Creature Week

The other day as I drove to the gym in the darkness, I started thinking about a weekend swim in the cove. I haven't done an ocean swim since September, so my mental comfort level has dropped a bit. As I walked into the women's locker room, a local news station was playing silently on one of the televisions. The headline along the bottom read "Up next: shark advisory". It went to a commercial.

I locked my things in a locker and tried to locate a tv with that station on as I prepared to warm up on the stationary bike. I saw the story pop up, but it was too far away to see the closed captioning. I had to wait until I got to work to look it up.

Sure enough, the shark advisory was for San Diego. A juvenile great white shark, about 8 feet long, was spotted by a couple of surfers.... last seen headed north. The advisory doesn't affect the cove, which is further north than the shark sighting, but I decided to cancel my open water swim anyway.

It's been Creature Week on The Weather Channel that plays on one of the many tv's in our meteorology office at work. We've been watching sharks, spiders, and snakes.

San Diego has also been having a bee issue lately, with traveling swarms (apparently not Africanized). My roommate told me about a swarm that came around before I got here and she nearly smacked into it. It reminded me to locate my epi-pen and be sure I always know where it is.

So last night, spurred on by all the creature talk of the week, and my upcoming triathlon (in the harbor), I had the craziest dream. I was doing a triathlon, but in a weird order. I ran first, then biked, and then had to attend to someone with an injury. About a half hour or so later, I was done and considered finishing the race. But I was worried because of my ankle injury that I've been rehabbing and wasn't sure I should even do the run. Then I realized I had already made it through the run just fine and only had the swim left. I decided to do it. My transition time would be horrible (like a half hour), but my swim split could still be good.

I quickly pulled on my wetsuit, tearing the ankle cuff in the process. I entered the water near the officials who directed me into a shallow, rocky area. I carefully waded through the rocks. As I came upon larger rocks that forced me to rise up out of the water, I was swarmed by bees. I crawled over the rocks and in front of me lay a deep, dry canyon. On the other side of the canyon, rocks piled up in the form of a wave. As I looked on, a huge wave crashed over the lip of the rocks and flooded the canyon. I was terrified. That kind of power was more than I was trained for. The wave subsided. As  waited for the next one, a giant killer whale flung itself over the rock wall and landed in the canyon in front of me, awaiting the next wave. I would have to swim through the powerful wave.... with a killer whale.

I woke up.

I have a feeling I'm going to have to get my nerves in check before the triathlon. Even in the harbor, I'm going to worry about the creatures of the deep. But being in the water with a hundred other people at least statistically decreases my chance of getting eaten.