Swimming and the Rain

One good thing nasty weather does for you is force you to do the things you probably wouldn't do quite as often if the weather were nice. In a non sport example, this would be reading, catching up on DVR'd shows, or cleaning the house. In the triathlon world for me, this is swimming. I've been doing a lot more swimming this year due to injury, but the nicer weather so far this season has me hitting the trails outside whenever its nice.

This week, things changed. The temperatures got colder, and the rain cometh and never stopped. Its still raining. Flood warning everywhere. Some schools are even canceled. A brief respite Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning provided only a slight opportunity to do other things, but my options became fewer just as quickly, due to other issues.

Saturday morning was a planned short swim, hilly bike workout. When I opened the front door Saturday morning, I could barely see outside because it was raining so hard. Scratch the bike, go for a longer swim. And of course, this weather didn't help to motivate Rebecca in her 10k race, which she rocked anyways with a PR of almost 2 minutes. I got in a few miles of running trying to follow around the course, so the day's workouts were not completely lost with a swim and a run.

Sunday, Rebecca and I had planned to attend a swim clinic in Luray, VA to get in some early season open water swimming in, and follow that with a good bike on the rolling hills of the Luray Triathlon course. Thankfully, they weather held out in the morning and we were able to get the swim in. The air temps at the time were about 51 degrees, however the water was about 68, so swimming wasn't too bad. I got in a good mile of swimming, and it was faster than my goal pace for this weekend, so hopefully I'll be able to repeat that performance. Once we got out of the water, things took a turn for the worse. The air felt really cold, since we had been in warmer water for a while and wind began to pick up. Soon after, rain started to fall. While some of the others there chose to stay around and hit the bike course, we decided to pack it up. With Columbia just around the corner, me recovering from a cold, Rebecca just starting to get a cold, it wasn't worth the risk of toughing it out.

I've swam 4 times this week for a record of just over 8000 yards. My shoulders are a bit sore from all the work and started to tire toward the end of yesterday's open water swim, but a great week of swimming is in the books. I guess that's what rainy weather will do for ya.