Did my first open water swim this past Saturday. Wow. That was an eye opener. I have my distance up to a mile in the lap pool. But getting into open water was a whole different beast. I had a friend swim with me. She was a collegiate swimmer, so helped calm some nerves there. I also didn't have a wet suite. So it was just swimming with jammers. Got into the water (dang it was cold at first) and then we were off. Not being able to see the bottom really threw me off at first. After my first 25 yards I had to stop as everything was off because of that. It took my a couple more 25 yard intervals to finally start getting comfortable with the visibility aspect. Then when we turned around, my breath put the sun right into my eyes. So everytime I took a breath and then put my head back in the water, i had funky lines in my vision, looking into the water. That screwed me up a little bit also. After swimming the shore line for a while, we decided to swim out from the shore line (there are no boats in this lake). Next thing I knew I found myself in the middle of the lake. Proud of that swim, but then decided not to push it and swam back. I am glad I did this swim, instead of going into a race as my first open water swim. I think if a race would have been my first open water swim, I would have been doing that race in a backstroke. I think we are going to try to head out again this week for another open water swim now that I am little more comfortable with it.