Confessions Of A Flabby Ironman

June 27, 2002

80 days until Ironman...

This week has been a mess, workout wise. Starting Sunday night I was busy
working at this conference doing video stuff that was on the other side of
the city, it basically meant doing a 50 minute drive twice daily. Not much
fun, so it really screwed up my training. Aside from that, my bike isn't
back from the shop yet from it's weekend injuries, so I wasn't on teh bike
this week either. The conference ended yesterday night, so back into the
workouts today.

Today's workout? Swim for 1:15 at Endurance Level 3, and run for :45 of
form.

Tuesday, I swam in a lake for the first time and I can honestly say that
it's much easier swimming in a lake than it is swimming laps, at least for
me. I think there's something about swimming or running or biking inside
that really makes it harder for me to do distance. When I'm in the water
and see something off in the distance, it's easier to set my eyes on that
marker than it is for me to say, "Ok I need to swim umpteen laps to do this
distance today."

The only thing that I don't especially like about lake swimming is dealing
with the weeds. Because of the boat traffic on the lake, I tend to not try
and swim out in the middle of the lake. Swimming 50 ft off shore means I
stay out of the way of boats (though not the absolutely annoying jet-skis)
The lake I swim in though (mostly because it's REALLY close to my house)
is pretty weedy, and thus when you get out there, you still have to contend
with the slimy plants. Maybe most disconcerting though was having my eyes
open as I swam freestyle. When I was in a weedy area, I'd see the weeds
coming at me, and even though I knew they were soft and wouldn't hurt me, I
couldn't help but get a little freaked seeing something coming at me. If I
were running or biking I could easily avoid it, but swimming you're
basically stuck with "Augh! Here it comes!" Plus I kept thinking that some
of the weeds were hands reaching up to grab me when I saw them out of the
corner of my eye. Hopefully with all the people at Ironman, by the time I
get to the weeds, a gazillion people will already have swam through them
tearing them into a million pieces.

Another part about lake swimming is not knowing where exactly to jump in.
Whenever I walk past the sign that says "No Swimming past the beach swim
area buoys" I always get a little nervous that some county lake patrol boat
is going to come up and say (with some sort of southern accent) "What the
hell do you think you're doing boy?"

Anyway, Tuesday I got in for the first time and did maybe 1/2-3/4 of a
mile. It felt pretty good for the most part. Though my stroke is still
pretty horrible. I kept giving up on my freestyle because of the weeds. it
was easier to do some sort of awkward breast stroke that pulled the weeds
out of the way before I got there than it was to do a freestyle stroke and
collect weeds with my superman arm position sticking out and gliding me
through the water waiting for my other hand to appear and assume the
position.

Today after I got home from work I grabbed the last two pieces of pizza
that my parents, sister and brother-in-law had for dinner and made myself a
BLT wrap... let that sit for a half hour and then headed down to the
beach.

I always feel a bit awkward when I head down to the beach to do a long
swim. Walking barefoot through the beach area in barefeet, a speedo or my
Triathlon-sprint shorts and a T-shirt. People kind of look at you
strangely... especially when you walk past the beach and keep going,
finding a tree to toss your t-shirt into as you stretch and put on your
swim goggles.

After you stretch, you have to kind of search for a little bit of waters
edge that doesn't have too many weeds and just walk out into the water.
When I went down to the lake on Tuesday, I spent quite a few minutes just
standing at the edge of the water, trying to get the chutzpah to actually
head out into the lake. Today, the chutzpah that was needed was quite a bit
less.

I started out with some freestyle but hit the weeds almost right away
again and went back to my horrible breast stroke... I went out a little
further to get away from the surface weeds and kept going with the
freestyle. I still need to do a lot of work with my balance in the water.
Seeing that video at Total Immersion has helped a lot, but I can't keep up
proper form for long distances... my biceps are also quite a bit smaller
than I'd like, because at this point they get tired pretty quickly. There
was more boat traffic today. I had to keep checking for boats whenever I
heard the buzzing in the water. A bunch of teens kept sweeping past me, and
I wasn't quite sure why, except for the fact that there's a freaky
triathlete guy swimming by himself in a pretty-much non-swimming area.
People don't give me weird looks when I'm running or I'm biking, but I
couldn't believe all of the weird looks that I got in the lake today. Every
boat that came by gave me some sort of look.

I ended up swimming for probably a mile/mile and a quarter... and actually
getting a full hour in. Usually I never get a full swim workout in. I
think the lake helps this quite a bit. Whenever a boat did swing by, I'd
end up with the waves coming at me which cut down my progress quite a bit.
I kept pushing though, and on the way back (I turned around when I reached
the 35 minute mark so that I wouldn't go completely over my workout time
and so that I wouldn't tire out and get stranded in the middle of the
lake.) I focused on my freestyle again, which for some reason started
working a lot better right away. My body was twisting the right way, and I
was able to remember to keep my superman arm out until my other arm reached
it so that I could get the maximum glide as a "longer me".

Ok, sidebar time. The "longer me" thing has to do with the way Total
Immersion teaches. The way they teach swimming is to work on form. They try
to teach people to swim as fishlike as possible so that you can maximize
efficiency and save energy. To do this, they teach you to stretch out your
body and twist to a side on each stroke so that you cut through the water
easier <--- a sailboat vs. a barge.

Anyway, I was able to keep a pretty proper freestyle stroke up until I got
back to shore. I feel really fine in the water. Friends of mine have
talked about being nervous when they see all the water around them and the
shore far away. I guess it doesn't' really bother me. It took a little
getting used to to see your horizon so much lower, but it felt pretty
natural to just sit and tread in the water when I needed to take a break. I
think the focusing exercises that were in this cycling psychology book I
read last year, have helped a lot in that area. Just focusing on the hear
and now, what my body is doing stroke by stroke and not thinking about
what's ahead in the next leg of hte race or whatever. Focusing on the here
and now. It just helps a lot. I read in Iron Will about how when you think
about the next leg of the Ironman, you're through... meaning that it just
beats you into the ground to think about the marathon while you're
finishing the bike, or looking ahead to the bike during the swim. You know
you're going to be at some further point in the future, so just focus on
what you're doing now to get you there a little sooner. I suppose that's
easier said than done.

I know I'm performing well when my mind can kind of go into
performance-hypnosis and i can just kind of observe the scenery with a
blank mind as my legs pedal or run along. That kind of happened tonight
during the run. After I got out of the water, I ran for my car so that I
could transition to the run as quickly as I could. I still need to work on
my transitions, but my legs felt pretty fresh when I ran out of hte beach
parking lot and straight up the first hill. When I do more bricks, I think
I'm going to need to keep either my camelbak in my car so i can grab it in
the transition, or some sports drink. You don't think you sweat in teh
water, but you actually sweat quite a bit, and I could feel it during the
run. I really needed something to drink and there wasn't much around. Just
suburbia everywhere I looked... not that I had any money on me to buy
anything anyway. Got my run done feeling pretty well and came home.

I decided that I'm not riding to Illinois this weekend. I haven't gotten
my bike back from teh shop yet, and I'll really focus on getting my regular
workouts in next week, even if I am in some remote Illinois cornfield
listening to music with friends. We'll see how all that works. I think i
can get normal workouts in, but we'll see.

I should run. More later.
Brian.