Sunday, April 24, 2011

Open water swimming

Like most people I fear something in open water. For some it is waves, others are afraid of the darkness in the water and would rather see what is down there, for me it is FISH. I have never had a bad experience with fish, but they just freak me out.

I can block it out during races, but it takes a lot to get me in a lake for practice (I think the words OCEAN, PRACTICE and ANGI will never be in one sentence!!!).

Yesterday I had my scariest swimming experience ever. Phoenix has a bunch of beautiful lakes. Lake Pleasant is my favorite for racing. And I might actually consider going there for training. It is mostly calm (except for last week's race), the water is beautiful and there is no stuff...aka..see weed, sticks,...we also have Bartlett Lake...maybe my 2nd favorite one. Then there is Saguaro Lake. It looks beautiful, but the lake is surrounded by cliffs and that freaks me out a little.

We had a tri clinic at Lake Rosevelt yesterday. The Lake is beautiful and I believe it is the biggest Lake in AZ. One end looks very nice, the other end is big fish habitat as trees were flooded there...there is no way we would swim there...I thought. Off course I was wrong and as we put on our wetsuits to go into the foresty lake I already started to freak out. Who knows how big the fish can get in there!!! It seriousely is like a forest in the water and you have to find your way out to the swimmable part. It was scary. I held onto the kayak until I thought we were out of trees. And the I touched one!!! I started screaming!!! This swim was crazy- everytime I finally put my head unter water I saw another scary looking tree. And every once in a while you would touch one...SCARY. I was so happy once I was out of the water. From now on I will really appreciate clean, big lakes with no vegetation in them!!! I promise!!!

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