Aha! Moment in Swimming

This past weekend we did our first open-water swim of the Spring training season, and it was brutal. I think -- I fervently hope -- that my problem was due to not getting enough of a "wetsuit wedgie," meaning that you have someone else yank your suit up really high around your waist so that you don't have a horrible vise-like compression on your chest and shoulders while you swim. I felt confident and enthusiastic before we got in to Lake Del Valle (Livermore, CA) at 8 am. Once I dove into the 54-degree water (roughly the same temperature as the San Francisco Bay), the cold seized my face. For some reason my head, protected only by one regular latex swim cap, was fine, as were my feet -- but my face and hands were killing me.

And my lungs! The reflex when you get into water that cold is to gasp for air. I was making a high-pitched wheezing sound as I tried to breathe. All of this was rather shocking, as I thought last year's experience had prepared me for this. It has been a year, though. I tried to stroke and get some rhythm going (and heat circulating), but I felt strangled. So I flailed about, making very slow progress, for 30 minutes with the other back-of-the-packers.

For me the issue is not fear of open water -- I have swum that lake in the summer many times. Apparently, I am a slow swimmer, however. I have never gotten much training other than my Team in Training experience from last year.

I also have been bad about following the prescribed swimming workouts. I tend to go to the pool and just start swimming laps after a few warmup drills. Last year I said to someone on the day of the race, "Hey, did you actually do all the swim workouts exactly like the schedule said to?" "Yeah, I printed it out and put it in a plastic bag poolside. It really helped me improve my speed and stamina. Didn't you?" "Uh, no..." Then the gun went off!

My attitude with all the training is, I want to be prepared, and push myself, but at the same time, I don't want to add stress to my life by obsessing about it. That's the nice thing about the group workouts -- you don't think, you just do what they tell you to!

But today in the pool I did feel like I had just begun to understand the concept of the side-arm balance drill. I think the point of that is that on every stroke you are supposed to rotate your body fully so that you are nearly perpendicular to the surface and looking down your lower armpit to the bottom of the pool. In addition, your core is supposed to be solid enough to cause your hips to rotate with you, while your kick stays small and contained (not a large scissor, which apparently I had been doing with every breath). For some unfathomable reason my hips wiggle a lot, which is good for salsa dancing but not swimming. Ha!

We had a video analysis of our swim stroke a few weeks ago. It was useful, but it's still hard to implement improvements on my own. There is so much to remember. But I am taking our last open water swim as a wakeup call. Unfortunately, for financial reasons I am not going to the training weekend this year (it's tomorrow), so I won't have a chance to actually swim the Wildflower course prior to the race. I need to make that up on my own. I don't want this year's race result to be slower than last!

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