Feeling like a wet blanket...

So it's 6:45 pm, and I am just about to finish up working for the day. Normally I finish at 6pm, but I came in an hour late because (shock!) I couldn't get myself out of bed this morning. I have swim practice tonight at 9pm in Brooklyn, and although I have all my gear at work with me, and all the best intentions in the world to leave here and go directly to the area of the city where the practice takes place, it is the time of day when my mind starts to do that "Aren't you feeling too tired to swim (jog/bike/do anything at all)?" dance it is so fond of. I decided I'd blog about this particular aspect of my training in the hopes that I'd psych myself up for tonight's workout in the process.

I think that my particular resistance to swimming tonight comes from the way that last week's practice went. We've been working on some drills that are meant to help us increase our efficiency in the water; being the first leg of the three-part event, the coaches have said that it should be our goal to be able to complete the 1 mile swim without feeling terribly tired or winded afterwards, as the two most high impact aspects of the race will still be in front of us. People who have already completed a triathlon in NYC tell me that because of the current in the Hudson River (that's right, we're swimming in ye olde Hudson come July!), the swim portion usually zips by pretty quickly, in about 20-25 minutes, because you are pushed along and thus are able to expend less energy during the actual event than in training. We're training for a mile, nonetheless, but it's good to know.

Anyway, so I consider myself to be a fairly competent swimmer; my father started taking both my sister and I to parent-child swim lessons at the local Y when were under 2 years old, and so at the very least I've always had a really high level of comfort with all things water-related. And, when we do the continuous swim aspect of our training sessions, I fair pretty well with my steady, rhythmic crawl - the same one I've been doing since I was probably about 10 years old, lapping around the lake at Girl Scout camp while the other campers splashed in the shallows. It's when we try and do these drills, however, that I feel, quite simply, like I am going to die of exhaustion. After last week's session the coach gave me some advice that makes me think I may understand why this is - he informed me that when we are doing any type of arm-related drill (fingertip drag, lifting one elbow at and time, pausing, and then plunging forward), I tend to arch my back a bit and hold my head up so that my legs are sinking further down and I am having to do more than the average amount of work to keep myself afloat. Also, based on last week's session, I believe that I have been neglecting a VERY important part of the whole arm portion of the crawl, which, according to the childhood swim lessons I mentioned earlier, breaks down to something like this (are you ready, Dad?):
Reach, Dig, Touch Your Knee, and Scoop!

I have repeated this mantra so many times both audibly and in my head that I cannot begin to count. It was the way, essentially, that I learned to swim, and it has always made sense to me in that I cannot separate those four steps from my understanding of the "crawl" that we all know and love. Or so I thought. Turns out, my friends, that I may have been forgetting (all this time) one very essential piece of that four-step process: the dig! I am forgetting to dig! The coach told me that he can see that when I put my arm out in front of me, and then start to pull it down, I am sort of just mildly flopping it forward, instead of getting a real, tangible dig-ful of water. Part of this involves turning my fingertips down towards the pool floor, rather than out towards the pool wall, because it helps create a "shovel" of sorts, to help me dig with. Basically, if you don't do the dig, then you are doing A LOT of the work of swimming with only your legs, and believe me, while I consider myself to be a champion kicker, it is FAR more tiring to try and stay afloat without the aid of those precious limbs, the arms.

In addition to these recent discoveries I should also mention that part of my chagrin about tonight's swim is that it takes place at the closer, but far smaller of the two pool locations that we are allowed to train at. There is a swim session on Wednesday nights that happens at the Riverbank State Park pool which is enormous and long and which we as a team get to have all to ourselves. There end up being about 6 of us per lane, and we get to do up and backs, which means there is one lane for going to one end of the pool, and one for coming back. It feels glorious and relaxed, and I also really like the coach, Jay, and the advice he gives. The pool I will visit tonight (see how I said "will," there, instead of "should" or "might"?), however, is located at a Y in Brooklyn (thumbs up to BK!), but is very short and only has two lanes available for about 25-30 of us. Yes, that's 15 or so per lane, and we don't get up and backs. There is a lot of crashing into one another and also lots of splashing, and I have to admit that I end up feeling much more pressured and rushed there because there is always someone swimming right on top of my feet. I get home earlier from this pool, but I sometimes feel more tired from the workout. It's a conundrum.

I've been trying to switch up my attendance, to give myself a break from the tiny pool with the somewhat less friendly coaches, however this week I have to take my cat to the vet on Wednesday evening, and so will not be able to attend that session, even if I wanted to go all the way uptown. Which means I have no choice but to endure the little roiling mess of a swim session this evening that will at some point undoubtedly leave me gasping for breath, but the way I figure I'll be a lot less happy with myself when I'm climbing into bed tonight if I don't go at all than if I go and feel maybe a little bit defeated by the whole thing. The defeat will pass, like it always does, as will this chance to do some really important work on both my body and my mind, so now is the time to take advantage of that chance and know that the victory is in the process, not just in the product.

--K