My Last Brick...

sort of sucked.

The water in Hagg Lake was freaking cold. It took my breath away at first, and that was with the wet suit and water socks on. I also had on an insulated cap, but it sucked. It was nice at first because part of my head was spared some of the shock from the water temp. Once I started swimming (and that took some time because I was breathing way too fast until I started to get used to the water) the cap started to fill with water around my ears when I would exhale. Somehow the bubbles would interrupt the seal around my face and allow water to pass through. And the water would go straight into my ear and cap would help to force it into my inner ear. The cap has a chin strap so there is no way to avoid the cap going over my ears. I swam back to the shore and took it off and swam with just a regular swim cap. There is no seal around my ears and despite the water going into my ears it felt fine. At least it could drain out when my head was out of water unlike with the insulated cap. I ended up swimming for about 20 minutes, but I didn't cover much ground. I probably swam 800 yards is all. I spent most of the time trying not to freak out. I mean I could swim fine once I got used to the temp, but every time I got about 50 to 100 yards away from shore I started to panic just a bit. There could be various reasons for this: I was alone, it was cold, I was afraid of getting ran over by a boat (despite a brightly colored cap), and just a weak mental state. Anyway, I swam a final long stretch parallel to the shore. then I got on the bike. That went fine, except that my legs felt sort of dead. I am sure that this was from yesterday's hard run, but it took a while for them to loosen up. After one lap around Hagg lake I transferred to the run. My calves were tight for the first mile but after that I was fine.

Back at home I took a shower and noticed that my shoulders got burned. Pretty darn burned actually. My shoulders were exposed for about 1hr and 20 min. That was enough when I didn't put on sunblock. I am going to have to put on a jersey with sleeves at least for the bike. Oregon has not been good to me for getting any sort of sun exposure this Spring and so this was my first effort in a sleeveless jersey of any sort. Ouch. I am going to have to break out the SPF 100 for my shoulders and upper arms during the run.

Right now it is about 3.5 hours after the end of my brick. I am feeling toasted. This does not make me feel good about Vikingman especially. Recovery better work really well this next week.