Friday: Trip to Chicago and Warm Up Swim

Pic of Me Post Warm Up Swim!!

Today, I headed up to Chicago for the Big Shoulders 5k swim.  I forget that the flight to Chicago is only an hour. It was so short today, in fact, that they dismissed the beverage service as the wind was with us and there was no way to serve everyone in the brief amount of time we were in the air.  So, we were off the plane by 1:15 PM and grabbed a train to get into downtown Chicago.  I am staying at the Double Tree and they hand out these super cookies, which I was already excited about when the plane landed.  When I stayed at the Double Tree when I was little, they put the cookies in your bedroom with turndown service so that you could have them before bed.  Today, however, they gave me my cookie at check-in, which was pretty thrilling. 

In my room, I changed into my swimsuit and grabbed my wetsuit to meet Ashley and Marti and head down to the beach for a warm-up swim.  Now, I almost brought two wetsuits with me to Chicago (one for warm-up swim and one for the day of the race), but decided against it.  This left me with the unpleasant task of swimming my warm-up swim with no wetsuit, so that I would not have to get my wetsuit wet and then get into a cold wetsuit for a cold swim race the following morning. 

This morning, I received an email from the Big Shoulders race telling me that the water was 64 degrees.  64 degrees is super cold, by the way.  The pool I normally swim in is 82ish degrees. Anyway, when I got into my bathing suit, headed out to the beach and stuck my toes in the water, it was SHOCKING.  So cold.  It was so cold that I thought I was going to have to call it quits when I stepped into the water of Lake Michigan and it rose to my ankles. 

It is a good thing to have friends with you in situation where you want to quit, because I often think that pride will bolster you when you would quit if you were going it alone.  SO, for this reason, I summoned up my iron will and put myself under the water.  Once I started really swimming, however, the water was fine.  It was clear and lovely and for the entire time that I was swimming, I could see the bottom of the lake. 

The 64 degree water just was not as bad as I thought.  The worst part was getting in, but I got over it.  The swim today also went a long way towards making me feel better about my swim two weeks ago at Alcatraz.  Since Alcatraz, I have had a lurking paranoia that I would fall apart as soon as I hit the water in Chicago, but this hasn’t happened and I am quite proud. 

Had fabulous dinner and walked the Magnificent Mile in search of an equivalent to Yogurt World.  Finally, it is fashion week in Chicago and we went to Neiman Marcus for a fashion show!!!!  So fun!!