The "Lake"

For the past month, I have been training for my first triathlon.  I've been swimming, running and biking my way to sprint distance and looking forward to the event in September.  Now, I have a slight problem.  Tempe Town Lake, where the swim portion is held, used to look like this:

Now it looks like this:

Last night, one of the big, INFLATABLE, RUBBER dams that has been exposed to harsh temperatures and 320 days of sunshine, burst.  The whole man-made lake took less than 24 hours to drain into the Salt River basin.   No one was hurt, thankfully.  But, it looks as if my planned triathlon might either be postponed or moved. 

RIP Tempe Town Lake

Not really, they're going to fix it.   But, just allow me a little drama to take the place of my triathlon hopes and dreams :-)  The lake is honestly the most disgusting body of water.  It raised the humidity of Tempe the second it was put in.  Rumors are that the whole area around the lake now smells.  I should be thankful that I might get the chance to swim in a lake without having an antibiotic drip beforehand.