Intimidation

My triathlon takes place at a very large state park called E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park, commonly referred to as Tom Sawyer. Their pool is a 50 meter pool, and I went there last night to swim!

First of all, it's a good idea to check out the race surroundings. Before I've run mini marathons I've done training runs on part of the courses. Same deal here: you don't want to show up at a race and not know what you're getting into.

I grew up very close to the park, but I don't remember using their pool. The lap swim doesn't start until 7:30 and I didn't like just hanging around after work counting down the minutes until I could leave. When I know I have something to do, I just want to do it otherwise I get anxious.

There were just a few other swimmers in the pool (and zero lane lines set up for some odd reason) so I hopped in and started to warmup.

All I could think about was, "When do I get to the other side????"

After training in a 25 YARD pool forever, swimming in a 50 METER pool is nuts. Not only is it huge, there's a lot more chop so you have to be careful when you're breathing not to inhale a mouthful of water.

I ended up swimming 3/4 of a mile and I thought that was enough for one day. My legs were still tremendously sore from wakeboarding and I didn't want to pull anything/make my legs even more sore.

Unfortunately, the water in the pool is straight up, old-school chlorine and my face felt dry as a desert within minutes of getting out. Come the day of the triathlon, I hope there is some place I can rinse off. At the very least, I'll just slather sunscreen on my face.

I plan to swim at Tom Sawyer about once every other week if not once every week to continue to acclimate myself to the pool.

Post-swim snack/dinner was a protein shake.

Tonight I'm going to a local restaurant named Palermo for dinner. Can we say, "Sangria?"

No workout today = yay for rest days!