Race Recap: Lake Chaparral Open Water
On Saturday I competed in the Lake Chaparral Open Water 3000m Swim. I love open water races but unfortunately Alberta has hardly any so I was pretty excited when I heard Chaparral was going to host one. It was the first year of it being hosted (post KOS) so it was slightly disorganized - there was no actual course map posted and we were told the route only minutes before the start. The race was 2 rectangular laps with buoys in each corner. We didn’t have to get out and run on the beach in between laps (I was super excited about this). The buoys on the opposite side of the lake were really hard to see so I was a little worried about having to sight them. It didn’t help that the water was starting to get a little choppy. Way back in the day I did all of my open water swim training in Sylvan Lake, which is known for having rough white caps. Present me for some reason thought that the training put in by past me over 3 years ago would help me out in this race.
I brought along my mom and dad as my support crew. My dad ended up becoming best friends with the photographer, who happened to have a kid who was friends with a kid who’s parents were friends with mine. So long story short I ended up with a ton of sweet pictures.
The race started with a wading start. I tried to situate myself in a good spot but ended up being right in the middle (not ideal). The gun went off and everyone began to literally sprint. I’ll never understand why people feel the need to go all out at the beginning when the race is going to be 40+ minutes. I ended up being pushed into the middle of the pack and spent the first 100m trying to get to the outside so I could swim around. About 20m ahead of the main pack I spotted a lone swimmer. Hoping that I could get onto their feet and hold on for the remainder of the race, I sprinted ahead. I was able to catch up and coasted behind them to the first buoy, not worrying about sighting. As soon as we got to the first buoy my new friend started to slow down considerably. I swam around them and was unable to spot anyone in front of me that I could catch up to (later I would find out that there were 2 boys way wayyy ahead of me). I swam to the next buoy, feeling strong. The third buoy was a little tricky to spot. They had placed the second bouy to the side of a house so you had to swim around it before you could spot the third one. I finished the rest of the first lap by myself. I had checked behind me a couple times to see if anyone was on my feet but it literally seemed like I had the whole lake to myself. It was a little lonely.
I started the second lap and realized that the first buoy was pretty much impossible to see. The water had started to get super choppy so every time I went to sight all I saw was more water. Not wanting to go too off course, I decided to do one quick stroke of breaststroke to see if I could get a better sense of my surroundings. For the next little bit, every 100 or so strokes I would do one stroke of breaststroke until I was able to easily sight while doing freestyle. I went around the first buoy and started to swim towards the second. Here is where things started to go a little downhill. A decently sized wave crashed into me, pushing me to the right. After spending so much time in Sylvan, being pushed around by the water didn’t phase me. What caught me off guard was the instant wave of nausa. I was also starting to get a headache from my goggles being too tight (rookie mistake). I told myself as soon as I got to the second buoy I could fix them. Until then, I debated about what would be the quickest way to fix my goggles without slowing down too much. If anyone has every watched young kids who are first learning to swim freestyle, when they breathe they tend to flip onto their backs instead of staying on their sides. I decided to try this and I think it worked pretty well? Any who my head was feeling better and I no longer felt nauseous. On to the third buoy! At this point I was tired. Tired and lonely. I was able to easily see the third buoy and tried to increase my arm cadence. I tried to take my mind off of how far away the buoy was by counting to 20. Over and over again. This is a technique I used to use all the time back in my swimming days. The reasoning behind it? You can easily do anything for 20 seconds. Back to the race - I got around the third buoy and made my way to the fourth and back to the shore. I crossed the line in 35:10….. Which did not make sense. My best time for a 3000m open water swim is just over 45min. I had decided not to wear my watch as it hurts my wrist when swimming (bony wrist problems). A bunch of other people had worn their watches and had recorded 2400m…. not the promised 3000m. I was kind of disappointed that it was short - I really wanted to go sub 45 and based on my pace I would have been around 44… Anywho it was a nice training swim and they had decent food afterwards (cookies for the win) so it was a successful outing.
I ended up going for a tempo run later on in the day with Miss Sadie (my 3 year old German shorthaired pointer). 30 sec accelerations are way more fun when you have a dog pulling you to a sub 3 pace. I’m seriously considering finding a running race that allows for dog participation. Also, they should probably create a triathlon where you are allowed to have your dog race with you. Cute side car on your bike? Mini trailer attached to the back?
Mini rant - If you are a male who when driving your car feels the need to slow down, roll down your window and yell vulgar obscenities at girl runners, don’t. If keeping your thoughts to yourself is too hard to ask, feel free to yell something along the lines of “Looking strong” “nice pace” “good cadence” “cute dog” (Miss Sadie enjoys attention and being called pretty). But seriously - cat calling is gross and accomplishes literally nothing. A while back Runner’s World wrote a report in response to three young women being murdered midrun. Here’s the link if you want to check it out - the stats were unfortunately not surprising but definitely disturbing:
I’ll be spending the next three weeks getting ready for the Vancouver Triathlon - my final race of the season.