2019 Open water kickoff - two open water swims this weekend

I texted Chad re: swimming in Pineview last week and he mentioned that it was still a little cold, but he was open to go for it.  I looked up the temp online and it showed 55 degrees!  Woah!  So on Saturday, 6/15/19 I went with Cathi and Oliver up to Pineview to take a temp reading.

It came up as 62 degrees.  Much better.  I tried to convince Oli to swim with me at least out to the first buoy east of Windsurfer beach, but the water was too cold for him.  The water was way high.  It was only a few feet from the bottom stair down from the parking lot.  I set Cathi up with a camp chair and she and Oliver watched (along with about a dozen other people hanging out in that area playing), while I swam.

I went a little bit further, but then realized that I didn't lock the car and the parking lot was a zoo of people.  Didn't want anything to get taken so I called Cathi on my watch and told her to please lock the car.  I figured I had gone enough and turned back.

Once I got about 50 yards from shore, Oliver was there with a big smile on his face and he wanted to race to the shore.  I had to push it faster than my normal pace to beat that little kid. The little stink wasn't even wearing goggles, and was swimming water polo style.  I couldn't help laugh while I was swimming. 

It was a ton of fun and I'm ready to start swimming here on a weekly basis.

I texted Chad and he was at Jordanelle and sent me a pic of his thermometer reading 60 degrees even.

So the plan is to swim together at Jordanelle on Monday morning....

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Jordanelle

Got up at 4:30 to get on the road in time to meet Chad at 6:00am.  Got there and Chad and Josh were there!  Chad brought a friend too, Zack.  I couldn't get over how high the water was.  It was basically at the top of the boat ramp.  Last time I was here it was about 25-30 yard walk down the ramp to get to the water's edge!  We had all agreed to do a 15 minute in and 15 minute back swim. About a mile.

What? My avg heart rate was
104?  Man, I'm sandbagging I guess!

When I got to the water, I started the wade in.  Yes it was cold, but not unbearably so.  I kept on going in to my waist. Didn't stop and got up to my shoulders, neck, and started some breaststroke.  I was a little freaked that I WASN'T affected by the cold. I didn't hyperventilate, and it felt fine. After about a minute of breaststroke I saw the other guys coming in and swimming towards me in freestyle.  That's when I started off. I knew I'd get passed pretty quickly.  I'm still pretty slow. 

Once I got to the red buoy, Josh was there and passed me.  We turned and went along the white buoy line and Chad and Zack passed.  I never felt any kind of numbness from the cold. It felt quite refreshing.  I knew that 15 minutes in and 15 minutes back was gonna be cake.  And it was.

When we got to the turnaround point, we chatted for a bit, and turned around.  I was feeling great and the water quality was awesome!  The recovery was easy.  I hardly did any shaking at all in the drive in to work. I definitely want to come here once a week!

Monument to Lynn Kubasek

Cathi informed me recently, "We should name your pool, you spend so much time in it.  What should we name it?"  I'm not into naming objects, as it just doesn't make sense to me.  Pets, fine. Non living objects?  Not so much.

But in the process of thinking of forcing myself to come up with names, I remembered Lynn Kubasek and the kind of person she was.  I first heard of Lynn via Steven Munatones' openwatersource.com video in April 2011.  Here's the original experience.

Here's the full interview that captured my attention:



When I watched her tell her story and love for swimming, I fell in love with that down to earth sweet personality and had to meet her in person.  I was quite star-struck when I attended Jamie Patrick's swim camp and was able to swim along side her and spend the week at swim camp with her and many other open water legends.

Lynn came out to Salt Lake and raced the Antelope Island to Blackrock races in 2014, and shared in the adventure of swimming an open water marathon distance in the Great Salt Lake!

Then when my time came to swim Catalina, she made an effort to be my observer, which she did.  Her presence there was very reassuring and comforting. And when I finished the swim and got back to the boat she was there to hand me a burrito and make sure that I was comfortable and cared for.

She compiled her own video log of that swim she observed: https://youtu.be/BuJd1Gvz2Dg

When I heard of her cancer diagnosis it was only a few weeks until I heard that she had passed away. My father died of the same type of cancer.
Some of the dearest people in the world are taken far too early from this disease!

When Kelly Gneiting made his Anacapa attempt, Lynn also was the observer for that swim and I was able to spend time with her on that trip as well.

One thing she did during swim camp was bring a Wilson volleyball and put goggles on it and take pictures of it in the open water at some of her swims. Her Facebook page often had other pics of Wilson at various open water locations. It was pretty entertaining to me.

So I'm happy to now have a monument dedicated to her to permanently in my endless pool, to float alongside me in the current & eddies and every time it bumps into me it will push me to keep on going.  Love you Lynn!

2019 GSLOW race

This morning, Lucy, Sam and I went paddling for the swimmers in the 1 mile in the GSLOW race.

It was a little breezy at 7:30 when we got there but by 8 it calmed down pretty good.  It was a nice day for a swim.

Senthil and his daughter helped bring up the rear with the last swimmer. 

Sam is such a good sport. He doesn't complain at this age when I ask him to help me do stuff like this.  What a good kid.  He was a great paddler!

Sam posing from a distance!

Utah Open Water legend, Jim Hubbard rounds the final buoy.

Three young girls did the 1 mile.  That's some hardcore swimmers there. 

Anna-Marie Forest won her category (assisted). She's always up for these open water adventures!









I got my crusty salt fix for the day all over my pants and boots.  Felt good to come home and jump in the hot tub.  I'm ready for a nap and I didn't even swim!  I'm excited to get my own swim in the evening.