Tag: open water

Race Report: Del Valle 10K

~ meh ~ 1 Comment

IMG_20150625_145610the dry hills of northern california

This is going to be the most boring race report ever.

Two weeks ago I drove up to Sunnyvale for the Del Valle 10K.  I left crazypants with Mimi and Grandpa, and stayed with some old friends who were fantastic hosts/fellow racers/support crew.  We got up around 5 the following morning and made the drive out to Livermore.  The water was a really nice 71 degrees, the sun was out…pretty ideal.

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My strategy was to go out really, really easy and hang on.  Because I was terrified of not finishing.

The course was 4 x 2,500m loop around a lake.

So I went out easy.  Like, suuuuuuper easy.  For the first 7.5K.  That is a very long time to swim easy.  Fortunately I had this song to keep me company:

The. whole. time.

My splits:

Lap 1: 39+ min
Lap 2: 42+ min
Lap 3: 41+min
Lap 4: 41+min

With about a 30 second break between loops 2 + 3, and 3 + 4 (I just swam by the aid station after the first lap, didn’t need a break).

Total time: 2:44:xx

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Strategy made for a boring race, but it worked!  I broke 3 hours, didn’t faceplant running up the ramp (which I was nervous about), and came out honestly feeling fine.  I thought I could have gone further (though in retrospect, I felt like I picked it up at the end, when in reality it looks like I just held steady).

Aside from a foot/leg cramp towards the end of lap 3 that I thought was going to be the end of my race, but somehow miraculously disappeared, there was little to no excitement.  I spent a lot of lap 2 worrying about a turtle biting me.

IMG_20150625_150348time for beer

I finished not sore, surprisingly not too exhausted, and feeling like I need to do another 10K to see if I can actually race it.  …then proceeded to not swim for what is now going on 2 weeks and promptly got out of shape.

And that was it!  Ready to rock Tahoe.

To Freeze or Not To Freeze

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pic via

This morning I got an email from Big Shoulders saying the water is a delicious 78 degrees right now, but “forecasts call for heavy rain this coming weekend due to the remnants of Hurricane Isaac” which could churn up the lake and drop temps significantly.  Participants have until the 5th to change their entry from the non-wetsuit to wetsuit division.

Despite the fact that I wear a heavy jacket in the office 365 days a year and regularly lose feeling in my feet from cold, I’ve never seriously considered wearing a wetsuit for an open water swim, even though you do go faster.  Part of the reason is because I still kind of feel like wearing a wetsuit is wimpy or something.  Another is that so far it just hasn’t been necessary for any of the swims I’ve done.

But also, in my mind at least, dealing with the conditions is part of the sport.  Pool swimming is for shaving down and wearing high-performance gear and nailing your technique and having everything. go. PERFECTLY. so you can out-touch your opponent by .0001 seconds.  Open water is where you fight for clean water and sight and navigate through seaweed and (hopefully no) animals and…deal with the elements.  That’s what makes it different.  And fun.

So, whether it rains or not this weekend, no wetsuit for me.  (We’ll ignore the fact I don’t own one, so there’s a problem in and of itself.)  Lucky (?) for me, I’ve spent the past few weeks (unintentionally) putting on an extra layer of blubber.  In the past, I have done shorter swims (30 minutes) in the low 60s and even low-50s during the few months that I swam at the Dolphin Club up in SF (like, 5 years ago, but still).  So I’m hoping 75 minutes or so in temperatures closer to 70 will be fine.

Regardless, I will most likely need a little flame sax before I hop in the water.

Old Spice Muscle Music from Terry Crews on Vimeo.

MUSCLE.  MUSCLE.  MUSCLE.  FLEX.

Thanks to Joe for the video.