Ohio Street, September 5

Joe, son Kevin and I go to Ohio St for what will probably be our last practice there before Big Shoulders. We are accompanied by one of Kevin's friends, a former swimmer. The water is calm and warm again, about 71. Different weather forecasters differ on whether we will have rain this morning, but seem to agree that it will not be stormy. Even though it is warm I bring my new warm pants to try and keep up with the group. We swim to Oak St beach but as we round the corner it begins to pour. We are in the water so don't get wet, but the drops actually hurt. We think we see some lightning, worse we have possibly heard some thunder meaning the lightning is close. There are a number of characters roaming Oak St with metal detectors prospecting for lost change. We ask one if he had seen lightning and he denied it. We decide that with their metal detector they are better lightning targets than we are so, since it appears to be clearing, we swim back.

With my new pants I do keep up with Joe. But we do not seem to be fast so this swim does not bode well for the race when I will probably be pantless. Stay tuned for the results next week.