In August, I had a long conversation with my swim coach about the path I need to take in order to reach my athletic goals. He suggested that I start swimming with the Dalhousie Club team during the school term, in order to get some time in the water with people my age who can push me and make me go faster.
This week marked the beginning of the adventure I've named "Swimming with the Fishies." Monday was my first official day back in the water after my month off from training. I was terrified. Worried that I would suck so bad that they'd all laugh at me at I'd never be allowed back. Because Monday was Thanksgiving, there were only 3 of us there: two guys who are lightning fast, and little me. We all had our own lanes, and I managed to hold (*just*) to most of the pace times for the workout. But still, these guys were lapping me on their kick sets! Man...
Then came Wednesday's practice. I've never felt so uncoordinated, incompetent, and just plain silly in all my life. I'm an ex-gymnast, for crying out loud. I
know my body and its biomechanics, inside and out. There are skills that swimmers learn from the time they are 7 and are second nature to them. Not so second nature to me. I guess it would be like doing a backwalkover. It's something I've always done, and my body just knows how to do it. I don't have that sort of subconscious kinesthetic awareness in the water.
Wednesday's workout went something like this:
1000m of warmup.
Some sort of kick warmup that I can't remember that was about 800m.
Main set:
4 x (200m freestyle, 150m kick, swim, kick, 100m drill, swim, drill, 4x50m swim). Every 4th 50m on the last part of the set was a timed 50m from a dive start. And we had to do ALL of the strokes. Ok, I'm a triathlete. I can freestyle until there is no tomorrow. And my backstroke isn't so bad. But my breastroke is laughable, and I just don't have any endurance for fly. And I'm swimming with
real swimmers now. I managed to splutter my way through my first set, Fly, but on the 50m timed swim I tried to drown myself by swallowing half the pool. Ok, so I need to work on my fly. Oh, and I've never ever done a dive start off the blocks before. That was a learning experience. I think I did more of a bellyflop.
Next came breaststroke. About halfway through my kick, swim, kick, my legs cramped. We're talking whole leg cramping here. Quads, hamstrings and calves all at once, contracting in a cacophony of muscular pain. I floundered my way to the end of the lane and just floated there with my kickboard, hoping my legs would stop cramping. Coach asked if I was ok, and I just sort of giggled and told him my legs wouldn't work because they were all cramped up! He laughed and told me to swim it out easy. A few 100 metres of freestyle and I was at least mobile again. So I missed an entire set of the 4. I was able to catch back up in time to do the timed 50, freestyle. The next set, backstroke, actually went pretty well. And then we didn't have enough time to do the last set and it was time to go home. I was sooo hungry by the end of practice, and my body was aching in places it has never ached before.
Friday's practice was also a learning experience, but a much tamer experience. Workout was 3300m.
Warmup:
4x (150m swim, drill, swim, 150m kick, swim, kick) - IM order
Main Set:
3 x (5 x 100m on 1:45 working on flip turn technique)
Cool down:
600m kick with fins, every 4th 25m sprint
Yay for freestyle! I actually felt a bit more like a swimmer! I felt like I was improving my flip turns as I was going through the set. There's a girl in the club who I can *just* keep up with, and she and I are now lane buddies :) She's really sweet and we feed off each other well. We did the entire set together, coming in about 1:33-1:35 and feeling pretty good.
After the kick set we finished off with dive start practice. Just 5 or starts off the block. But I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.
It's a steep learning curve, but I do really feel like "Swimming with the Fishies" is the best thing I could be doing for my swimming. These kids are fast. And despite my complete lack of basic skills (that most swimmers learn when they are 7), I do realise that as long as I am patient (as coach tells me to be), I will be fast one day too. I'll never be a fish, but maybe I can graduate from drowned-cat to at least a frog? :D
