Park to Park Swim-Cap

Marta and Alison swim Lake Washington in Seattle!

 On this day in 1875, Captain Matthew Webb swam from Dover to Calais in 22 hours and became the first man to swim the English Channel.
 
Today, Team Goldfish member Marta and I set out to do a much more measured swim--the 1.42 mile swim across Lake Washington--at the Park to Park swim in Seattle. 

Following a full day of plane travel and a rough night of sleep (when you've trained yourself to get up at 6 am or before, the three hour time difference between the east and west coasts can wreak some havoc on your sleep routine), I picked Marta up at her apartment and we headed out to Matthews Beach at Lake Washington.

We lucked out with an absolutely perfect day--the sun was shining, and while the air was cool, the water temperature was really mild.  And Lake Washington is gorgeous!  But, I was sort of running around like a chicken with my head cut off, mainly due to the really long bathroom line.  No time for dynamic warm ups, or the shoulder and thoracic spine opening stretches I'd hoped to do.  Lots of rushing to get ready in time for the start of our wave. 

The route of the Park to Park Open Water Swim

The Park to Park Swim sold out this year, but it's not a race.  It's a fundraiser for Seattle Children's hospital.  As such, they don't time it for you, and you didn't need to provide a seed time, just the time range you expected it would take you to finish the swim.  Both Marta and I, along with about 100 other swimmers, had checked the box next to 30-50 minutes.  So we were the penultimate wave (the slowest swimmers went first), and far and away the biggest. 

I've learned that you have good days, and rough days in the water.  That's true when you're me or Missy Franklin. There are days that I swim fast and it hurts, and days I swim slow and feels good and vice versa.  I think the combination of the plane travel, rough night's sleep, rushed feeling, and wearing my wetsuit for the first time since May, and the fact that there was nothing to site to (no buoys, just the other shore) made it one of those rough days.

If I reflect on the race, there is a lot I could have done better. I got swept up in the start, and overswam--too fast, not finding my rhythm, breathing every stroke cycle.  And it took me nearly a mile to calm myself down.  In the middle of the lake, the chop picked up and while my stroke allowed me to cut through it, I honestly didn't have a lot of fun doing it.  (In contrast, I had a really fun 1.5 mile swim on Thursday night at National Harbor.  I was tired after a morning lift, and a full work day, but enjoyed the process,  was feeling the water well, and held my form and moved fast).   By the last half mile, I did manage to find my form, but my wetsuit lifts my butt and legs and I need to work on correcting the arch it creates in my back.

Marta debriefed our experiences at the beach of O.O. Denny (the photos above are from the end of the race--both of us wore our Team Goldfish caps under our swim-sanctioned caps), and she had a similar experience.

And for all that critique, we both still managed to finish in between 44 and 45 minutes, she a bit ahead of me.  Right what we were aiming for. 

It was a rough swim, it was less fun than I had hoped, yet I powered through and I think it will help me be mentally tougher and better prepared for the big swim on September 22.

Me and Marta post swim

A special shout out to Marta who has been a great friend, training buddy and supporter of me and Team Goldfish.  She was one of the people who said "you should totally sign up for that 3 mile swim" way back in the spring!