Sunday, July 26, 2009

A Ghostly swim

Today started with the roads drying up from an overnight rainstorm. It went from being cool and damp to being warm and damp very quickly. About that time I headed out for a quick 1 hr ride. Not much to say about it, warm up, some easy spin, some higher effort spin, a bit of a push up some hills, coming back to the house strong. My legs felt good.

Then at noon I met Leaha and Shannon up at Ghost Lake, where the Calgary 70.3 will start. There were lots of people getting out of the lake when I got there. Let's just say there was some evidence of the water being cold. However, it really wasn't that bad. I think it's about the same as Canmore, and Leaha thinks it's a bit colder. In the end we were in the water for a little over a half hour, and had no problem with numb hands or feet. Shannon and I swam toward the bridge and looked up toward where the course is, but we didn't swim it. There was just too many boats. We swam back to the dock then did another lap.

I tried out different strokes to see what feels good, and think I'll be ok. For a little while I was drafting Shannon, then he veered right to avoid some shallow bits while I was breathing the other way, and I never caught him again.

If you get too close to the shore it gets very shallow. The bottom is very rocky, mostly. I nearly grounded myself on a huge rock. The water is fairly clear, which is a nice bonus. I'm not sure exactly how we will be guided around the boats moored near the ramp. It looks like we'll sort of have to curl to the left, then right around the dock, to end up at the ramp. The run up the boat ramp ought to be ok. Under water there are concrete pads with a bit of gravel in between, which ought to give good footing. The ramp itself is grooved concrete. I hope they get someone to sweep of the mound of gravel just above the water line. From there, it's only a couple dozen steps up the ramp to the grass where I think the wetsuit strippers will be stationed.

Weekly Summary
Swim 1.25 hrs
Bike 3.0 hrs
Run .25 hrs (not counting a couple walks)
Total 4.5 hrs.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the heads up, Keith! :)

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  2. Nice job on the swim and thanks for the assessment of Ghost! I'm heading out there for a swim this week. My coworker has a cabin up there and mentioned that he is pretty concerned about the number of boats out there.

    Not sure I'm keen to swim in Ghost, but at least I'll get some open water experience!

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  3. the ghosts will guide you along the path... tee hee.

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  4. Perfect time to wear that neon pink super cool swim cap you won;)

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