First Open Water Swim ... in a LLLLOOONNNGGG time.

The crew that I swam w/ over the winter is now doing open water swimming down in Fairfield and I've become friends w/ one of the ladies that lives here in Bethel so she and I rolled down to Open Water Swim (OWS) with the Trifitness team. They (er, we) swim in the Long Island sound. A far cry from the weedy fresh water lakes of Wisconsin. Bonus: NO algae... BUT and it's a big BUT.. it's FING cold. At least it was last night.

When I got my wetsuit out I realized I hadn't been in it.. or open water... since August of 2008 when I raced Chicago with Team in Training. UGH!

I was surprised at myself for getting in the water so quickly. It was COLD. I mean freeze your hands/feet/face off cold. I am proud of myself for just swimming in it at all. We were given some things to focus on w/ stroke for our warm up and were told to swim back and forth between two buoys then to come in for more instruction. Most of us would swim a bit and bob a bit. Me bc that's the way I roll the rest bc it was so cold it took your breath away.

We did our warm up then rolled back to the shore for more instruction and were asked who was racing this weekend (trifitness sprint tri this sunday - I can't race bc Tom is out of town and my back up isn't in town till Wednesday). So all of those people were told we were going to do a mock race. I decided to just jump in w/ them. Swimming a half mile in frozen cold water just randomly proved to be a challenge for me, but I got it done and am proud of that. I still need to figure out how to find a groove and just swim w/o breaks. I KNOW I can do it, but I'm mentally challenged for some reason. I stop to get my barrings way to often. I will say that I was a bit dizzy/disoriented through most of it. I'm not sure if it was the open water/tide or the freezing coldness of it all. I haven't ever experienced it at all and was relieved when another woman asked if I was dizzy.

When we got out of the water our feet, hands and faces were bright red and numb. I couldn't even get my wetsuit un-velcroed or my jacket zipped. It took a good 30 mins before I could put my thumb and forefinger together to actually do anything.

All in all I felt like it was a success. I got there, I got in the fing cold water and I did what some people might call swimming! :)

I just registered for a triathlon The Houatonic Valley Tri.. wow been awhile since I did that. I plan to register for more, but haven't pulled the trigger yet. My friend Jill registered for this one and I wanted to be sure that I didn't miss it ... since I may have kind of encouraged her to join me. This will be her first ever and I'm pretty excited for her. The good news, for both of us, is that this race has a really short swim. Only 1/4 mile. I still have work to do and hopefully will be able to swim the whole thing w/o stopping.

This should help on that front:


I just joined the Brookfield YMCA and purchased a summer family pass for the pool. A FIFTY meter outdoor pool. I can swim in the early morning or evening and on the weekends... and there is a playground and picnic area for eating and playing fun for the kids. I think we'll be at the pool a lot considering how much the kids love the water and how hot and humid it gets here.

The kefir is going absolutely gang busters. I'm going to have to freeze some of the grains or just get rid of them b/c I have a gallon of kefir in the fridge right now and another half gallon ready to be strained and stored... it's doing well in the warmth that's for sure.

Here is a jar ready for straining and a jar ready for the fridge...


For those of you that might be curious here is what kefir grains look like.


I'm also made some saurkraut. It's super salty so I'll try a different recipe next time, but other than that it's pretty good. I mix it into stuff so the saltiness is diluted a bit.



And here is where all the magic happens. My fermentation station.


I'm also making kefir water, but don't have any photos of it right now. It's kombucha like for those of you that are familiar with kombucha.

I knew I was forgetting something.... P90X is coming along. Almost done w/ my first 90 days... then it's onto round two.