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(2nd swim of 2013. 1/2 mile with Danny who is great. I’d asked last night him if he wanted to swim today at 5:30 and he didn’t know I meant PM. He actually got up and texted me at 5:15 AM. What a guy! The board said the water was 65F and it felt great – not cold at all. Huge swell. Low visibility in the water because it was overcast and gloomy.)

11th swim of the year. Possibly the best. As the lifeguard’s whiteboard said, the water was a “toasty” 61°. I swam it without a wetsuit, which felt awesome. The swell was massive and the tide was high (see above), so I waited for a big wave to come in and dove right into it and went.

I could see the quarter-mile buoy this time, so I counted my strokes out to it. Almost exactly 500 strokes. The half-mile buoy is still missing, so I decided to swim to the buoys that mark the border of what is called the “Matlahuayl State Marine Reserve”. First to the one west of the quarter-mile buoy, and then turning north to the next. It took just over 500 strokes to get out to the second.

The swim was gorgeous. The water was clear enough to see the ocean floor, but sandy enough to make dazzling rays of the sunlight shining through. The kelp forest was rich, but not overwhelming and annoying to swim through. There was a lot of energy in the water, so the sun flickered under the water and made the kelp look like writhing eels. There were about a million fish out.

At one point, I swam over a brown cloud of something with fish scattering away from it. I thought it might be octopus ink, but I wasn’t sure. All I know is that I freaked out and swam a bit faster. I saw an octopus squirt ink a few years ago in Hanauma Bay, but that was black. A quick search for “brown octopus ink” has me convinced that I swam over an octopus altercation. Awesome.

It felt like swimming through an aquarium.

By the time I got to the 3rd buoy, I was approaching La Jolla Canyon, so I couldn’t see the floor anymore and there were no more fish. It was lonely. I was glad to get back to swimming with the fish on the way home.

I biked over Soledad both there and back and felt as strong as ever. I also ran just over 13 1/2 miles into work on Friday. I’m still worried that I haven’t practiced any long bike rides or many transitions from biking to running, but these big workouts haven’t been wearing me out, so I’m feeling pretty good about Dec 2nd.

10th swim of the year (on Sunday). I’ll just say I swam about 1,000 strokes because the half-mile buoy is still missing and because I never found the quarter-mile buoy.

It was really weird. The morning was bright and clear. I could see the buoy plainly from the shore, bright white and yellow against the water, but I never saw it from the water. There was a deep and gentle swell that kept hiding it from me, or me from it. So I just kept counting my set of 100 strokes, until I was 1,000 out, and then swam back. It was unnerving, which is funny. It’s not like I have to orient myself against anything other than the shore.

The water was cold. 62°. I loved it, but it might be the last time I swim without a wetsuit this year.

I rode my bike over Soledad there and back. Oh, and I ran 11.25 miles into work last Friday. I get one more weekend like this, and that’s probably all the heavy training I’ll do until the half ironman on December 2nd. I’m probably undertrained, but I’m confident I’ll be able to finish.

Ninth swim of the year. 64° water that felt great, but was warmer and colder in patches. Very little swell and extremely clear by the beach (as you can see).

I think I did a mile, but I may have done more or less because the half-mile buoy is gone. I counted sets of 100 strokes out to the quarter-mile buoy and I think I counted 5 sets. Based on that, I swam 5 or 6 100-stroke sets past the quarter-mile buoy. I say 5 or 6 because I lost count. I’m bad at keeping track after a while.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure it was a mile. It was certainly around a mile. It’s all made harder because I can’t swim in a straight line.

A pack of kayakers paddled past me, which was kind of fun. I wondered what they thought of me. I discovered that one good thing about the otherwise miserable end of daylight savings time is that it’s nice to swim when the sun is lowering. I loved swimming into the sun on my way back, watching glowing bubbles flow like mercury beads off my fingers.

The whole thing felt great. I biked over Soledad there and back. My legs felt shot after the swim, but I survived the climb up Nautilus. I’m still a little nervous but feeling mostly good about the half Ironman that’s now less than a month away.

Eighth swim of the year (on Sunday). 1 mile. 65° water that didn’t feel very cold at all, but maybe because I wore a swim cap.

I saw only one other swimmer, which was bizarre. The Challenged Athletes Foundation had a huge triathlon event going on in the park by the cove, which took up most parking and probably made a lot of people think the cove was closed to normal swimmers.

My parents were in town for C’s 1st birthday and came to meet me before I got in. That was nice. My mom yelled to me from the wall up above the beach before I got in: “you don’t have to go, you know!”

The water was very clear with lots of fish and sea lions swimming around. I saw a big school of fish all balled up as I swam back. They were blue gray, about 5 inches long, maybe a few hundred of them huddled together. I thought about swimming into the ball to see what would happen, but then I remembered that fish ball up like that to ward off predators so I decided to move along.

I biked over Soledad both ways. I got rained on a bit on the way home. I liked it.

Seventh swim of the year. 1 mile. 67° water that felt awesome. I went at around noon and the only clouds in the sky were some illegible skywriting. There was a big gentle swell again though and it churned up a lot of sand, so the water wasn’t very clear despite the strong sun.

I’m getting better, but the consequence of this is that I swim for longer without coming up to orient myself. I’ve been counting 100 strokes between little breaks to make sure I’m still heading toward the marker buoys. I almost always veer off, pretty far left. If I took more breaks, I’d probably be more efficient.

I rode my bike over Soledad both to get there and go home. I’ve felt the consequences of that all day.

Sixth swim of the year. 1 mile, plus whatever meandering I had to do to avoid a massive rigor-mortised seal and find the buoys. There was a big, but gentle, swell that made it hard to see. 68° water felt great, just cold enough to be invigorating. I can’t think of any other context where it’s appropriate to say “invigorating.”

I drove over there, which was stupid because I should have ridden our vespa. I’m not biking or running these days because of a wound on my ankle.

Before I got in, I talked to a guy with a half ironman t-shirt who was on the shore. He said he’d done a few half ironmans (ironmen? ™?) and it’s the “best thing [he’s] ever done.” I’m not expecting quite so much, but it was nice to hear him talk so enthusiastically about his experiences. Insane that the event is about 2 months away.

Fifth swim of the year (on Sunday). 1 mile, plus some meandering. 70° water, but it felt really cold close to the shore. There was a ton of medium sized swell that made it really hard to see the buoys as I swam out.

I biked over and back, just like the past two weeks and ran a 5k when I got home.

4th swim of the year. 1 mile with tiny breaks at the quarter and half mile buoys. 69° water (but felt warmer). Very clear. Super flat.

Rode my bike over Soledad to get there and on La Jolla Boulevard to get back. Ran 5k at a 8:15 pace when I got home. Crazy because that’s about 15 seconds faster than the pace I normally run that route.

I should probably do this every Sunday, whether or not I’m training for something.