Pre-race director swim

The Gridley Van - This is how we roll (minus Jacob who is
at scout camp)  Lucy didn't want me to tag her on facebook
so I could only capture her forehead on the second row.

Last night we left for the cabin up Logan Canyon to prepare for a morning swim with Josh on Friday morning.  Josh and are organizing the second year of the Bear Lake Monster Swim race on Saturday.  We both felt like we wanted to swim it, but couldn't do it on Saturday with the swimmers and still pull off a good event.  So we decided to swim it the day before.

Josh came up to the cabin with his family and spent the night and we left early this morning for a swim across Bear Lake.  We drove to Cisco Campground on the east side and parked there and Austin was our paddler.  Josh and I swim very close to the same pace and agreed that we share Austin as our paddler.  This worked out great.

Me, Austin and Josh about to start as we head west to
the other side.  The water felt great!

The water was 71 degrees when we got in at 8:35 am and moved slowly up to 74.8 when we finished.  The water was flat as glass the whole time except for the occasional speeding boat which caused a small wake for us to deal with.  But it was a Friday and was only occasional until we got closer to the marina on the west side and it became more frequent, but not too bad.  It was comforting to have Austin there just in case a boater got too close.

When we got half way to the other side I noticed a few columns of bubbles coming up from the bottom.  I kind of hand a split second freak out thinking that the famed Bear Lake Monster was real.  The water was crystal blue and was so pretty and mesmerizing.

Swimming stroke for stroke
with Josh.

We could see the marina walls from the other side from the campground, but once we got down to water level it was difficult to locate so we spotted off the group of white condos just up the hill from the marina.  As we got closer we spotted a yellow trampoline which I figured was just off the beach.  Except it was the wrong beach.  It was a beach that was about a half mile north of the beach operated by the State Park.  We stopped the clock at the point where we at knee level water at that beach, and then did a warm down swim through the sharp impaling water reeds along the beach.  Ouch!

Our time ended up being 3:17:21 on my watch.  That's a respectable time.  It beats my own PR for a width crossing by quite a bit.  My old PR was 3:43:12 set July of last year.  It really helps when you have a fellow swimmer to go with.  This is my first time swimming in Bear Lake where it felt like an event where time was a factor, rather than a long distance swim, or a training swim.  The last mile or so felt like a sprint.  I wanted to get a good time and that elusive west coast seemed to not get any closer!   My shoulder after the swim felt so tight!  I'm so glad to have setup an appointment to see Dr. Bell for a cortisone shot on Monday.

When we got back to the cabin, I was SO TIRED.  My left shoulder was shot and I felt like I hadn't slept for days.  I sent Cathi to Logan to get the food for the race, while I took a nap.  Man that felt great.  When she got back I thought another 30 minute swim in the Logan River would do wonders for my shoulder, so I did another cold water swim.  Felt great!

Looking forward to having the swimmers have a great swim tomorrow morning like Josh and I did!

Total: 7.0 miles in 3:17 (and warmdown time around 5 minutes) + 30 minutes in the Logan River water temp was 59 degrees Fahrenheit!