Swimming with Pool Boys and Shark Fins

I run a lot more than I cycle or swim. Mainly because I'm a way better runner (ha, everything's relative!) than cyclist or swimmer and I have a marathon to run in April. I only cycle about once a week, if I'm lucky and I haven't really been swimming at all lately.

I finally dragged myself to the pool after about a month of just talking about how I should really go to the pool. It took a lot of moral support, including a pastry as a reward at the end but for the first time, I did half or more than half of the swim session without this:

 

 

This giant styrofoam peanut looking thing is called a pull buoy (pronounced 'boy' which just inevitably makes me think of pool boys...) and is a floatation device designed to help beginners focus on arm drills while they swim, or try to learn how, without sinking. This way, you can work on arms and then kicking separately before trying to put it all together, which can be overwhelming for those of us who didn't grow up swimming... If you're puzzled, don't worry, I had never seen a pull buoy before I started swimming with my tri club.

Here's a little flashback to my first tri team swim session and my introduction to swimming the crawl:

Me, gasping for breath (after probably 1 or 2 lengths...): I have no endurance, I just get so tired!
Coach: Here, use this.
Me: Um, what is that and what do I do with it?
Coach, suprised that there were people on earth unfamiliar with pull buoys: It goes between your legs.
Me, surprised that swimming involved putting something between your legs: Really? How high up between your legs exactly?

If you were wondering, there is absoultely nothing sexy about pull buoys at all despite the fact that they go between your thighs... You forget it's there because you're usually too busy trying to breathe properly or to do some weird impossible drill like extend your arms out all the way, swim using only one hand or lift up your elbows (that's called Shark Fin and it's my favorite because the only basic swimming technique that I think I can do right).

The drill I'm proudest of being able to do (with the help of Mr. Pull Buoy) is swimming with my hands clenched into fists. This makes you realise how inefficient your entire stroke and really everything you do is and I feel like it's a mental victory to make it from one the end of the pool to the other with the fists of fury. Surprisingly, I now find bilateral breathing pretty easy, but it's everything else (arm position, keeping your head far enough in the water, keeping your core tight and kicking enough but not too much) that I find really hard.

Swimming involves a lot of weird impossible drills because it's the most technical of the 3 triathlon sports. It really doesn't matter how fit you are, it just matters if you have the right technique. I used to hate this and find it unfair being in good running shape doesn't mean that you're in good swimming shape, but now I think that in some ways it's nice, since I will probably never be as fit as a lot of the triathletes I know. Since I can't compete with them in terms of fitness, I like that I might someday be capable of learning good swimming technique and find it strangely comforting that you just have to be efficient in the water and if you are, then it's ok if you're not particularly strong or able to do a thousand push ups or run a blazing fast 3 hour marathon...

Interestingly, a swimming coach in the US once told me that the land sport that prepared people best for being a good swimmer was ballet. Running and cycling are all about contracting your muscles, but swimming and dancing are both about lengthening your muscles.

I've also heard from some swim coaches (mainly charming Australian swim coach Breton Ford) that teaching complete beginners is really difficult, a lot of coaches have no idea how and are much more comfortable helping experienced swimmers shave 10 seconds off their time. I am lucky enough to have some great coaches on my tri team and think they're definitely much better at spotting problems and devising drills to correct them than lifeguards at the local pool. Anyone who asks me about swimming lessons (or for a recommendation for a gym to join), just gets a little promotional sales talk about why they should join the tri team and it's better and cheaper than gyms or private swim lessons.

The tri team will also never tell you that you're hopeless. You may go down in tri team history as being a legendarily bad swimmer, but they will keep coaching you. To go back to my first swim session ever, the coach's main comment after a few laps last November? 'We have a lot of work to do!'

So what have we learned today? We already know that swimming is hard because it's so technique- based. But for any beginner swimmers out there, remember that the pull buoy is your magic friend and really does make a big difference when you are learning to do the impossible (swim) and you'll be glad to have it for your swimming drills.

Thrill of Victory, Agony of Defeat: Paris Half 2013

I am probably the least competitive person on my triathlon team. I like to have goals and meet them, but that's it. Also feel like if you don't meet a goal, just analyse why, try to make appropriate changes and then meet it the next time.

I ran the Paris half marathon yesterday (semi marathon de Paris) and did it as a matter of principle-- I'd signed up for it a few years ago, didn't train and ended up not running it.

So I ran it yesterday. While victory and defeat are strong terms, here are the pros and cons.

The positive points were that lots of my friends did it, too-- I started out running with a dear friend of mine and it was great to have a buddy to wait for the start with. My wave started 25 minutes after the advertised start time... Felt more confident at the start than before any previous half and felt good at the end, too, better than at the end of previous halves. Also easiest recovery so far, feel fine today and even doing a recovery jog tonight. I was happy with my split times (up until the last 6k anyway). The sun came out, that strange glowing orb that we haven't seen all winter! Oh, how we've missed it! And it felt great to run in short sleeves in the sun.

The negative points were that I'd been trying for under 2 hours (like 1:55-1:59), but just missed it at 2:01. While this is a respectable time, 2:01 is also kind of a stupid time. A little annoyed by the 01...
My non-fitness friends are impressed and find a 2-hour half pretty fast. My fitness friends offer me their condolences, as if a 2:01 half marathon is the equavalent of my mother dying. Or they tell me encouragingly (I think it's meant to be encouraging, anyway, but it just comes off as slightly accusatory), with all your training over the last month, you should have been able to do it in under 2.

My own reaction is more philosophical. While it's too bad, it is not a devastating tragedy in my life, either and since I can't redo the 2013 Paris half marathon (not this year, anyway), will have to do another half this year. Like maybe in the fjords in Norway. I do, however, think I can run a sub-2 half marathon and will just figure out what I did wrong and not do it next time.

So what went wrong? It was mainly the last 6k. They took me 36 min when they should have taken about 32. This is mainly what got in the way of the sub-2. Also kms 10-15 took 30 min when they should have been about 27 min (like the km 1-5 and 5-10 splits did), so this is where I lost some time, too.

So the marathon training is going to have to intensify this month and I'll really really really have to work on negative splits (when the second half of your run is faster than the first half, since I clearly didn't do it yesterday). Luckily, I have a secret weapon: an ironman coach!

What Happens to a Dream Deferred? Paris Tri Cancelled!

So my last post was about annoying admin paperwork in sports. It affects organisers, too apparently, not just participants. I just heard that the Paris Triathlon was cancelled due to admin annoyingness! The organisers (Garmin), said that since they were still as of March 1 without the necessary city permits for the July event, and they were unable to go ahead with plans.

Way to defer my dream (or at least training goal) because of too much paperwork, France!

Really disappointed since my goals for the year were the Paris Marathon and the Paris Triathlon! I'd even psyched myself up for the swim in the Seine (gross!) and told everyone that I was almost sure I wouldn't die of pollution or other horrible river-borne illness and it would change my entire relationship with the geography of Paris-- I actually thought it would be cool that post Paris tri, every time I looked at the river, I'd have a completely different experience of it, even if that experience was due to swimming in its grossness. My girlfriends all thought I was crazy and that my skin would peel off due to toxic Seine chemicals. Some people just don't get triathlons...

The silver lining of swimming in the Seine is that it's at least supposed to have a strong current which we swim with, thank God, and this helps everyone hit a PB on the swim part. The guys on the team reassured me that even dead bodies would finish the swimming segment (which although reassuring for weak swimmers like me, made me wonder exactly how many dead bodies might be in the Seine at any given time ...)

So I'm signed up for the sprint tri of Versailles, which was always part of the plan. Paris was a longer distance (olympic as opposed to sprint), so not sure if I should find another olympic distance to replace the Paris goal or just do another sprint later in the season to see if I've improved. It wasn't the olympic distance in particular that appealed to me, but the fact that it was Paris.

A note on distances: a sprint tri means you swim 750 meters in open water, cycle 20k, I think, and run 5k. Olympic distance is longer (but this term does not mean that only olympians can do it!) with a 1.5k swim (yikes), 40k bike ride and a 10k run.

So I'll have to find a new ultimate triathlon goal for this year. Versailles was just part of training (and cool because it's Versailles!) and since it's in early May and triathlon season is all summer, it would be a shame to do only that one... So far, the Enghien Triathlon at the end of May has gotten a lot of recommendations as a replacement olympic distance goal.

On Traine Ou On S'entraine?

 

This ad for non-speciality, overpriced-for-poor-quality sporting goods store Go Sport is in every single metro station in Paris right now.  That woman with the giant hands is everywhere.

It's a little ironic that they're targeting women, since my local Go Sport has NO cycling clothes or gloves for women and their women's running section is like 1 pair of running tights with pink inseams. The only lady clothes they carry tend to be cotton yoga clothes, which are pretty much useless for people who do actual sports which involve sweat... Don't get me wrong, I love yoga, but you can't run, bike (or swim, for that matter!) in cotton.

The woman with the freakishly large hands in the ad (how did they decide to go with that weird camera angle?) is saying, 'are we hanging out or are we working out?' You have to admire her fake advertising spunk and perky motivation, especially since she's exercising on some horrible stair climber-looking machine alone with no music, although she is in what looks like heaven, or at least a large and uncrowded white gym with giant windows so it's clearly not in Paris. I stopped going to Parisian gyms because they were too small, windowless, poorly ventilated, overcrowded, overpriced and, as part of the lack of adequate ventilation, suffered from the overwhelming stench of sweat.

Despite having my share of perky motivation (and normal sized hands), 'are we hanging out or are we working out?' isn't really the question I ask myself before a run, bike or swim session. I tend to ask things like, do I have to? Could I stay in bed? Am I perhaps sick this morning and sleeping later would then be medically advisable? In the pm, the question is more like: can I have a drink with my non-fitness friends (I usually then wonder if they're still alive) instead of whatever run I have planned for that evening?

And the answer is almost always no, on s'entraine (we're working out,)  not going out to a bar with our friends. At least until the marathon is over.