Every open water season has to begin with a plunge into somewhat cold water. For me, most of the time that plunge is in Boston Harbor or Walden Pond. This year I fortunate enough that this virgin swim was the Mediterranean Sea in Barcelona!
We checked into Hotel Arts right along the beach and went for some sightseeing and a lunch of tapas and sangria. After brief siesta I decided it was time to take the plunge!
It was sunny and around 63 degrees outside, the water was a pale blue...and a wee bit chilly. I stripped off my clothes slowly and stuffed them along with my shoes into my floatie that also serves as a dry bag. I blew the floatie up strapped it around my waist and slowly made my way the waters edge. I'm sure during the summer the sea temp is quite refreshing but today it was very, very refreshing 58 degrees. My stroke count suggested that I swam just over 800m and was in the water for about 20 minutes. It was a tad tough getting in but once I got going I felt great.
Over the course of our stay I got in four sessions and was in cool water for a total of 2.5+ hours. I saw a few other swimmers out there but all of them were wearing wetsuits. This week was a big mental boost to get my cool water confidence back under my speedo.
One of the highlights of these open water swims were the looks I would get from people as I would walk to the waters edge take off my clothes, stuff them in my floatie and swim away and then swim back put my clothes back on and saunter back down the beach.
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