Some Swimming

I just got home from a long weekend in Seattle. My brother lives in Lake Stevens, a northern suburb of Seattle. The Lake Stevens Ironman 70.3 just happened to be on the weekend that I was there! My brother and I went down to the lake the day before the race to see how things were set up and to go for a little swim while there were other swimmers in the water. Our cousin from L.A. was also there. The plan was to do 450 metres, from the beach to a certain dock and back again. The water was really warm and we decided to go without wetsuits. It seemed like it would be a nice clean lake to swim in but I think we were in a fairly shallow part and I could see a lot of weeds on the bottom as I swam. I get a little freaked out by weeds, like they are hands reaching up to grab me. I have to talk myself out of thinking that! Anyway, I managed to get a hold of my silly self and the swim was quite pleasant. It was a gorgeous sunny day so the whole feeling was really nice.


My brother and cousin and I drove up from Seattle to Jasper where they met some other family members to go on a bike trip and I met my husband who was there to pick me up and take me home. While we were in Jasper, Dan and I went for a swim in Lake Annette, a small, crystal clear mountain lake near the townsite. It was warmer than I expected but we did wear wetsuits. What a gorgeous lake to swim in! It's just like being in a pool with a sandy bottom (except that it was probably cleaner than a pool)! We only swam about 400 metres but we stayed in the water for about 30 minutes, just bobbing and talking and doing sommersaults (hard to do in a wetsuit). It was awesome! I wish I could swim there all the time. It was Dan's first open water swim ever and it was really fun to watch him enjoy it! He didn't have any anxiety and he didn't want to get out. I could have stayed in there for a much longer time but we didn't want to leave Adam (15 year old son) sitting on the beach all alone for too long, although I don't think he was at all concerned!

It was really fun to have a couple more open water swimming experiences and to see how differently I felt about swimming in a regular, weedy lake vs. a clear mountain lake. Hopefully the swim in Banff will be as nice as it was in Lake Annette!