30km this week! This is the peak of my training. From here on I'm tapering til the big day. Its looking like July 12th will be the first day we shoot for. If conditions aren't what we want then we try every day after that. I'd really like it to be the 12th though. Its a Sunday and so way more people are available, not just for my cheering section at the end, but also to be part of the crew. Paul is going to join us as a back-up boat driver. Mom will be in charge of feeding the crew etc. Christine and her girls will be there too. Trin and Michaela have been so great to me through the whole thing. The rest of the crew, (other than Miguel) is kind of up in the air for now.
I had a really cool swim today. I've been in KW for the weekend visiting friends. Its my last free weekend before the swim and I've definitely prioritized my training over pretty much everything else, so it was nice to be with people again. But just because I'm not in Niagara doesn't mean I can take extra days off. So I found a pool here at the Moses Springer Centre, and its awesome. Its outdoors, and its 50m! I've never swam long course before. The temp was like 75 which was the best!! Since swimming in the canal I've really struggled swimming at the YMCA because I find it SO warm! 65 to 85 is just not ideal. Anyways, I did 4.5km in this pool and it was both challenging and a lot of fun. You only get to push off the walls half as often, and that totally changes your times for 50s, 100s, 200s. I don't think I've enjoyed a workout that much in a while.
The canal is fine but its not always the most pleasant experience. Its basically a giant trough with big cement walls and plants growing all up the side. Because the canal is shared with rowers and other non-motorized boat activity, the swimmers are supposed to stay close to the edge on the left side. The issue is that there isn't just plant growth on the walls, there's all sorts of growth underwater too, so you have to swim through seaweed at certain points. There are fish too...big fish...big gross fish...I think they'e called carp. I've seen a few of them, and I have a scratch in my goggles that sometimes looks like a fish out of the corner of my eye. I'm glad I grew up swimming in lakes and playing with seaweed and fishing with Dad. This stuff doesn't freak me out or make me not want to swim, its actually kind of interesting to see everything....like going snorkelling with the world's nastiest selection of wildlife. I just don't want to touch any of it. And that's the problem with the warm weather. As the sun is out more, the seaweed starts growing and reaching for the surface, so where it used to be 3 ft under me at the end of May, its now only 1ft beneath me. When Christine isn't with me I move further out into the middle of the canal, but its frowned upon so sometimes I'm forced to get all up and personally with the seaweed. That isn't the worst of it though. There's also this algae stuff that floats on top in big globs. Since I'm only supposed to breathe sideways you never see it coming. I've thankfully never breathed the stuff right into my mouth yet, but I've stuck my face into a bunch of times, and its like swimming through phlegm. I'll take my suit off after a canal swim and I will find the stuff everywhere. Everywhere. Christine's WPAC swim team has been training in the canal too, and they are really vocal about their hatred of the stuff. So when I swim with them I try to be a big girl about it and set an example, but its totally all show. Lake Erie should be cleaner, so that's a plus.
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