7May11

Met with Gords today at Blackrock at the GSL.  It was the maiden voyage for our kayak and the first kayak paddling experience for Patricia in a long time.  I viewed this more as a "familiarity session" as opposed to a straight swim workout.  Gords was there with his son and his own kayak so we could do our own thing if needed.  Turns out, it was needed.  It took several minutes of wading out in the water for us to reach a depth where we could swim.  My body took it's usual 5 minutes to get acclimated to the 63 degree water.  My body adjusted well but my face and forehead took some more time to get adjusted.  Once I was fine, I started doing some longer sets between stopping to chat with Patricia to see how she was doing or trying out feeding techniques, where I want her positioned, signials, etc.  I'll admit she did great.  There was a learning curve but she got a handle on the kayak very quickly and did a great job of staying next to me a majority of the time.

Gords and I ended up doing our own thing almost immediately.  He was more focused on getting distance in and I was more focused on teamwork with my wife.  I did get some nice long sets of time in between drink breaks once we got going.  After 30 minutes of swimming out, we turned around and headed back in towards Black Rock.  The last few hundred yards were all wading again but I did 1 hour of swimming total so I figure I got about 2 miles in with all the stops.  No problems for me at all.  The time went by EXTREMELY fast and I was having so much fun I would randomly yell "WEEEEE" to my wife during my breathing stroke!  I hit my chaffing spots with grease very well and had NO red on me when I was done.  Quite happy about that too!

The next time we go out, I'm sure we won't have a learning curve and I'll just do several miles at a time with only a few short breaks for hydration.