Look Mom, No Walls

Today the sun started shinning in the Mississippi Delta. It was such an event, I started my Comp I class writing and then I went out into the parking lot, looked up, and said, "Thank you, God." It's been that long. Our brutal winter broke last week, but the sun came late to the party. Its here now and i
t is spring.

You guessed it. I went to the fish farm.

For months I have looked forward to this day. Twice I tried and twice I failed earlier in the winter to swim these free waters. Now, real endurance training can begin. In January, February, and early March, I have swum in a short course pool. For me that means every eighteen or nineteen strokes I am doing a flip turn. Not that I mind doing turns, it's just that the muscles get a rest. That is too much rest and too often. At the end of Endurance Week, DSU converted to long course, that is the bulkhead was moved from 25 yards to 50 meters. The stroke count doesn't double from short course to long course. It goes from eighteen to forty-eight. That is almost a triple, and that is much better for building endurance.

Swimming in the pond eliminates the wall altogether, so the stoke count goes from forty-eight per length to about sixteen or seventeen hundred per mile. And I don't stop at a mile. In short, this is where open water endurance is built, without walls and flip turns.

The first thing I did when I got there was to take a temperature reading. Dude, it was 71 on the end of the pond where I park. I knew the temps would be lower on the other end. I debated with myself a second or two about my wet suit and then decided to wear it. This early in the year, the temps vary wildly from end to end and even spot to spot. I wanted to be able to stay in as long as I wanted without freezing out. 

One of the drained ponds creating
a housing crises for the turtles.

Sure enough, I parked on the east end of the pond, and as I swam west the temp dropped enough that I could feel it through my coat of neoprene. The chill penetrated my body and eroded my will to swim long. I also noticed turtles parked bumper to bumper on the banks. They were in abundance everywhere. Never have I seen so many. Several times I hit them in the water, and although I knew what was happening, I always screamed out in fright and the image that came to my mind was the dark head of a giant alligator. That image was hard to shake even though I knew in my consciousness that turtles were the culprit.

My pond

As I swam, I tried to come up with an answer of why so many turtles. I have swum fish ponds since 2007 and had never seen anything like this. Then I began to connect the dots. In the section of ponds where I swim now, five or more have been drained for repairs. That means a whole bunch of turtles were suddenly homeless so they moved over to my pond.

I swam a straight 2.41 miles and then went for a shuffle. My legs were disappointingly flat, and I had to cut it off at five miles because I teach on Monday night and needed to get back. 

Now I am thinking about tomorrow. Tuesday is Masters with the Mad Swimming Scientist. But I may stop at the pond instead. The temptation is great.

Not a huge swim, but a big step up
from a short course pool.