63 degrees!

We swam a mile or so this morning. We jumped in with about 60 other people and - OH! Can't breathe! Oh my God! The water is cold. Whew - it was hard to breathe at first and definitely took a few minutes to get into a good stroke. We decided to swim to the first yellow buouy. The water was choppy as we swam into the wind. We both drank a lot of water and kept running into each other. Must be all that natural attraction. Heehee. We were headed East and though the sun was mostly blocked by the highrises on the south side of the river, the glare on the water made it a little difficult to see ahead.

I still didn't feel comfortable in the water by the time we got to the buouy so we decided to go to the next one. Once your hand went into the water it completely disappeared. Feet kicking in front of you - can't even see the air bubbles until it's too late. Tempe Town Lake is m-u-r-k-y. Once we turned things got a little easier. Now I could bi-lateral breathe without taking in too much water. The current or wind or something must have been going in our direction. And I could see all the other swimmers headed for me so it was pretty easy to avoid the on-coming traffic. Only once did I get kicked by a guy that crossed my path completely. It hurt, I thought about crying but decided it wasn't worth it and kept swimming.

When we finally got out we were both shivering - Chad definitely more than me. The Lewis' will have to fatten him up a little while we are in town for Thanksgiving! We got changed and bought some overpriced hot chocolate and tea and sat in the sun waiting for the vendors to open. We switched out my tires and Chad got his Race Day Wheels. His bike looks fast just leaning against the counter right now. Wait till Sunday!

Now it's time to relax. Oh yeah, my watch totally crapped out on the swim. Got water-logged. So we spent more than $300 to get me a new HR monitor. Oh well... glad I tested it before race day!

Stay tuned for more...