10Kmarathonswim

Total Immersion drills

Back in Moscow, seriously jet-lagged.  But, got back in the pool this morning.  Ah, it felt so good!

Before I went on my trip to the states, I bought Terry Laughlin's Total Immersion swimming book and DVD.  They were waiting for me when I got back.  I started out with the DVD's lesson one drills this morning.  The drills primarily are supposed to get you to realize that you can relax and balance in the water.  Some of the drills were difficult, like the one where I swim with my hands (relax damn you!) at my sides and one of my shoulders slightly out of the water, swimming head-first into the far wall.

I've never been a strong kicker; in fact, I go much faster when I swim with a pull buoy than when I swim with all my appendages.  Sad.  So kicking head first into the far wall is not easy for me.  But I tried to relax and let the water slip over my head, a head pointed like a laser toward the far wall.  We'll see.

I am willing to give it a chance.  I've decided to do TI drills as my warm-up every morning.  I'm going to take them slowly.  I'll be on lesson one drills until they are easy, then I'll move on.  I haven't even watched the DVD beyond lesson one.

The book is excellent.  The drills are a little different from the DVD, but that gives me an opportunity to change it up a little.  While the book is a good read and Laughlin does a good job explaining his principles, you really cannot do without the DVD.  To see the swimmer actually doing the drills is far more useful, at least to me, than just reading about them.

Finding a place to swim while traveling

Nothing is more difficult, at least to someone who loves to swim, than trying to find someplace to swim while traveling.  Currently, I'm sitting in my hotel room in Colorado Springs, having just finished swimming for 45 minutes in a pool so tiny that I got only 6-8 strokes before having to flip-turn.

I found a place on Peterson AFB to swim, but the hours were such that I couldn't get there during lap swim.  And with school out now in Colorado, the "free swim" times mean I'm back to kids "accidentally" floating over to the lap swim lanes.  No thank you.

There is a YMCA here in downtown Colorado Springs with a beautiful SCM pool.  Unfortunately, unless you're a Y member or a guest of a member, they won't take your money.  And I was willing to give them up to $10.  But no.  And none of the moms wanted to "guest" some strange man walking around the entrance. 

Still, I got some swimming in while on this state-side trip.  3 swims in DC, including the Jim McDonnell Lake Swim, and three swims here in Colorado Springs.  So, all in all, my best trip, as far as "trying to fit fitness in" is concerned.

Pictures from the lake swim

Pictures from my lake swim are up on the website.  The first one below is from the in-water start.  I loved this way of starting.  I was afraid of embarrassing myself with a running start and me slipping on my face!  This race they divided us up into waves based on our estimated one-mile swim time. 

A lot has changed since my days of running 10K's and triathlons.  Okay, that was in the 80's.  Now, runners get little strips to put in their shoes.  The strip times their start and finish times.  Well, swimmers have that now!  We put our sensors around our ankles, walk across a mat which registers our start and our finish.  Here's a picture of the sensors.

But what is NOT gone from the early days of triathlon is the arm marking. 

"For the Athlete Who Has It All"

My wife found a great article on Wall Street Journal entitled "For the Athlete Who Has It All."  The crux of the article is this: if you are bored with swimming miles and miles of freestyle, try swimming miles and miles of butterfly.

Now, before you laugh about this fantasy, know that some crazies out there do swim miles and miles of butterfly.  Butterfly!  The all-time hardest stroke of all the strokes, at least according to 99 percent of all swimmers I've ever met. 

Last year, I did a postal swim meet called The Brute Squad.  The Brute Squad are those swimmers who compete in the 200 fly, 400 IM and the 1650 free in one swim meet.  The postal required me to swim all three events in one 24-hour period.  As I had to borrow my wife to time my swims, I did them one after the other, in the order I listed previously.  By the time I got to the free, it took me almost 30 minutes to swim it.  The fly kicked my butt.  Apparently, it kicks most peoples' butts, as the author of the WSJ article states,

"Swimming 500 meters or more of non-stop butterfly can place an athlete in a truly elite, if unofficial, club. For context, consider that while the longest Olympic freestyle event is 6.2 miles, the longest stretch of butterfly performed in the Games is 200 meters, or one eighth of a mile."

So, later this year, sometime in December, I'll do the Brute Squad again.  But this time, I'll actually practice the fly.  I'm okay at about a 50 fly, but want to get comfortable at the 100 fly, at least.  We'll see.