Save the Bay Swim + Surfing Double Session
Save the Bay Swim + Surfing Double Session
From the “there’s nothing better than a RI summer” department comes the annual Save the Bay Swim.
This year it started earlier than normal so LL (aka the trooper) and I rose hours before the sun, picked up my Dad (aka the navigator), and drove to the starting line at Newport. After a tune-up by, I slipped on the wetsuit and headed west for Jamestown.
I consider this to be an “actual fun” event done for the experience and the while putting competitiveness aside.
I learned of the swim five years ago after my first real open-water swim experience at the Barrington Town Beach. I was at a triathlon clinic for beginners and after a brief intro, the group swam the 1/2-mile leg of the course.
I will never forget that day: I hadn’t swum since I was a kid but I thought a 1/2-mile was no big deal. Ha! After roughly 0.05 miles I couldn’t get any air, my neck was killing me, and I thought I was going to drown. A 1/4-mile later I quit and basically doggie-paddled into shore. While standing on the beach dripping with humility, I could see a lot of commotion in the distance on the Bay. It was a bunch of crazy people doing the STB swim. “Never!” I thought to myself.
Fast forward one year, a few swim classes, and a lot of chlorine ingestion; and I completed my first swim. At the time I was in the thick of training for a 1/2 ironman and finished the swim with relative ease. I did so again in '07 and '08 during my endurance-obsessed years.
Last year a wedding interfered with the plans so, once again, I went into this event with minimal training under my belt. (As a quick aside, I post every WOD I do on this thing. I’m not hiding any pool time, long bike rides or 5-mile runs. What you see is what it is… not that much). So the 1.7-mile open water swim was my 3rd open water swim of the year and by far the farthest I’ve swum in 2 years. How’d it go?
The same as always (actually set a PR by 20 seconds). I really don't do this for time so I end up truly enjoying it more than any other event. I always stop in the middle, hang out with my Dad, and take in the scene of a thousand flailing arms splashing in the water with the Newport Bridge in the background. I did a little more stopping this year due to some leaky goggles.
As we reached the point in Jamestown about 3/4 of the way, I kicked it up a notch and finished strong; only because I got into a really nice rhythm and wanted to see if I could maintain my POSE technique at a higher speed. Overall, this is just another instance that affirms the Primal way. No need for marathon pool sessions anymore!
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Post-Workout (PWO) Session
Breakfast in Newport, hanging out on the beach for a little while, and thrashing some waves for the first time this year. A valuable lesson learned that day was not to surf in a lined bathing suit during red tide. And that’s all I’ll say about that. Here are a few scenes from an awesome Saturday.
