Eileen Swanson's Tales

This weekend Reid and I coached the Tri California clinics. We headed down to Pacific Grove, CA with Belle to coach 20 athletes over 2 days on the PG triathlon course. As always it is so much fun and so rewarding to coach! We love it! Saturday’s clinic was 8 hours long as we went over the entire swim, bike and run courses and a few lectures. And today’s clinic was just a swim clinic at the famous Kelp filled Lover’s Point beach. This place is so near and dear to our hearts as this is where Reid proposed to me back in 2004 It is so BEAUTIFUL here!!

The PG swim is famous for its “kelp krawl.” There is so much kelp in this part of the ocean that at most times in this swim, you are pulling and pushing your way through this large, green, silky-feeling stuff. It gets wrapped around you and if you fight it, you will just get more and more tangled in it. Kind of scary at first, but once you practice in it a few times, it gets less overwhelming and actually becomes pretty fun! But I have yet to love it during the actual race Maybe this year!!

Today my swim group had the MOST AMAZING experience. We were swimming out about 100 meters from shore, when I stopped everyone to re-group and give some tips. We looked around and noticed 5 seals pretty much surrounding us. Super cute! Luckily everyone was very comfortable and calm in the ocean. The seals got closer and closer to us and then went under. We all looked under water and there they were staring at us. Then, one of the seals came right up to my feet and touched me. I felt his whiskers and skin. SO SOFT! So cool! He then went over to one of the other swimmers and touched her too. We were all so excited, this was so awesome…… They followed us for the entire swim and touched us a couple more times. This was the BEST swim I have ever had out here at PG and my athletes were in awe of it all……..

After we were done coaching the clinics, Belle got to experience swimming with the seals too But they just stared at each other and swam in different directions

Let’s start this week off GREAT!

E