My Second Workout With Julia in Less Than 24 Hours

Yesterday, I met Julia at the track for some intervals (see previous post). This morning, I arose earlier to meet Julia, 2 swimmers, and another triathlete at the Y. We all piled into Julia’s car and headed out to Square Lake.

We got there as the sun was still VERY low, and the entire lake was still in shadows. We thought we might have troubling sighting buoys (or one another) with the fog rising from the lake:

Here’s the 4 people who made up our party of 5 getting ready to swim:

Julia (zipping up Dan), Kelly, and Steve T.

The air was COLD, but the water was fine. I wore my wetsuit for the first time this year at Square Lake thinking that I might be wearing my wetsuit this weekend at the race, so I should get used to it again. We couldn’t see where we were swimming because of the fog/steam, but we knew the general direction. Off we went.

We all swam out to the second buoy (really the 3rd, but the first one is so close that it doesn’t count). At that point, Julia decided to swim back towards shore and do a few “laps,” so I went with her. (And by “went with her,” I mean “tried to keep up.”) The other 3 decided to go out a couple more buoys and do a straight out-and-back swim. After 2 “laps,” Julia and I swam along the swim-area for a bit, and then I called it good. I was out there for about 34 minutes. Good enough. My swim wasn’t great - I was flopping around a little, and I rarely felt super comfortable. We’ll see how this weekend’s race goes...

The fog/steam started to break, and I could see the other 3 heading for shore:

Julia swam out to the first buoy to meet them and see how they were doing, and then all 4 of them swam in:

Julia’s perfect “entry” on the far left

We all headed back to St. Paul, and then I had a morning full of meetings (the last of which was a thrilling “right-to-know safety meeting” which made me feel like anything I lick / breathe / touch / look at will give me cancer and kill me by age 40).

I hope to lift weights and get in a good core workout tonight (before or after class), and then there’s a long run on the books for tomorrow. Then it’s all easy through the Oly Tri on Sunday!!

Thanks for the workout, Julia! Nice to meet you Dan and Steve!