First Open Water Swim

Yesterday evening, I did my first open water swim at Clackamette Cove in Oregon City with my team. Getting into the wetsuit is no easy task. There is lots of greasing up that happens. Some use body glide, some use Pam cooking spray (for real!), and we do this all in a GROUP! 3/4ths of the way into my suit, (no easy feat), I looked down and noticed that the zipper was in the front....OOPS! I had put it on backwards! As my teammates laughed at me and grabbed for the cameras, I hastily peeled it off and started over. Once in, I realized that with the swim cap it's actually not a very attractive look. I am reminded of bullets, or perhaps sperm, or something along those lines. The neckline was also quite high and I felt like it was choking me. Getting into the water, I discovered something else, which is that a wetsuit it like your own personal raft. Too bad we weren't there to crack open a beer and float around the lake together. Instead, Coach Julie made us swim! It was harder to stay on course with 1.) no black stripe on the bottom and 2.) no ability to see anything anyway. So swimming out to a buoy may seem like a simple task, but I believe my course looked rather z-like, as in zigzag. I also clocked a fellow teammate in the head, ran a few people over, was run over myself. In general, mayhem! It was kinda fun in some respects, but the choking feeling was exascerbated when I exerted myself and I felt very out of breath. Later in the swim, Julie informed me that I was kicking way too much and that the extra exertion probably contributed to the breathlessness. We are not supposed to kick much in the swim part of a triathlon in order to preserve out legs for the bike and run, but if you've swum much at all in your life, it can be a hard habit to break. So now my wetsuit is sporting a soccer ball in the neck to try to stretch it out, and I am hopeful that our swim in Nehalem Bay this weekend will be smoother. I am so glad we are practicing this stuff ahead of time!!!