tip of the hat, wag of the finger

i made a major gear purchase on saturday in preparation for this year's tri season and im training. my first wetsuit. the groovy folks over at fleet feet helped me get fitted and set with a nice, shiny new blueseventy energie. in addition, scott, the owner, had sent out a letter, congratulating me on the recent boston finish and offering some free promotional items and discount on shoes. so, i also ended up with a free fleet feet hat and a boston technical shirt. woohoo! tip of the hat!

sunday, i headed out to lake mission viejo to give the wetsuit a run-through. i suited up, dove in and two things happened. first, the suit kicked in and i was immediately buoyant and it felt wonderful. second, the goggles i was wearing, an older pair of blue tinted speedo goggles, leaked some water and were also immediately fogged up. that, coupled with the choppy water, made the visibility almost nill. theres something about open water swimming where ya just really like to be able to see, ya know? so, for the rest of the swim i was fighting with the stupid goggles and dealing with limited visibility. boo! wag of the finger!

monday i popped over to a local sports shop and picked up a new pair of goggles. after some decent research, i found out that i shouldn't have been using blue tinted goggles outside in the first place. so, i got a nice pair of tyr goggles with a smoke finish. during wednesday's swim, i sized up the goggles, hopped in the water and set off on an easy 1000y lap swim. and immediately i noticed something strange. i couldn't tell i had goggles on. no noticeable colour, no fog, no water, no pressure, just a crystal clear view of everything around. and when i say everything, i'm talking about amazing peripheral vision, too. oh, sweet heavenly goggles. i could see again! yay for the new tyr goggles! tip of the hat!

so, tomorrow morning, crack of dawn, i'm headed up to the lake to set up camp and get mentally prepared for the race this weekend. if i've got coverage of any sort out there, i'll blog from the race, otherwise, i'll have something up as soon as i get back.

wildflower or bust!

*** oh, and on an administrative note, i had to back out some funds that were donated to the tc gear chip in, but it doesn't let me reset the totals, so there's a new tc's gear doohickey with the remaining balance that we're looking for. thanks to everyone who has contributed so far! tip of the hat! ***