Out to Sea

Let me start with my afternoon workout, which was another session in the weight room. Things went pretty well. I noticed I've started to develop a bit of a kip with pullups, so I focused on remaining really strict. This made things tougher (along with my amazingly increasing weight), but at least the reps stayed where they were. I'm stagnating a bit, so after my next rest week, I might change some things up to break through the plateau.

Upper body - vertical: medium
Chaosbringer 2x4/75 lbs
Pullups 2x9, 1x7/unweighted
Military press 3x10/65 lbs

After dinner, some reading, and the start of hockey season, I was off to the pool. If I'm going to become a triathlete, I guess I need to work on that third sport. There was some good news as I went into the building, that as of October 15 the city of Toronto will be opening community centres on Mondays for public use. So, if I'm willing to tape Heroes, I can get in an extra swim for the next few weeks. No decisions made, but will see what happens.

After paying my fee, getting changed, and fighting with the locker (it made an extra 25 cents of my stupidity), it was off to the pool. I need to reiterate at this point, I'm no swimmer. I can stay afloat, even in deep water. I can move myself far enough from the boat for a deep-water water-skiing start. But I haven't had to string together more than 5 strokes at any point in the last 20+ years. The pool was roped into three lanes: slow, fast, medium. Not deluding myself, I started in the slow lane. I pulled my goggles over my eyes (which is a bit disconcerting the first time), ducked under and pushed off.

In my more dreamy moments, I had the thoughts that I'd glide effortlessly through the water, right from the first entry. My stroke would be solid and smooth, and as I passed the wall after finishing my first mile, I'd be summoned from the water by a national team coach and begged to join the Olympic squad.

That didn't happen.

Instead, I thrashed madly for 50m until I reached the far wall. I wanted to remember my TI cues, but I was a lot more focused on getting oxygen and continuing forward progress at all costs. I rested for a bit, then made my way back. During this length, I made an important discovery. I had been struggling to breathe, almost hyperventilating, gasping for air every time I tilted my head out of the water. Then I realized that I didn't need to exhale and inhale with my face out of the water. I could exhale under water, opening up more time for inhalation, and deeper breaths. This worked brilliantly. I wonder if the Olympic coaches know this trick. During my third lap, the lifeguard caught my attention and said I could move to the medium lane, since I was a bit fast for the slow lane. Look at me, already promoted!

I moved over to the medium speed lane, and with a bunch of significant rest breaks, struggled my way through another 500m of swimming. I was still faster than anyone else in that lane, but that's because my panic-driven style was only good for 50m at a time. At this point, I was starting to tire, and although I wouldn't say that my form was breaking down (how much worse could it get?), I had had a good workout, and felt it was better to leave before I ingrain too many bad habits. 600m total, done as 12x50m. Not much by any real standard, but enough for the first time out.

Let's take a moment to review the situation:
Goal #1: Don't drown. Accomplished. I'm writing this, aren't I?
Goal #2: Make Olympic team. Failed. For now.

I have a lot to work on. I know this. Here's the greatest hits package of things to work on. (If I tried to list it all, there would be no more room on the internet.)
1. My solid, smooth stroke is not solid, nor smooth. If this were kung-fu, it would be the Flailing Monkey style. Imagine tossing a small chimp in a river, and you have a good idea of what I'm doing.
2. I'm going too fast. I have no patience for gliding (keeping me from "swimming long"), and I kick too hard (a product of "kick like a motor boat" lessons as a youngster). I need to slow down and relax. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
3. I'm pretty sure I'm too right-sided. My right arm seemed to do most of the work, and rolling onto my right side out of the water was much easier.
4. Assorted minor things like pointing my toes, elbow drop and others, which will become a concern much further down the road.

For next week, I'm going to jot down a couple of the TI drills to do. I will split time between drills and swimming. I will try for 800-1000m total, and at least once do 100m continuous (maybe 200m). I won't claim this is my new favourite sport, but it's an interesting challenge, and I can get a little mule-headed when presented with challenges. Olympic team, here I come.

Swim: 600m total.