The Lake Berryessa swim today was awesome!  The lake is beautiful, the water clear, clean, and warm (69 degrees!)  While this is obviously way, way warmer than the Channel, it was a fun chance to have fun and race.  The sun was shining, and it was super warm out. 

A ton of my friends showed up – members of the Dolphin Club, South End Club, San Mateo Master Marlins, and Mountain View Masters were there, and I met some really nice people from Santa Cruz.  I also managed to get my friend and former Princeton swimmer Fernando out to swim.  What can I say, swimmers have a tendency to rock. 

The Davis team did a fanstastic job running the event, and they used a really nifty timing system.  They had us all wear electronic bands on our ankles that recorded times as we ran up the beach.  Very high tech, and it made turn around time on the results very fast. 

I entered both the 2 mile and 1 mile events.  The 2 mile went off at 9:45, and it was this race that was my focus.  I got out fast, and once I was in the lead, I started freaking out that someone was going to catch me from behind at the finish (it’s happened before).  Since open water swimming has no turns, I had no idea where people were behind me, so I kept ramping up the effort through the whole race.  It paid off, and I came in as the first female age 18-39(11th overall if you include the men).  Later in the day, Suzanne Heim-Bowen, a fellow Dolphin Club member, would surpass my time by 35 seconds to claim the 5th spot overall.  Well done her!

I was feeling tired, and the 1 mile was set to start what seemed like almost immediately.  I decided to just have fun on the 1 mile – just enjoy the warm, clear water and the chance to swim with other people.  But 30 seconds after the start, I found myself at the head of the pack again.  Well, I figured, if I’m ahead now, I may as well try to stay there! 

The 1 mile seemed to be over almost as soon as it started, but once again, I finished first out of the women age 18-39. 

I had a great time, and I’m definitely going to be back next year!  Hope to see you there, too! 

PS.  Loved the shirts!

Back in February, I participated in the TAM Postal Mile, a 1650 yard (approximately 1 mile) pool event in which teams all over the country hold an official swim and submit their swimmers’ times.  The emphasis is on team participation, but apparently they also keep records.

I had a blast doing this with the Mountain View Masters swim team, and my time of 17:57.07 set the MVM team record for my age group.  The official results were recently posted, and I was stoked to find that I also set the age group record for the TAM Postal Mile event!  You can see the complete results here.

Interesting stat that you can also find on this results page:  the 45-49 age group record is held by Suzanne Heim, a fellow Dolphin Club member and 3 time English Channel swimmer.  Her record is 18:06.78!!  That’s impressive.  I hope I’m still that fast in 20 years.

Having moved to San Mateo, and leaving my swim team in Mountain View, I needed to find a new place to train.  Of course I will be transitioning more and more to bay swimming as I get closer to September, but I love masters swimming and I wanted a fun group of people to train with.  I tried a few places around the mid-Penninsula, and I finally settled on a true gem of a team right in my own neighborhood!  Here are a few reasons why the San Mateo Master Marlins are so awesome:

1. The Joinville Swim Center, where they train, is a 5 minute walk from my house – environmentally friendly and invokes  college memories of trekking to practice in the dark at 5:30am.  Added bonus:  no snow this time
2. Short course meters = rad
3. The people are super friendly and a lot of them are South End Club members who also enjoy ocean swimming.  Translated:  I have a posse of fellow crazies
4. The head coach, Ray, is fantastic and thinks it’s funny when I change the intervals
5. Like Mountain View Masters, they offer sequential practice times every morning, so if I “accidentally” sleep through the 5:30am practice, I can still get my swim in at 7am.  Nice.

I’m glad I’ve found such a fantabulous new home!

I’m really, really sorry for my substantial absence from the blog scene this month – the stress of moving both my residence AND my work at the SAME TIME definitely took a toll on me. However, I’m stoked to say that I’m back! And not just for more regular updates: I’ve been building in the water and I’m back to where I was before my shoulder went out. Excellent!

Last weekend, I participated with my Mountain View Masters team in the TAM Postal Mile.  This is a fun, team-oriented event that rewards participation.  You can submit times for an official 1650 yard freestyle at any point between December 19 and February 28.  We started our heats at 6:30am last Saturday, and ended a little past 9am with over 50 members participating!  It was a lot of fun, and Sheila Taormina, a 4 time Olympian in 3 different sports (swimming, triathlon, and modern pentathlon), even showed up and helped time!  She is one cool chick, lemme tell ya.

I went a 17:57.28 on my 1650, which is only 1 minute slower than my lifetime best (from hmm, 5 years ago maybe?)!  Not bad, considering that when I went 16:57, I was training 24 hours a week (as opposed to the 5 hours a week I’ve been getting in up until now….)  It was good enough to set a MVM age group record, which I thought was super awesome.

Now that I’ve moved, I’m going to have to find a new team to train with, which is sad:  the Mountain View Masters’ program was awesome, convenient, organized, social, and really really fun, and I’m so bummed to leave!  I’d like to give a shout out to coaches Chris, Laura, Griff, and Annika of MVM who gave me wonderful sets and encouraged me every day.  You guys are awesome, and I’ll miss you!

Lesson of the day:  Laurin is not superhuman.

I’m not the kind of swimmer that can eat/drink while training.  Some people can go through bottles of Gatorade and multiple granola bars and bananas during a practice and feel awesome – I take a few sips of water and immediately succumb to side cramps.  I knew this was going to have to be addressed sometime soon – I’d be a moron to think I can swim for 10 hours straight without refueling!  But for my swim this morning, I figured, eh, 3 hours, that’s not so long, right?  I’ll be fine with my bottle of (5 calorie) strawberry Crystal Light.

Or not…

It started out auspiciously enough.  I showed up to the 7:45am masters workout figuring I’d start things off with them and then keep going during the lap swim time to follow.  During the first hour, I felt great!  That is, however, until the calories provided by the measly granola bar I’d had for breakfast burned off.  Hmm…maybe I should have brought along that GU stuff swears by…eh, oh well, one hour down, two to go, it’s not so bad!

By the end of hour 2, I was starting to hurt, which was weird for me – I wasn’t going at a particularly fast pace or anything, so I didn’t see why my body should feel so tired.  The Crystal Light was almost gone by now – it looked rather ominous.  However, I’d committed to 3 hours before jumping in, gosh darn it, I was going to stay in for another hour even if it killed me!

3 hours and 11,800 yards later, I could barely move.  It was pretty sad, actually…as I limped along through the water, I could feel every muscle in my arms and back searing, and every joint from my hips down ached.  I crashed – hard.

Note to self:  next time, force something down whether you want it or not!

Right now, though, I need a nap.