Team Pursuit attempt

This morning in the midst of my sleep, Cathi wakes me "Gordon aren't you swimming?"  I look at the clock.  45 minutes beyond my alarm.  Fortunately I set my alarm way earlier than I really need so I can take my time with my morning routine.  But today I had to jump straight out of bed, rush through and get on the road.  I made it to the pool exactly at 5am which is what I wanted.  I was planning to meet Jason and Sarah to swim the 1650 Team Pursuit.

Sarah was gracious enough to offer to time Jason and I in a 2-man team relay.  Jason apparently did the same thing with his alarm and showed up at 0515.  Which was fine cause we had aloted a full hour to warmup and swim the mile before masters started, which I was in charge of coaching.

Warmed up with about 200 yards of freestyle practicing side by side drafting.  Jason was new to it and occasionally we'd get a bump or two, but nothing major.

Thanks to Sarah Jones for taking the time
to record our splits when she could be swimming
her 3rd 10,000 for April!

So off we started agreeing to swim side by side offset a little so the person drafting would be right on the leader's hip.  Switching lead position every 100 yards.  The goal was to get about a 1:15/100 yard pace.  Here is the actual results.  We were doing well and at about 400 yards into it, I was already hurting.  I was a little negative in my head thinking "Only half -way?!!!!"  I knew it wasn't going to be a pretty ending.

Unfortunately at the 650 yard mark, Jason stopped at the wall as I flipped and kept going.  He picked back up after that 50.  OK, not the end of the world I thought.  He'll do an extra 50 yards once I'm done.  He was able to hold on until 1050 and then again he held back for a lap. Game over.  Doing an extra 100 yards after I'm done?  No way was the time going to be sufficient for a decent entry. Oh well, at least I'll keep going and see what I get on my own individual 1650.

Most of the splits show an under 40 second time, but near the end I was freakin' tired and we got a bunch of 40's and a couple 41s.  No way was I gonna get a 20 minute mile.  Jason held up one more time at the 1600 mark and when I touched the wall on the 1650 Sarah stopped the clock at 21:24.46.  Definitely not what I wanted considering I got just under 20 minutes last November at the SDM meet.  Oh well.  This is the third time I attempted to swim this for the Team Pursuit challenge, and the first time of actually swimming it.  Unfortunately it didn't result in an actual team finish, so I can't submit it.  Don't get me wrong I'm grateful he came,  he pushed me and we are a similar pace, just there is some improvement on endurance, and he's not a huge fan of long distance events.  So I don't blame him.  I am grateful and he did gain some experience in drafting, and got a killer workout in for today.

This Team Pursuit Challenge apparently didn't take off like the SLOW leadership had hoped and it has crashed and burned.  Definitely not even comparable to the one hour postal that USMS has grown and developed.

I did a few more laps of warmdown before getting out to coach masters, and ended up with a daily total of 2000 yards.  Looking forward to tonight's open water swim in the Great Salt Lake.  Hoping to do a Gridley Straight, but it may be a cut a little short depending on how the cold water will affect the group.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
This evening I met Mike, a member of the QUAC club who is the first to join us from QUAC.  He was very interested in swimming in the lake and was excited to join us.  I hope his experience was as pleasant as it could be given it was his first time in the lake.  It's always a rough experience the first time, but gets progressively easier as well as more enjoyable over time.

These medals aren't the tiny dinky things.
Pretty good sized with tons of detail.
And the ribbon itself is extremely well done.

Today's swimmers were Goody, Josh, Sarah, Mike, Karl and myself.  The water temp was still pretty cool getting in.  We swam out to the red buoy and then east to the next red buoy, then a couple loops between the two red buoys and then back in.  Since we didn't have a kayaker, I towed my Swimmer Buddy Board with the GPS in tow.  The GPS read a total distance of 1.01 miles.

Goody and I talked for a good bit during the swim swimming heads up breast stroke.  Today marked an important anniversary for him.  One year since his clean bill of health from the Drs.  He's been through a lot and is one tough dude!  I'm very blessed to have him as a friend.

Josh showed me one of the medals that I've only seen pics of up to this point.  It looks even better than a picture can portray.  The level of detail is outstanding!  Here is a picture of Karl modeling it.  Seriously, this is gonna make the race participants freak with delight when they get home, rinse off all that salt, and sip on a cool drink and look at this medal and ponder their experience.  I think it'll stand out as a big life moment for many.

I stopped by Bountiful Lake on the way home and took a temp reading.  57.8 degrees.  Looks like perhaps it's time to give that a try on Saturday, after the meet.