Ohio Street, Thursday July 24

An unusual weekday noon swim. I occasionally bike down alone to do this but today I came with my friend Heidi. Heidi is completely blind and always has been, but she swims a lot anyway. She has done pool 1500's and is completely independent, no one helps her find the turn or anyway else. She also has done open water swims, such as Alcatraz and Big Shoulders 2.5K with a guide. Her main thing lately is triathlons.

She called me last week because she needed a guide for the upcoming Sharkfest swim. Since I am a little faster than her and had no interest in competing that meet myself ($70 to swim a mile at Ohio St--something I do all the time for free), I agreed to see if this was something I could do. So we settled on today for a trial run. Yesterday I suggested that we postpone the swim since 4ft waves were predicted for the Lake. Of course Ohio street is protected so we would get just bad chop. That might have been a good suggestion but Heidi insisted that chop and waves didn't bother her. One of her BS swims was on a wavy day, so I knew she had a point. So we swam.

The conditions weren't nearly as bad as predicted, cool 64? I didn't check my thermometer. But it was choppy. Things did not work out well so I cut off the swim after about 250 yards. Perhaps we will try again under better conditions.