How to Reverse Your Farmer's Tan

With all of the time that I've been spending outdoors lately, you would think I'd be rockin' a fantastic tan, but the London-like winter here in Austin has kept me pasty white.  We had a brief respite on Monday, and I took advantage of the nice weather (and having MLK Day off) to do a long swim in Barton Springs.  I thought to myself beforehand, "this should be a fine day to work on the tan," but I was forgetting the wetsuit.  The only tan I got was on the backs of my ankles.

Maybe this will at least counteract the sock tan that I'm sure to get later in the spring when I start riding without tights...

The good news is that I had a successful swim.  I did 3200 meters in 1 hour, 10 minutes - not fast, but a solid time for me.  The Ironman has a time cutoff for each event.  Athletes have to be out of the water 2 hours and 10 minutes from the start.  A friend of mine went to volunteer at the Arizona IM this past November, and he said the worst part of his day was watching the officials tell the last folks out of the water that they were finished racing for the day because they didn't meet this time cutoff.  How incredibly devastating it must be to have trained so hard for all three events and then to only get to compete in the first and shortest of the three.  For those of us that are weakest at swimming, this is a frightening thought.

The overall distance for the swim is 4000 meters, so if I kept up the pace that I swam on Monday for the additional 800 meters, I'd finish in about an hour and a half, giving me a 40-minute cushion.  BUT, I did the swim in a wetsuit yesterday, which provides a significant advantage.  It keeps me buoyant and allows me to use less energy than I otherwise would.  I expect that my time without a wetsuit would be 15-20 minutes slower.  Until race day, we won't know for sure whether wetsuits are legal, but Houston in May isn't exactly cool.  Wetsuits are allowed only if the water temperature is 78 degrees or lower.  No one expects this to be a wetsuit legal race.   Bottom line is this:  I'm in decent shape to finish under the cutoff but need to keep on swimming!