Great Workout at Jordanelle

Yesterday I posted some thoughts on more effective open water training and also posted a suggested workout for our group swim at Jordanelle this morning.  I did the workout twice and it felt much more productive that just swimming straight for two hours.

Here's what I did:

Warm-Up
Swim one lap (green buoy to end of white buoys and back).  I measured this distance again because my GPS wasn't working last time.  My measurement was about 1,360 yards.  Here's the map and data:

1 Lap - Alternate Hard and Easy
At each buoy I alternated swimming hard and easy.  This was harder than I though it would be.  The distance between each buoy is +/- 100 yards.  This was a good workout and my arms were feeling it.  I swam in to the ramp and took a drink.

4 x "In-and-Outs"
Starting out of the water on the ramp, run to the water and dive in.  Swim hard for 20 strokes and then easy to the green buoy.  Practice a buoy turn.  Swim back to the ramp, sprinting the last 100 yards.  Clear the water and run up the ramp to the start.  Repeat.  These were a lot of fun and were also challenging.  I took a short rest after the second repeat.

I did another lap and four more "in-and-outs" and called it a day.  It was a good workout, and challenging.  I felt like I had accomplished something more than I would have if I just swam easy for two hours.

Post-swim selfie

It was a little cooler this morning that it has been, but was still comfortable.  It was also a little cloudy, which was nice because it blocked the glare of the sun.  That first lap at 5am is hard because it is so dark and hard to see.  I guess it will be good training for when I swim across the width of Bear Lake with Chad and Sarah.  We'll be starting around midnight.

There were a few rowers out this morning.  I almost got hit by one (wouldn't be the first time) when it was still a little dark.  I had been sighting and didn't see him until he was right next to me. It was so close that I swam under his oar.  I wasn't expecting him and I'm sure he wasn't expecting me either.

Goody was swimming before I got there and was still swimming when I left.  He was doing a 10 mile training swim today.  I also saw Jill (who was swimming the same workout that I did) and Tim.  There was one other person in the water as I was leaving that I didn't get a chance to meet.

Kind of a funny side note; I had reset my GPS after the first lap and started it again to record the rest of the workout.  When I got to my computer to look at my GPS data, I found this:

I think I'm getting faster, but not quite that fast.

I'm going to start writing workouts the day before I go up to swim and post them on the Facebook page for anyone who wants to do them.