Something in the water...

Today we did another open water swim at Redwood Shores. We did a similar swim about a month ago. The water was just as cold and murky as before: I couldn't see my hand with my arm extended.

We swam to the middle of the lagoon as a warm up. I was almost to the middle when I felt something bump my leg. I pulled my head out of the water and looked around. The closest person to me was about 20 feet away. I figured I had imagined it and kept swimming.

Then something bumped my arm.

It felt like I had swum up against a fish, but it was hard to tell with my full wetsuit on. I kept swimming.

Something bumped my other arm.

I started to get nervous. It isn't like fish to bump into people. Something was wrong, but I couldn't see anything through the water! I started to get scared. I thought, "Maybe it's the tail of a much larger animal. Like a dolphin." Here comes the scary thought, "Or a shark."

Another bump on the leg.

I was freaking out. I pulled my head up and looked around for my teammates. I was not the only one alarmed by the mysterious sea creatures. People all around were shrieking and yelling, "What is that?!" Someone finally caught sight of one: jellyfish.

Great, we're a couple hundred yards from shore and surrounded by jellyfish. I woke up early on a Saturday for this?

We did whatever we could to get back to shore without touching any more jellyfish. One of the best swimmers delicately kicked on his back. The jellyfish seemed not to be right at the surface, so I did my best water strider impression. As we got close to the shore, the coaches tried to reassure us, "The jellyfish aren't dangerous. They won't hurt you."

"Oh yeah? Then why aren't you in the water?"

But it was true, I hadn't been stung and neither had my teammates. It turns out they are Moon Jellyfish which are harmless to humans. Even so, I didn't enjoy bumping into animal life in murky water.

We did the rest of the swim close to the shore where there weren't any jellyfish. I was expecting to bump into more jellyfish the whole time, so it was hard to relax. I will not be swimming there again.

After the swim, we ran around the lagoon a few times. I felt really good the whole time.

With just one week to go before Wildflower, we are going to start tapering our workouts. No hard efforts, no long runs, etc. Our coaches told us that we should expect to feel a little lethargic as our bodies recover. I'll let you know how it goes.