Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Glug-a-glug-glug...

I knew it would be this way, but that doesn't make it any less unpleasant.  Swimming is going to be my limiter.  However far I can go in the swim will dictate the distance of triathlon I can compete in.  At least, that's how it feels today.

Had my first ever dedicated swim workout today.  I've always been a decent-to-good swimmer.  I was fast in the water as a kid - probably not the fastest my age but always above average.  Good swimming lessons as a kid from the fabulous Money sisters I'm sure is where the credit lies.

So today was pretty straightforward, but long for a guy who doesn't have a swimming base to speak of:  after a warmup, swim 1000 meters.  I broke the 1000 up by swimming 1 x 300, 1 x 200, and then 5 x 100 with a brief rest in between.  

This was hard for me.  Not because of muscle fatigue, nor did my heart rate get too elevated and push my body into an anaerobic state.  On the contrary, my heart rate never got close to the top end of my aerobic range (up to about 165 bpm for me).

It was hard because I am bad at the breathing part, apparently.  I found myself really struggling to maintain any sort of rhythm and breathing a lot of water early on.  This shouldn't have been this hard, but when you realize that you've never tried to swim for any period of time while breathing hard, it makes sense.  

Aqualung describes me.

I worked hard to focus on my form, and tried to implement what little I know about the "Total Immersion" method of the freestyle stroke that seems all the rage among triathletes.  About 600 meters in I started to figure a few things out, and it got a bit easier.  It turns out that I was not completely clearing my lungs under water, meaning I had to both finish my exhale and inhale when I came up.  Not very efficient.  My stroke pace was also too fast, so when I slowed down and tried to glide through the water, taking plenty of time to roll and breathe, things got a TON easier.

Needless to say, I have a lot of work to do here.  However, my progress should be fairly rapid early on as I get used to working out in the water and become more and more efficient.

Oh, and I've got to get a better pair of goggles.  Leaky, leaky, leaky...


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