Different Strokes

Three months ago, when I first cannonballed into the pool after 21 years, I felt like I'd come home! I love the feeling of splitting through the water, floating on top, existing underwater. I love how energizing the fresh air feels after you've spent the last hour fighting to not breathe in the water. My old strokes were coming back easily, the muscles were waking up, all I had to do is build up my endurance, oh and change everything about my stroke! Honestly, it may have been easier for those people who started from scratch, than to have to reprogram everything.

I won't go into every detail because it's hard to picture if you don't have the awesome coaches showing you how it should be done - and you certainly won't see such elegant strokes out of me. In a nutshell, we're trying to reach farther with each stroke, glide more, and use less of our legs to save them for the 2 sports that follow our 1.2 mile (or 2112 yard) swim.

I still remember the first time I got in the pool and just how bad doing 100 yards (4 lengths or 2 laps) felt. My arms screamed, my lungs burned, it was terrible! Well tonight (3 months later), I did my first non-stop 1,500 yard swim (60 lengths/30 laps) and I actually liked the last 500 best! Then, I rested for about 30 seconds and decided to do a 100 yard cool down before getting out. About 40 yards into the lap, I started feeling yucky. So I walked the last part! Yes, I was walking the last part of the lap in the pool - my kids thought this was too funny! Hey, you know, 1,500 yards non-stop, I don't feel bad about stopping afterwards. As with any of my mishaps, I learn from it - I didn't fuel or drink as much as I should.

We've been instructed to have water bottles poolside so we can consume 1 bottle an hour. Now in my defense a) the workout that used to take me an hour only took 45 min. tonight since it was non-stop so I felt I'd steered clear of that time chunk (I know Coaches, the goal is not to drink it all in the end of the hour); b) if I'm swimming 1,500 for time, I'm not going to waste valuable seconds to drink more fuel or water. I had nobody on the team swimming with me tonight, yet I was still being competitive. I had no other time to beat, besides Tuesday's "warm-up" when I swam 1,000 straight, so if anything you think I'd slow down this one to show a big improvement next time... but NO!

It's a real mind-flip that in this society all of a sudden I'm being told - make sure you get enough carbs! We're supposed to take what we weigh, divide it by 2.2 and take in that many carbs per hour when we're training. Not calories, carbs! Like in the Ironteam world, Wonder Bread is a good thing! We no longer eat Gu (which goes in and out looking just as the name implies - things that make you go Hmmm!), we are now hardcore and should try stuff called Hammer (or were they telling us to get hammered?)!

I still am not consistantly graceful in the water, I have to work very hard to put my head down lower so the water goes over my neck and back, and then turn far enough to breathe well. I sometimes feel very fluid with my strokes, and other times feel very floppy. Still, any frustration that I had over my strokes was washed away when I finished the 1,500 feeling great!