Swim Baseline

Bayshore Drive Beach

On Sunday's post, I talked about my goal to go sub one hour at the Solana Beach Sprint Triathlon in July.  Though by no means a foregone conclusion, it is theoretically possible as long as my swim improves.  I figure I need to complete the 1/4 mile (440 yard) swim in just under 9 minutes, or at a pace of 2 minutes per one hundred yards.  Many of you could swim this pace with one arm tied behind your back, but as I've said a zillion times, swimming is my achilles heel.

Last night I had a swim workout on the schedule, so I headed down to the Bayshore Drive Beach in Belmont Shore.  The Beach runs along a portion of Alamitos Bay, which is a small bay primarily used as a port for pleasure craft.  Belmont Shore is not only a straight-up awesome section of Long Beach, it's also a great place to open water to swim when you are alone because it's calm and there's always plenty of kayakers and windsurfers around.  There also happens to be a buoy line which conveniently is exactly a 1/4 mile long.

My original plan was to swim the buoy line 6 times or 3 round trips.  I did the first round trip and then  half of the second.  But then my mind started wandering and I decided to go exploring.  So I kept on swimming past the buoys and towards a small marina.  Since there were no more markers in the water to use for navigation, I just sighted off the mast of the biggest sailboat in the marina.  When I got to the boat, I turned around and swam back.  The side trip ended up being about 4/10th's of a mile.  Once back to the buoy line, I hit the lap button on my watch again and timed the final 440 yards of the day.

My times were as follows (in order):

10:07
10:10
10:19
10:29

Here's the bad news.  Obviously, I'm slow.  And I'm a little concerned that my splits degraded as much as the did from interval to interval.  I only swam 1.4 miles in total, and slowing down that much during the course of the swim suggests a lack of swimming fitness.  This is an issue that needs to be addressed by the Santa Cruz 70.3 for sure.

Here's the good news.  At Solana Beach, I'll only have to do a 1/4 mile once and I will be doing  it fresh, so I think it's fair to use a combination of my first two splits as a baseline.  This means I have to cut just over 20 seconds off of my 100 pace.  This is very good to know - I now have a quantifiable goal.

So now I just have to figure out how to shave the time off.  My sense is that this will be less of a stroke turnover thing and more of a body position thing.  That said, I'm not going to assume it's that simple so I'll keep up the intervals at the pool in attempt to pick up some speed.  And I'll definitely keep sets with paddles and a pull buoy in my workouts for strength conditioning.  It also makes sense to get someone to take a video of me swimming so I can do some analysis.  Maybe I'll post it on the blog so some of you genius swimmers out there can give me a few pointers.

And unexpectedly, I think I have stumbled upon next week's Metrosexual Triathlete - Tip Of The Week post.  Look at those lines around my eyes - I swear they are usually not there.  My goggles must be reeking absolute havoc on my skin.  I'll need to look into this. 

Training Spots - Belmont Shore

Belmont Shore, which is part of Long Beach, is a trendy enclave situated on the coast at the south end of the city.  I've been doing an open water swim here at least once a week along a buoy line in Alamitos Bay.  It's a great place to swim - the water is calm and the buoy line is no more than 50 feet off the beach.  So it's relatively safe when I'm swimming alone.

Though parking around here is notoriously tough, here's a trick.  During the summer, Bayshore Drive (which conveniently is the street next to the beach) is closed until 5 PM to all motor traffic.  So I show up just after five, and I am golden with parking.

 Unfortunately, I don't get light like this at 5PM, but here's a section of the buoy line...

I usually go Saturday or Sunday afternoon and swim for about 45 minutes.  A couple weeks ago, it occurred to me that I should be going for a run afterward.  The ocean is less than a half mile away and from there you can pick up the Strand (beach path).

Of course, it's now September and getting dark by 7 PM.  So it would have been nice to have thought of a swim/run brick earlier in the summer.  But I've still got a few weeks to fit it in before it gets dark, and then worst case I can just come earlier and fight for a parking spot.

 There's an excellent chance I'll get to see this while running in the next few weeks...

My plan is to open water swim through the winter, even if that means I need to get a neoprene cap and booties.  My swimming is the one discipline that needs the most work and I'd rather not let up on the gas.  And I know myself - if I'm banished to the pool all winter, there is a good chance my swimming will suffer.

Anyway, this is turning into one of my favorite work-out sessions.  I've always enjoyed swimming in the Bay, and I'm discovering that the Strand around here is pretty sweet too.  Running after a swim is refreshing.  I just come out of the water, walk over to my truck, strip off my wetsuit, put on a shirt and some shorts over my jammers, lace up my shoes, queue up the Ipod and go.

Today I did just over a mile in the water and then knocked off a 5 mile run.  Belmont Shores is about a 30 minute drive from my house, and I was home by 7:20.

I know I have a few readers from Long Beach. You guys have a great spot here.

New Open Water Swim Spot

Well it doesn't look like I am going to be able to go out and fine my own canyon to explore this weekend. I *forgot* that I am in the middle of remodeling the living room, and I spent most of the day installing lighting fixtures and prepping the walls and ceiling.

But I did manage to try out a new open water spot down in Belmont Shore today. I've known about it - It's actually closer to me than Corona Del Mar. But I'd never been there. For some reason, I tend to head south to go do things. Belmont Shore is north. I know this sounds a little weird, but I'm not sure what to tell you.

Belmont Shore from the air. I swam along the beach running left to right in the upper mid left of the photo.

Belmont Shore is a really nice place. Though it's part of Long Beach, it definitely has it's own community vibe. The beach I swam at is at the south end of 2nd Street, which reminds me of Rodeo Drive with a beach community vibe. No Prada or Gucci shops, but there are a number of high end "California Couture" boutiques, and plenty of great restaurants.

The swimming spot is in Alamitos Bay on a little strip of beach parallel to Bay Shore Drive. Since it's in the Bay, the water completely calm and I dare say the water is a few degrees warmer than the ocean at the moment. There is a quarter mile buoy line along the beach. What is cool about it is that the buoys are never more than 50 feet from the shore, so I felt OK about swimming by myself. In contrast, you need to swim a couple hundred yards off shore to hit the buoys at Corona Del Mar. That's a little creepy when you are alone.

The buoy line.

I swam a mile. Part of me wanted to go longer, but I could feel that my stroke mechanics where breaking down. And since I've been working pretty hard with a coach on stroke lately, I didn't want to fall back into bad habits just for the sake of yardage. Plus I forgot to bring Body Glide, so my wetsuit was wreaking havoc with my neck.

You can barely see it, but I either just got back from the prom or I had a run in with my wetsuit. I assure you it's the latter and I promise you it hurts worse than it looks.

I liked it. Though I prefer Corona Del Mar due to more "open water" swimming conditions, it's good to know that I've got a back up, especially (or actually whenever) I need to swim alone.

From there I drove home in the Holiday traffic. As I predicted, the inland folks are back.

My world until Labor Day.