First Tri Club Open Water Swim

Earlier today, I took a few members of the CVA Triathlon Club to Lake Nokomis for their first open water swim! (Again, it’s under 3 weeks until their first triathlon!!) And it was cool that we had a lot of others meet up with us too!

Pharmie brought her wetsuit for Sarah to try. Sarah is thinking about doing a 2 mile Lake Superior swim in a couple of weeks, and you NEED a wetsuit for that! Here she is squeezing her way into a wetsuit for the first time:

Here was our whole gang:

Hannah, Cynthia, Evan, me, Pharmie, Tim, Sarah, Sara, Jen

You’ll remember Hannah, Evan, and Sarah from the 4 miler this past weekend. Cynthia is on the CVA Tri Club, and she’s doing her FIRST OLY this weekend!! Jen is doing an oly this weekend too. Tim is an old high-school buddy who has a similar oly PR as me. And Sara #2 (second from the right) was told about our get-together by Julia, as she’s training for the Lake Minnetonka 5 mile swim.

I also had to get a photo with the person who took that photo above. Deb, an admissions counselor at CVA, came to hang out on the beach and watch our stuff as we swam. Thanks Deb!!

I gave some advice to Sarah, Hannah, and Evan, as it was their FIRST OPEN WATER SWIM! We all headed out, treaded water for a moment, and took off. I stopped after 45 seconds to see how everyone was doing. Sarah and Evan were RIGHT on my tail! Nice! Hannah was a bit slower, but she KNOWS she can get through the race, and that’s all that matters.

As we were wrapping up, a big “Team In Training” group hit the water and swam all around us (including Ms. R). They maybe had 40-50 people out there (and 2 kayakers). It was good experience for my students to be out there with a lot of others. And they did GREAT! Here’s Lake Nokomis as it was filling up:

Cynthia, Tim, and Jen had to get going. Hannah swam in after 1 long lap. After a bit longer, Sarah and Evan came in. Here’s Evan sighting nicely on his way back to shore:

They popped up to run it in...

...and Evan went down in a heap:

Sarah kept running up to shore:

Evan immediately picked his butt up and ran in looking like a pro:

Here’s us few stragglers getting ready to head home:

Hannah, Sarah, Deb (curled up with a blanket
and a book), Pharmie, and Evan

EVERYONE SURVIVED AND DID SO WELL!! Sarah and Evan felt great! (And looked good too!) Hannah’s going to hit the pool a little more, and I’ll try to help her out to get a bit more comfortable. It’s under 3 weeks to their big day!!

(p.s. Check back Saturday or Sunday for a quick weekend giveaway!! You don’t want to miss it! I’m choosing 2 winners for a bunch of my new favorite recovery drink!!)