealthy or extremely important must swim…

But eventually, other swimmers started showing up and by the time I finished my workout, the pool was back to it’s usual level of activity. But for a brief, shining 20 minutes, it was all mine…