Breakthrough at Boerne Lake

I swam across Boerne Lake yesterday! Every week at the Tri-Sition Area training at Boerne Lake, there's the choice of an 800 meter swim or a 1600 meter swim. I've always done the 800 meter swim, which is from the boat dock to the point and back. There's something totally scary about swimming all the way across the lake and back. I mean, when those swimmers are on the other side of the lake, you can barely even see them from the boat dock. That's a long way.

Shelly, Robert and I went out there yesterday to do our workout - I planned to swim 800 meters, ride 14 (up the terrible hill for Gator Bait Tri training), and then run 3.5 miles. Robert joined us for the bike. Shelly hadn't been out there since before CapTex in May - I couldn't believe it!

When we arrived and started getting ready to get in the water, I ran into my new friend Ernest, who is always out there training on Saturdays. He asked me if I was going to be swimming across. I said no, and then he told me he was and peer pressured me into doing it too. It didn't take much to convince me to do it. I had been putting off the inevitable - I knew I had to be able to swim 1500 meters in open water for the Olympic tri I'm doing in October. I had it on my calendar to swim across Boerne Lake two weeks from now.

I was fine on the way out. The swim was kayak-supported and Ernest was always there to my left. He noticed when I paused and asked me if I was okay. And I was fine; I took a couple of breaks to do breast stroke and look around. I settled into my swim and when we reached the other side, only 17 minutes had passed. It felt like an hour. Especially in the middle of the lake; I felt so far away from everything.

When we turned around to go back, I had a scary encounter with a stump that I saw protruding up from the lake bottom. I guess the lake is so shallow these days that tree stumps are something that you need to be looking out for. I freaked out a little bit and swam around it. Other than that, the swim was fine. My fabulous new shaded TYR goggles took on some water and fogged up, but that was okay. They also shielded my eyes from the sun and allowed me to see way better than my old goggles. I swallowed water a couple of times, and felt so nervous about sighting on the way back that I did a fair amount of breast stroke.

But...at the end of the day...I swam a mile in Boerne Lake in 36 minutes. Hooray!

The bike (12 miles - Robert and I turned around before the hill and let Shelly struggle up it alone) and run (4 miles - Shelly and I got carried away) were great too. I feel a need to describe how much I love working out at Boerne Lake and how much I love my bike, but I'll save it for another day.