Location: Green River Reservoir
Swim Time: 9:00am
Today it is ” chucking it down” with rain and on the books for me and my crew is a 4 hour swim, last night I emailed Deb and Paula, with concerns of the forecast:
” rain, heavy at times, wind of 13-14 mph with possible thunder storms”
I have concerns about the threat of storms and let Paula and Deb know last night that anything over 2 Hours and 8 minutes would the goal today, that would make it our longest OW swim this spring.
None the less I pack up enough feed for 4 hours and write out a feeding schedule for 4 hours, secretly I am planning my 4 hours anyway, weather permitting.
New Feed: The Potato Smoothie
The 'Potato Bomb"
Despite the grim forecast I am VERY excited about today’s outing, it is my first try of a new feed, made by my husband Jeff, he knows food, being a graduate of the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont he is a wonderful chef, with many years of restaurant experience ranging from dishwasher when he was a kid, to chef owner of his own restaurant, from baker in his own Bakery, to baking now for a local school, he prepares yummy nutritious food and with me consuming in excess of 6000 calories per day his top patron is ME! Delicious.
So back to the brew, Jeff is blending up sweet potatoes, bananas and orange juice and today I get to try it, only catch is my first few feeds are my carbohydrate and water brew called Maxim,( it is one of the preferred fuels for EC Swimmers), so I have to be out there a minimum of 3 hours to down my new brew, I am calling it the “Potato Bomb”.
Maxim Carbo drink and my "throw'n go" feed bottle
Into the Outdoors into the Rain!
Time to swim, I meet Deb and Paula at the shore, we load up the boat with multiple feed bottles, I proudly show them my suit for today’s swim, it is a suit I have had for some time and only just noticed that it has “Little Italy” as the print, how funny, especially as we are swimming down to Italy’s boot twice today!
Little Italy
On to the swim, air temperature is 55 degrees, water measured 70 degrees at the canoe launch, once we got out onto the main lake things cooled, but still very comfortable. We begin swimming our first loop which is to picnic Island and down and around this tiny little Island with just a few sparse little trees, I call it ” One Tree Island”, then we head down the main arm of the lake towards little Italy, first 2 feeds are Maxim, the 3rd feed goes down at 1.5 Hours, I start swimming and it then comes back up, I lose half of it and manage to swallow the other half back down.
Next comes 2 hours, I am excited to try the ” POTATO BOMB” it is thick and sweet, I swallow 300mls and resume swimming, it tastes good and I feel a surge of energy, I am pleased. While all this is going it continues to pour with rain, it is raining so hard I can hear it on my cap, it is like when you are sitting in your car in an absolute down pour and the sound of the rain on the roof is deafening, as I turn to breath I can see Paula paddling, she is battling through the waves in the kayak, she is wrapped up in rain gear, her hood is up and I can see that she is drenched, yet she still turns and smiles towards me, she knows it helps me, a smile goes a long way, I feel grateful she is here supporting me.
Paula and I head down to the boot of Italy and then back to the canoe launch, Paula docks the kayak and gets out to let Deb take over, along with Picard, while this is happening I am swimming back and forth across the canoe launch to stay warm, before I know it Deb is with me and we are off, back to Italy, back to the heel. The conditions stay tough, the water is rough and the rain heavy, we stop at 3 hours for another Potato Bomb and then back to the canoe launch, at 3.5 hours we are only 10 minutes away, final feed, real food this time 1/2 a banana YUM YUMS! I ask Deb if we can take a lap of Blueberry Island for a little extra time, we are off and who do we find but Paula!. She has a bright green cap on and full wetsuit, it was good to see her, we swam around the island and back in together.
How Long: 3 Hours 52 minutes
I am VERY Pleased, a good team effort today.
Warming up in the Mini.... Wet, Windy, dark and grim outside....COZY INSIDE!
After that into the mini and warm up, home to a hot shower, eggs on toast( that is my comfort food!) and into bed, the plan was to knock out the weekly house clean first……”maybe later”, I think as I snuggle under the covers, mmmmmm I feel like I am in a cloud, dreamy, nite nite!
What’s next, a lighter week, then off to Indiana for some Open Water Swimming!