beginning again

Remember the swim helmet? for those of you new around here the swim helmet is a joke, no I do not really swim with a helmet on! Grimm brought it to my first practice back after the injury and I wore it as a joke. Although there seems to be a market for this thing during the swim at IMLP, which incidentally will have 400 more people in it this year!


It felt good to slide into the water. Compared to the water I had swum in the previous day this was much colder. At Masters it always is. The usual faces greeted me, coming back to the pool after my 2 weeks break was a lot like coming home from vacation. Well, I just did!!!!

I was born a swimmer, I swam in college and nothing, nothing replaces the feeling of those first thousand yards in the pool after a break. I love to re feel the catch, the throw, the breath, the sound of nothing but water all around me.

Coach threw tennis balls in the water this morning and I knew it would be awesome. She gives us the best drills. Tennis balls are one of the best tools for head positioning, fist swimming, and Mark even taught me how to juggle.

I moved to lane 1 yesterday to even out the lanes and I think it will be my permanent lane this year. Lanes 1 and 2 swim together, but lane 1 seems to fit me well right now. I am in need of some swimming change.

After I ended my collegiate swimming career I began to swim by 2 rules: no more fly and I will breathe to my right. Yesterday I brought my fly out of retirement. Trust me when you have spent years of your life swimming 10,000 yards a day, most of that fly, you deserve to retire it for a good 10 years.

One of the sets we were given instructed us to breathe to our non preferred side. The beautiful thing about my swim team is that we don't stick a workout on a wall and have at it. Lorie coaches form the deck, set by set. At any given moment she's in your face and she holds nothing back. If you are swimming like sh*t she says those exact words. That's what I love abut her. She's damn honest.

Out of fear I began to breathe to my non preferred side. It felt like writing with my feet. As I swam that set I thought about how we are analyzing my running and my cycling form the bottom up. With a good long season ahead of me the focus is high on biomechanics right now.

Why not with my swimming?

I am a much much better swimmer than I train to be. I don't work hard at all to swim 28-30 in a 70.3 race. Not at all. It's embarrassing because with my background all I have to do is put froth some effort and bam, there it will be.

As we move towards this new season with new goals...... and I have promised before..... but I will promise again. Some effort in the pool. I am swimming fly again, I am breathing to the left. I am getting out of my box of swimming safety.

Because it will take beginning from the bottom to reach what I have aimed to reach in 2010.

As I look down the path of 2010 I realize that right now I am in a great spot. We start on Monday and that gives me almost a full year. My big A plus race is at the end, many people's is in the middle. That gives me the luxury of time.

I am studying my running homework, the powercranks are on their way, the power meter is being charged...... I have a meeting with Jesse this weekend. Next week we do run form analysis. (I did have to postpone my trip to Boston until Jan 23rd because I am getting a new car! Exciting!) Power test, body composition analysis, all this weekend.

I am loving what I am doing so far. My legs are sore in the good way kind of soreness. I am ready to step out of the box, be taught something new, and in the pool...... find something old.