Thursday, March 17, 2011

Keep It off My Wave, My Wave

Photo: Alberto+CerriteƱo, Flickr Creative Commons

I took my first couple of laps Sunday as part of my triathlon training. To put it kindly, it was a humbling experience. I'm using my parents' pond, a long rectangular body of water that is largely free of weeds or debris, as my training center. One length of the pond is roughly 130 yards, making four lengths of the pond the perfect training distance. If I can swim that continuously, I can easily make the 1/4-mile distance of the race.

Stepping into the water Sunday I realized that the water temperature was cold enough to elicit a gasp when I first went under, but not so cold that I felt chilled after the first moment of adjusting. I know that some of you may be jealous that I can go swimming when it is still technically winter, but even accounting for the weird snowstorms that reached fairly fair south this winter, it's been a mild one and a very short one as well. I haven't had the heater on in the house for almost two months now and we've kept the windows open for most of those two months. We've had several days already this year when we saw 80 degrees, and we'll have at least five of them in a row coming up.

Despite the relatively comfortable water, that first attempt at swimming was an embarrassment. I was a distance swimmer growing up as a kid. I even swam laps in this pond as a kid when the public pool in town was condemned. It was easy, at least until drought hit and the oxygen-starved catfish swarmed the freshly oxygenated water around my thrashing limbs. Now, I couldn't even sync up my breathing with my strokes to keep my head down because I was out of breath as soon as I started. My arms were so tired halfway down the pond that I couldn't even finish my strokes. My kicks were powerful and my legs never got tired, but using my arms left me gasping for breath and treading water or breast-stroking to keep my head above the water while I caught my breath.

Luckily, when I got back into the water yesterday, I finished the first 130 yards without a pause. Strokes were clean. Breaths were good. I kept my head down and I paced myself well. I needed this. Running and biking came relatively easy for me. The rewards were quick and helped keep me motivated to improve. I'm not the type of guy who refuses to give up. I actually usually just quit when things get tough. After that first lap, I ended up doing four lengths of the pond (about 0.3 of a mile) in about 18:30. I couldn't do the other lengths continuously and I struggled during the third and fourth lengths to keep my breathing synced as I started to get too tired to keep my rhythm going, but the significant improvement was reassuring. Things should go well for me by May.

10 comments:

Mickey said...

Soundgarden.

Aside from the first time I learned to swim, I've never been trained in the finer points. That whole breathing thing is what gets me. I have a hard enough time regulating my breathing when I run, and my head is always above water then.

It's nice that you have that pond to train in, although catfish freak me out a little when they're not in their delicious fried state on my plate.

Mickey said...

Also, now I have that song in my head, replacing Vaseline. You're on a roll.

Chris said...

I'm impressed. I wish I could swim that well.

I don't know the Soundgarden song (or at least I missed the reference), so I've got She Don't Use Jelly stuck in my head, the Ben Folds version, of course, because I'm a dork not a rocker.

Jacob said...

Mickey: There was a point in my life where I was a very competent swimmer. Even did the whole s-shaped stroke under the water and rotated the arm to reduce splashing when the arm re-entered the water. I even recognize some of the techniques the Olympic guys are doing when I watch on TV. That being said I NEVER managed to do a flip turn without choking myself. Flip turn is the underwater roll swimmers do when they reach the end of the pool and turn around, by the way. That's why I stuck to the breast stroke (no flip turn in that stroke) and the longer distance freestyle events where the flip turn wasn't a competitive necessity. That being said, like with everything else, I was never fast. I had good form and endurance, but nothing else.

Jacob said...

And the key (for me at least) to breathing is just as you're bringing your arm out of the water (left arm for me, but whatever is comfortable), you rotate your head to that side. So with my face down I reach in the water with my left, stroke to the back and as I just begin to lift that arm back out, I turn my head to the left, breath in, and turn my head back down, and then breath steadily out of my nose until my left arm comes back out. It takes a little practice, but if you worked on it even a little, it'd be easy. Right now I'm breathing every time my left arm comes up, but breathing actually slows you in the water, so if you can go more strokes than that you'll go faster. Just don't lift your head to the front. Guaranteed to kill your momentum. The legs drop and your drag exponentially increases.

I actually got a nose clip to try (I get water up my nose really easily and that's a guaranteed panic attack for me), but the damn thing wouldn't stay on. With the nose clip, I'd breath out through the mouth, which would actually make things a little easier since you want to breath out of the mouth when you start getting tired.

Julie said...

I am a terrible swimmer. I never got past beginning swimming lessons so I have NO form. All I remember is to "pick an apple and put it in the basket." I DO intend to actually use the pool in my neighborhood this year, though. Of course, I said that last year, too.

Sid said...

I plan to start training for my first triathlon in April. Right now I'm just focussing on completing the 2 Oceans Marathon in under 2:30.

Jacob said...

Sid, is that a half marathon or are you suddenly a crazy-good distance runner? 2:30 would be a sub-6-minute mile over 26 miles. For you crazy metric people that's basically a 3:30 per kilometer pace. The women's world record is only 15 minutes faster than 2:30.

Courtney said...

Yeah, swimming will wear your arse out if you're not used to it. I swam on my high school swim my freshman year, but since I'd only swam summer league prior to that, I'd get blown out of the water by the year-round swimmers I was competing with. It was a tad embarrassing, which is partially why I only did it for one year.

Courtney said...

High school *team*, that is. Stupid fingers.

And I assume you're swimming freestyle, but if you really want a workout you should try butterfly. THAT is exhausting.