open water swim; threat or menace?

Got the wetsuit out of the closet and headed over to Lake Temescal again for some open water swim practice. Conditions should be very similar to the Shadow Cliffs lake. The water was the clearest I've ever seen it. You could still see the bottom at about 4' of depth. That's where I swam today as there is a rope line there. It made it a bit easier but it was good practice as the other fear triggers were still abundant enough to set off a few minor panic attacks. Nothing major. Breast stroked for a few seconds to feel like I was getting more air.

It is pretty clear that to warm up for this 400 yard swim I'll need to, yep, swim 400 yards. By then I remember how to breathe out properly and there no longer seems to be an air shortage.

Took an extra second or two at each end to hit the lap button on the Garmin.



Interesting results. Laps were about 85 yards each. [Oddly the rubitracks software doesn't interpret use of the stop button to signal the end of a lap.] So when there was a stop/start to separate the two 4 lap segments, it combined laps 4 and 5.



Had very little focus left to think about stroke or body position or anything technique related. Was fairly pleased at how straight I was going and how I was able to sight the end of each lap pretty well. Definitely need one or two more trips to the lake before the race though.