The Beauty that is Barton Springs PoolI did it!! Yippee!!! Yay for me!!! For the first time, I swam the entire Ironman swim distance in open water! There were no paddles, no buoys, no fins, no snorkel...just me in my wetsuit on Barton Springs on a Friday morning.
This swim has always been seemingly impossible for me to fathom. Like most first time Iron-athletes that don't have a swimming background, 4000meters of open water swimming is completely daunting and downright dreadful. I've gone to Barton Springs on and off for four years and always marveled at the fact that it would take me 10 laps to do the distance! (each lap is 400m) A year ago, I was exhausted after three laps and it would take me about 10 minutes to do each one. Today, I completed 10 in an avg. time of 8:45 per lap. Only once did I feel my rhythm waiver and that was because I saw a freaking duck swimming under the water about 3 feet away from me. I thought I was going to have a heart attack as I thought it was some prehistoric sea animal!
There's no substitute for the feeling of conquering a new demon and realizing that day after day, this Ironman dream is truly coming into focus with each new milestone!
These are some of my favorite images of Barton Springs captured by my friend Sara. Check out her hilarious and always interesting photo blog here.
The steam rises from Barton Springs when the air temp is cooler than the water temp. The water is always 68 degrees. On this morning, the air hovered around 30 degrees. It's one of the most serene sites to behold. Swimming in the mist...
The pool opens at 5am, long before the sun comes up
Don't make me get in!! Sara captured this photo of me as I apprehensively took off my warm sweatshirt to swim.
Unfortunately, Barton Springs is also closing for 3 weeks for it's annual Spring Cleaning so I'll be doing my wetsuit swims in another natural spring pool called Deep Eddy. Unlike Barton Springs, this pool actually has lanes and lanes, but it's always cold so wetsuits are encouraged.
5 comments:
great job!!! the pics look amazing.
one thing, watch out for those ducks next time! :)
i am very jealous you have a place like this for year round swimming...
awesome....
if you see a duck zipping toward another swimmer, do you yell "Duck"!!!
just curious
Awesome! Good job, that is amazing. I wish we had some place like that here!
What a cool place to swim. Congrats on the swim - it's always a good mental boost to know you can go the distance.
It was good to meet you and your hubby at the finish line today. I couldn't find a way to email you so here's my email address:
BrianBrode@tx.rr.com
Send me a note and I'll reply with my cell number.
Congrats to the both of y'all!
Stay tuned...
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