Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Anchors Aweigh

Monday was one of those days. I didn't want to get out of bed to swim. When I got to the pool I didn't want to get in the water. When I got in the water, my stroke felt off and my new Aquasphere Seal mask started leaking. Uggh. Can you see where this is going?

I felt myself going through the motions and I didn't want to reinforce bad technique so I told myself to quit whining and start swimming. I made it through the workout, only to have my swim coach give me grief about all of the things I was doing wrong that she said "came out of nowhere". I left swimming feeling pretty deflated.

I have made so much progress in the water and I have gotten used to hearing comments from my coach like, "you are looking like a swimmer" that taking her constructive criticism was more than I wanted to swallow on a Monday morning.

I did my best to learn from it and decided to get to Masters on time on Wednesday (5:30 a.m.) instead of 5:45 a.m. so that I could start my swim with the drill set instead of doing them at the end (I always do the entire workout, I just stay later).

Thankfully, today's swim was much better and my coach agreed. I felt much more confident walking out this morning! Plus, as I was leaving I noticed one of the guys swimming (next to our Masters group, but not in our group) laps had a IM tattoo, so I chatted with him for a moment. He is training for his third IM and he asked what I was training for. I told him I had signed up for Florida and he told me to have fun, you only get one "first Ironman"! Never thought about it that way before ...

3 comments:

ONEHOURIRONMAN said...

I have been doing a little background reading at your site. Sure the swim is something that if it doesn't come naturally, you need to get help (which you are doing). I have learned if you want to make it to the starting line and ultimately the finish (dont get hurt in training) focus on the bike and dont overdo the run.
By the way, hope you have bought a tri or road bike (in case I missed it). It will make the day a little more enjoyable.

Anne said...

Bob - I did end up buying a road bike with aerobars and find it to be very comfortable.

I have heard a lot of similar advice on Ironman. Bike, bike some more and bike some more!

Lora Abernathy said...

Sorry your week started off with a bad swim, but am glad that your last one ended up going much better for you.