OW Swim at the Res

I am so bummed! I forgot to bring my camera – and there were such awesome picture opp’s, too!

Tonight Simon Lessing and Monica (Caplan) Byrn were leading an open water clinic for the 5430 race series sprint scheduled for this upcoming weekend. Barry (5430 series RD) asked if I would mind coming to lend a hand in case there was an overflow of people; he also asked my friends Justin Daerr, Mark Van Akkeren and Brooke Davison to help out – so this would be SO MUCH FUN! At 5:30p I biked on over to the Res for the 6pm clinic (a 5-mile bike from my front door… damn I love this no-driving thing in Boulder!). I didn’t count but there looked to be about 100 folks there for the clinic? Awesome. I was in the group with Simon and Justin; Mon, Mark and Brooke were in the other group.

It was a great clinic with good jokes mixed with informative stuff for the athletes as they prepared for their sprint race. We worked on wetsuits (getting in/getting out) and then the swim entry/exit into the Res, plus all the swimming advice stuff with sighting, swimming form, etc… Simon was pretty funny and was a trooper getting into the cold water (62 degrees) and swimming out and back, out and back (etc) with our group. I was rooting people on and critiquing from the dock. Much warmer that way. Justin disappeared for a quick bit and all of a sudden he popped up out there helping to guide athletes from his kayak. I laughed at this and yelled out to him, “Good job, Justin. Way to work that kayak!” He held his paddle in the air and laughed…

We were there until after 8pm. A great evening. Simon and Monica did a great job, and our little group of “assistants” were FUN. I tell ya, Brooke is a RIOT!
I was planning to bike back home but Marky V kindly offered me a ride. As we chit-chatted we both kept pointing ahead… with the sun setting, we noted portions of shine peaking through the mountains, casting shadows and illumination in equal portions. It was just breathtaking.

Mark said, “There’s no place else I want to be but here”.
I smiled and could only agree.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 3:06 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.