I have found that my swimming training sessions are far more entertaining than running or biking. Unless of course there are epic crashes or run-ins with parked cars, but generally speaking, between near drowning, floundering, and sea creature flailing, swimming doesn’t require epic mishaps, it’s just an adventure every time.
On this particular morning, but not unlike every other freezing cold winter morning so far this year, I am draped in a titanic sized towel staring at the motionless water of the pool. I’ve become accustomed to the morning swims, but until I am fully submerged and awakened by the cool water, I usually just stand on the deck like a dumb donkey awaiting the crack of the whip. Sometimes I’m still waking up, other times I’m enjoying the calmness of the empty pool, and sometimes I’m quietly praying that my coach hasn’t brought those arm braces (Fulcrums) he keeps talking about or asks me to practice my sculling, tie my legs together, or swim another 800m time trial. I’m starting to learn that there are certain training sessions you come to loathe. The ones that result in me spitting up water, screaming in agony with each exhale, wishing my arms would fall off instead of continuing to propel me through the water, and puking in the pool. Most days I think that my coach is trying to kill me. In any case, of course when you wish things away, it seems that they always magically appear, as did the bright yellow arm braces on the pool deck, and the workout sheet which included ankle band, sculling, and 800m TT. I think my body may have instinctively turned towards the door as if the flight or fight response had suddenly kicked in.
As I hop in the pool with my bright yellow, awesomely awesome arm braces I feel like the special kid in class who doesn’t know how to swim and therefore needs special help. Not only am I the only one out of my group wearing these dumb things I also look like a dolphin who has its flippers caught in a six pack ring. And I thought that strapping my feet together and swimming like a demented sea horse was bad.
After managing to flounder through the first 400 with the Fulcrums and then bob like a seahorse through 300 with the ankle band, I still can’t shake the appearance of some off-the-rails sea creature. With a pull buoy squashed between my thighs I am now ass up sculling my arms back and forth as I motor along like a dying whale.
I know there is a method to the insanity of all these pool drills and that one day I will swim like a graceful mermaid torpedoing through the water, but in the meantime, I shall remain a hysterical spectacle for all to admire. 
By the time we are lined up for the time trial, I am mentally preparing myself for inevitable agony. In a TT I’m aiming to hit a time that my coach expects out of me, but my interpretation, in a nutshell, try to keep up to the toes of your training partner and if you start to lose them then swim harder. Usually I see those toes for the first 100 metres or so, then they move slowly inch my inch out of my grasp. I always try to reach out and grab them with so much desperation that my forehead crinkles, but it never matters how much I pull and kick or how hard I try, those toes stay out of my reach until they disappear out of sight and I am left with nothing to reach for anymore. It sounds horrendously defeating, but it’s actually extremely motivating to always have something to chase. Whether I can see it or not, I know it’s there, and it only drives me to be better.
By the time we are finished I am exhausted and sputtering up water. There is barely enough time for me to catch my breath, swim a few cool down laps, clamber out of the pool, and shuffle off to the dressing room where I am practically into transition. I peel off my soaking wet bathing suit, attempt to wring my hair of excess water and suit up in three layers of head to toe clothing. As I choke down a Power Bar, it’s off to the great outdoors where the harsh chill that I remember from this morning greets my lungs and whips at my face. Without much hesitation I silently yell some words of encouragement and we are off for a wintery 11 kilometre run. The workout in the pool is finished but my legs still have to carry me for another hour and 15 minutes through the snow. This is just another day of triathlon training; swim, bike, run, but sometimes all I hear is go, go, go.
At the end of the day I am chilled and beaten. I slink into a scathing hot bath of epsom salts and practically fall into a deep sleep. Sometimes these training sessions sound border line torturous but I love it. In some sort of twisted way feeling beaten and defeated makes me feel stronger. It really doesn’t matter how many sea creatures I resemble in the water or how many kilometres of snow you tell me to run in, I will always keep propelling through. Yes, it can feel awful when my lungs are screaming and my muscles are aching, but there is a brilliant satisfaction at the end of the day knowing that I survived one workout and I am that much more ready for the next one. After all, every step, or peddle, or stroke that I make, takes me that much further away from where I was and that much closer to where I want to be.
training
Flailing is my favourite swim adjective
Waking up at 5am in the dead of winter for a swim workout is fun. Nothing really beats shuffling down the icy driveway towards my frosty car as the chilly breeze freezes me to the core. It’s like a second alarm clock that jolts me awake.
I am nearing the seven month countdown until my half-distance tri in August and two-a-day group training sessions have begun, which means, chilly before-the-rooster-awakes morning workouts. For the past year, I trained alone, which has allowed me to set my own schedule, find excuses to miss workouts, and otherwise avoid early mornings in the winter. But this year I decided to get some coaching to help guide me through more focused workouts, and with group training sessions I now have company and a motivator for getting out of bed, even at 5am in the dead of winter.
I find my group on the deck, and my coach looks at my goggles and cap, and says, “Do you have an ankle band?” Staring blankly back at him I shake my head as I look down at his thick black elastic-band and then to the rest of the group, who are all carrying swim bags loaded with training aids. In just the last six weeks, I have seen tempo trainers, pull buoys, hand paddles, and now ankle bands. Gone are the days when a cap and goggles are the only swimming gear required.
As we hop in the pool, Maurice lays out the workout, four sets of 15’s, including free swim, ankle band, pull buoy and pull buoy with paddles. Four sets of 1500 metres? That can’t be right. We haven’t even started swimming, and I’m already confused. At least I know how to swim; I figure I’ll just follow their lead.
As I finish my first set of 15 minutes, not 1500 metres, Maurice, offers me his ankle band. “Here, just loop this around one ankle, figure-eight it around and put this end on the other ankle, it’s meant to make your legs sink.” Oh sweet, you want me to tie my legs together. “OK,” I reply, “I’ll try not to drown.” With a somewhat serious expression, he responds, “Yea, there are a few lifeguards around if you need help.” Oh, so drowning is definitely a possibility. OK. I wasn’t about to tell my coach I didn’t want to do it; I don’t think it was an option.
So I proceeded to literally tie my ankles together and pushed off the wall. At first a mild panic rose within my chest and my heart began to beat faster as my legs sank behind me. This is how I imagine it feels after walking the plank, at least my hands weren’t tied behind my back, but for a brief moment, I wonder if that’s an exercise for next week. I picture myself writhing around like a worm through the water, and then realize I already look like a drowning seahorse or a floundering walrus, so it probably can’t get much worse. While pulling through the water with my dragging, useless legs I found that if I focused more on the swim than on my bounded feet, I was surprisingly OK and in fact not drowning at all, minus some flailing here and there.
Next set, and it’s on to the pull buoy, which I have maybe used once in my life, but I gave up because it felt like a balloon pulling my ass towards the sky. Once again I have no idea what I am doing, so as my swim mate stops by the wall, pops in her buoy and asks if I want to go first, I reply, “no, you go on.” She doesn’t know that I need to first watch what she does before I make a fool of myself. As I look under the water at the placement of the buoy, I follow suit, and carry on. And just as last time, my ass floats skyward. Buoyancy is definitely not an issue for me, so when you stick a flotation device between my thighs, well naturally things will go up. At this point, I wasn’t sure what looked better, my drowning seahorse act or my giant floating bum. I longed to just swim normal laps without the hindrance of an elastic band or a piece of foam wedged between my legs.
For the last set, I grab my hand paddles (the only other piece of swimming gear I own besides my cap and goggles) and continue pretending to be the pro that I am not. With the buoy still firmly squashed between my legs, I keep motoring along through the final 15. At each end, as I attempt to grab the deck with my flipper-like hands for my open turn I can’t quite get my grip, and end up just kind of bobbing like a child on a pool noodle before turning around and setting off again. The ensuing laps are reminiscent of an overweight seal with a slightly dysfunctional back end. Seriously, only I could manage to resemble three different drowning sea creatures in just one morning swim. Maybe it doesn’t look as funny as it feels. At least that’s what I’ll tell myself anyways.
At the end of the session, my head is full with new knowledge and my body has learned a few new ways of getting from one end of the pool to the other. It still never ceases to amaze me just how much there is to learn and that it’s a constant process. Who knew something as simple as swimming, biking and running could be so complicated? Nonetheless, I am grateful for the stories, and even more so for the chance to laugh at myself as I continue on the road to one hundred forty point six miles.
Not enough time
There is never enough time. Outside of eating, sleeping, cooking, cleaning, personal hygiene, socializing, walking the dog, quality time with the boyfriend, and a Monday to Friday 8-4 job, I’m left with few precious hours to train. Sometimes I look at my training schedule and wonder how it will all fit into my day. In fact I find it challenging from week to week to properly fit it all in without overdoing it or missing something. Today was a prime example of trying to do too much at once. I was scheduled for a two-hour endurance ride and a form practice swim lesson at 7pm. Waking up at 430am to get in nutrition, stretching, the ride, a shower, and travel to work, seemed a little unreasonable, so I figured I’d make a mad dash home at 4pm, hop on the trainer, then rush off to my swim class at 630; totally doable. Cue 415 and I’m flailing through the front door, scrambling into my bike shorts, filling up water bottles, and grabbing TV remotes (trust me, you need TV for an endurance ride on the trainer). I finally got properly seated in the saddle and I had a Gatorade in one hand and two remotes in the other, surfing for the hockey game. At this point I was still frantically settling myself in for a long ride, and as I reached down to the coffee table, mid cycle, for my water bottle cap, the law of gravity embraced my large off-balanced body and, wham! I had the trainer and bike on its side and on top of me, my body slammed up against the side of the table with a handlebar jammed into the top of my thigh. 
In the moment, horrendous curse words flew from my mouth and rage, panic and frustration welled up inside of me. I learn a valuable lesson today about training and about being reasonable. My training schedules are automatically generated for me based off my goals. It doesn’t take into account eating, cooking, sleeping, my boyfriend, or life in general. It just demands hours and mileage. But as an age group triathlete who will probably never grace the podium, I have to be realistic with my goals. I want to get better and I want a challenge, yet I still need to have time for everything else. What I learned is that training needs to fit your life, and sometimes it’s OK to miss a workout, or to take an extra day off. The top age groupers may believe their life revolves around the sport, but for me, until this sport will pay my bills, I will be left scrambling for time to fit it in. It will be a delicate balance, but frantically rushing from one thing to the next and falling on top of coffee tables seems like a bit much to me.
Rust2Iron 