6 minutes

was all I lasted in the Rez this morning and maybe only 3-4 minutes of that was actual swimming.  SO cold.  Turns out there is a limit to my crazy.  My wetsuit was toasty and I ponied up the cash for a pair of neoprene swimming socks so my feet were toasty as well.  But my face and neck, not so much.  Worst of all my hands were going numb almost right away.  I've got some circulation issue with my fingers, I forget what it's called, but they can lose circulation and turn white in certain circumstances.  I knew I'd be in trouble if I tried swimming for too long so I swam back and forth along the shoreline and got out sharpish.  Even the coach, who normally would be all 'where do you think you're going so soon?', supported my decision to get out.  In fact she was encouraging everybody to get out if they didn't feel right about it.  I've cut swims at the Rez short because of the cold but I've never gotten out without doing at least one lap (900-1000 yards).  I was disappointed but even in that short amount of time in the water all my fingers had turned white and it wasn't until I got home and hit the hot shower that they went back to normal.  I probably could have gutted it out but I don't have an open water race until August so there was little point in torturing myself.  Sometimes it's important to pick your battles.

The worst part about it all was that I'd struggled for half and hour to get my new wetsuit on which is a ridiculous amount of time.  I got hung up on the first sleeve, took about 15 minutes to get that sucker on.  There's foam in one side of the forearm and a mesh of plastic on the other making it a challenge to get the sleeve on.  I got the second sleeve on in no time with huge amounts of Body Glide and shoving my forearm in all at once.  What a stupid design but the rest of the suit fits perfectly and it was the only one I could find that fit and as it was they had to special order it for me.  On the plus side though with the 8-9 lbs I've lost it fits like a dream.  Maybe next Tuesday I'll finally be able to use it.

In other news I looked up the results for the new Moab Xterra that was held a couple of weeks ago.  I had really really wanted to do it but I had class that weekend and I think it was the universe's way of saving me because it sounds like it was a beast.  One race report said, 'Just to finish the bike alive was a feat' and another claimed it was 'arguably one of the toughest Xterras in the country'.  I looked up finishing times in my age group and the winner, who is one of the top women in the country in my age group, finished in over 4 hours.  A normal winning time would be around 2:00-3:00 hours depending on the course.  Second place came in over 5 hours.  Here's an overhead view of the bike course.  Part of me feels like I dodged a bullet and the other part wants to set my sights on it for next year if they hold it again.  Maybe I should go to Moab in the fall and check out the bike course first.  It sounds very technical and one guy was airlifted out with a head injury.  Could also be hard to have such a tough race in May, I'd have to use the wretched bike trainer.  There's usually a DOCNA trial that weekend, maybe that's sounding more like sanity.  Plenty of time to think about it anyway.

Strummer sez hello and please throw the ball.