So years ago Fran suggested to me that I might enjoy swimming. Despite my protests about how I've never really liked the water, he also suggested that I may enjoy it more if I tried a particular technique called Total Immersion Swimming. Now many of you might have noticed that when Fran likes something, he tends to really like something. Sometimes, we tease him about this. Sometimes, he himself jokes about this.
Well I'm here to say, on this particular occasion, Fran was completely right. With our (Christine, Michelle and mine) decision to participate in this years Danskin Triathlon, I decided I'd better learn how to swim better. My typical attempts at swimming consisted of kicking my feet as hard as possible, and then pulling as hard as I could with my arms and struggling from one end of the pool to the other. By the time I got to the end I was panting like I'd sprinted a hundred yards. I'd have to stop because my heart rate was soaring.
Well for several weeks now I've been reading the Total Immersion book (the one specifically for triathletes) and watching the videos. My friend Tina and I have been doing the drills. I can't tell you how much more comfortable and fast I feel in the water. I'm not quite at the point where I'm doing lap after lap of freestyle swimming, but I actually do feel more "slippery" through the water. Today while doing our drills, a woman asked Tina about our swimming. She said, "You look like dolphins!"
Now that's progress. :)
It's an awesome, well thought out system. I took the freestyle seminar a long time ago with Terry Laughlin. He's a great teacher.
ReplyDeleteI always loved to swim, but was never good at swimming laps - and freestyle was a killer. I did some of the drills and it really changed a lot. The other thing that made a huge difference for me was those little paddle fins that BB showed me. They make such a huge difference - I feel like I'm getting more of a workout.
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed that the 3 of you are doing a triathalon. That's way cool.
Yeah, I'm excited about the tri. It's a sprint, so it's .5 mi swim, 12 mi bike, 3 mi run (all distances are approximate). I decided I wanted to do it last year but missed the deadline and didn't feel confident about my swimming. So this year I started swimming early and signed up on time.
ReplyDeleteI somehow convinced Moi and Trouble to do it with me. They're going to do it as a relay team, Trouble is going to swim and run, Moi is going to bike and possibly run. I've assured them that walking is a viable option.
The Danskin is a women's only triathlon and I've been told it's incredibly supportive so there will be lots of people at varying levels of experience and fitness. It felt like a great fit.
I'm loving the training process too. It's fun to see how my fitness has improved. Just today I did 45 min on the bike and another 20 immediately following on the treadmill. I felt like I could maybe have gone longer, but I didn't want to over do it and be out of commission for a week. :)
I've not done a lot of these multisport things but the hardest part is the transition. Your legs are lead for the first part after the bike and you'll be running much better than you think. You will honestly feel awful. But you won't be awful.
ReplyDeleteEven harder though is biking after swimming. Your head is spinning and you almost feel like you cannot balance, the first time you do it. But that was before I knew about Total Immersion. I think coasting in the last 100 meters would be the best way to address that.
BTW: doing the transitions like bike then run, swim then bike, are great to do. Even something like a ten minute ride on the bike makes a difference.
I've got to get outdoors soon for some of this training as well. I'm planning all this training stuff, but shoot that deadline is closing in on me!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to get someone to run through a couple transitions with us (ie the team). So that we feel more comfortable with them.