A night at the beach

Yesterday was the start of my open water swim training. Obviously this is far too late since my first open water triathlon was last week but I am looking to the future. My nightmare of a swim in London made it clear that this is an area I really need to work on.

So yesterday I went down to Weymouth with a few people from a local triathlon club. I was a bit late getting ready and meeting up with the guys I was going with. So once we got there everyone else was already in the water. We got changed in a car-park with a few comments from the locals then it was just a short walk to the stony beach then into the water. With the whole of the sea to swim just three of us swimming together there was plenty of room. None of the knees, feet, and hands bashing me and no real pressure. There was plenty of time to figure out where we were going to go next, decide on sighting targets, then off we went.

The lack of pressure and stress made it really enjoyable. The water was warm, the sun was shining brightly as it was going down, and the swimming felt really good. There are a couple of platforms moored off the beach and a row of large buoys moored parallel to the beach further out. We went out to the platforms and met up with some of the others for a chat. Then we went out to the buoys and swam along the line of them before heading back to the beach. It was all reasonably relaxed, though it was far more relaxed for the guys I was swimming with. They are both doing the Ironman in Sherborne next week (good luck guys) and were taking things in a fairly relaxed manner as they start to taper. Despite them just pottering along I had to work quite hard to keep up but managed to keep checking my sighting targets and navigated from point to point quite well.

Unfortunately I am out of the country next week working in Switzerland. The week after I am on holiday with the family. So it is going to be a couple of weeks before I get to make another trip to Weymouth but I hope it is going to become a regular thing.