Saturday, December 16th, 2023

Jodi's Birthday Swim - 

Jodi wanted to do a 5600 yard swim for her 56th birthday. The swim was planned for her birthday on the 20th but it the coming rain will probably make swimming at Avila on that day unadvisable so Jodi decided to just add the extra distance to our usual Saturday morning 2 miler.  On Thanksgiving we'd done a route that was just short of the required distance so she decided to start by going out and in along the Avila Pier and to then pick up the route from the buoy line.         

We wound up covering 5,637 M / 6,165 yards in 2:18, so Jodi has some distance banked against next year's swim.  

At 7 AM Avila was beautiful and cold at 35° with the morning's offshore wind picking up. The water was 51° and became choppy.  While swimming out along the Avila Pier we stopped to watch what we thought was a rocket launch leaving a contrail above the sunrise. It turned out to be a plane but was still a great way to start our swim.   

Niel, Jodi and Tom

We stopped at the Poly Pier for cinnamon buns and expresso.  

Actually, Jodi has a Rice Krispie treat and Tom a Gu. In the foreground is the bottle of Fluid Performance that I towed.

There were brownies for Jodi's birthday. Yes, I had a problem with my numbers and did candles for 5,700 instead of 5,600.  After more than 2 hours in 51° water a brownie was completely guilt free.

The rain is supposed to start after 4 tomorrow so I'll swim at 11. Swimming next week is iffy. 

If I have this right Tom is going to be 62 on January 12th (?) and is thinking he should do a birthday swim. It would not add much distance to today's swim. We'll see how what kind of rain we have in January. 

6,200M with Tom would leave me in good shape for 7,400M on January 27th for my birthday.

 

niel