LA Triathlon Swim

Now I enjoy a good rough water swim. I like the challenge of timing my stroke and pace with the undulation of the ocean. However, I don't like fighting through constant surf, reaching 10 feet overhead at times, just to get around a bouy. That was the gist of the 2009 LA Triathlon swim leg. Getting out to the first bouy involved a lot of dolphing through the water, a lot of diving under waves and a lot of sprinting in between waves. It wasn't a smooth start. I was worn out by the time I reached the first bouy. Many rescuses were performed and many folks didn't even make it out through the surfline.

The water conditions were caused by storms way out in the Pacific as well as big winds. Big, predictable surf coming in nicely timed sets isn't a big challenge, but constant surf moving in every direction doesn't leave much room for swimming. It is something that is difficult to train for. I think next season I am going to try out some training techniques to improve my blast out from the beach to the bouy.

I did the swim in just over 23 minutes. That is quite a bit off of the under 20 minutes I was aiming for, that is until I saw the day's conditions. Fighting through the very croweded water the entire swim wasn't helpful either. In the end I wasn't slowed as much as I thought. I figured I easily waisted more than 3 minutes farting around in the waves. Rounding back home towards the beach I kept looking back for waves to ride into shore. I was in bad position when one finally did hit, breaking right on top of me, and I got pounded. My googles ended up somewhere out in the water of Venice Beach. After that I had to backstroke it in the rest of the way with some help from more waves. The good thing was I didn't have to worry about the googles anymore... I was lucky not to lose a contact lens.