We didn't just leave and have hot cocoa

Tonight Claudia and I went to Shadow Cliffs for another swim. We were both dreading it because neither of us was feeling at the top of our game. And it was cold out. Hellllllooo spring, where are you? The temp was hovering about 63-65 degrees but the wicked wind chill had it down to the upper 50s.

The only difference that having passed Memorial Day made was there were lifeguards present. Of course, they turned around and left very soon after we got there, before we had even made it into the water. There was a large crowd of young un's (hi, I'm 87 years old!) hanging out on the sand and acting exactly like people in their early 20s tend to act. Nobody was in the water. Not even the geese.

We stripped down to our swimsuits and walked to the water. It looked cold and surprise surprise, was. We walked very slowly into the water, inch by inch, feeling it was even colder than the first time we swam there. Even though we were both "you want to leave?" and "yeah let's go" we decided we had to go at least 2 laps. We finally dunked under and after some girly shrieks we started swimming.

Even the swim lane was cold and shrunken; possibly one of the side buoys was missing so the lane narrowed down to a couple of feet in the middle. At least only the 2 of us were dumb enough to be swimming so there were no collisions. The wind was nice for training because the surface of the water was much rougher than any other time we'd been there. It wasn't nice for my breathing pattern and I kept swallowing water. Ick.

After 5 laps we gave it up and swam to shore. We were frozen, couldn't feel our feet. The cold water in the outside shower actually felt warm, compared to the lake and the air. It was great after drying off to get in my hot car.

I'm glad we've been doing all this training prep. Maybe on Sunday when the real training starts I'll have left my wussiness at the door and there will be no loud expressions of dismay or horror at icy or inclement conditions. Hopefully!