The weather could turn any day now, so I was eager to get in while the sea temperature was still on the edge of what I could handle for an hour without shivering to death afterwards.
I swam 71 minutes today, starting at 10:15 at Konyaaltı Varyant. I swam west all the way down to the buoy line and back, about 4km or so. It was sunny but only cool-warm with a slight offshore breeze. The sea was 22 C, smooth, and mostly clear except for some cloudy patches that I can not explain.
It was just a bit chillier with a few cooler surface patches of fresh water that made me want to get through more quickly. The light breeze was enough to chill any skin above the surface- it’s interesting how the body finds comfort in the relatively warmer sub-surface water. Every time my arm speared down and my shoulder rolled into deeper, slightly warmer water my skin rejoiced, as if it were bath water.
I swam the same pattern as last time, but with a Tempo Trainer on the last part of each set.
6x
- 250-stroke, moderate SR with focus on careful high elbow catch imprinting
- 100-stroke fist
- 250-stroke TT, start at 1.12 and speed up .02 seconds each repeat to end on 1.00
It was easier to hold the catch position, but I was getting chilled enough today that I was eager to increase intensity to increase heat, and this was getting a bit more of my attention at times than the TT was, after the half-way mark. So I started to lose that really smooth, strong pattern I tapped into last time. Today it was still ‘good’ but it was not ‘great’ like last time. Had I sped up the slower work I might have stayed warm enough but then I would have lost the quality of the imprinting work.
Antalya feels like home now, so swimming in the sea, bare skin, in late November does not seem strange to me, until I think of my family and friends back in my home state of Oregon, having a VERY unusual cold and snowy storm blow through, it seems quite crazy. If this were the Pacific, I’d be dead in 10 minutes in the water.
I want to keep sea swimming, and since I only have my breezy scooter to ride, and rainy weather on the way, I will have to start using the sleeveless wetsuit again. Tis’ better than no swim!
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