Swimming Milestone #3

In preparation for the Oakland Triathlon Festival (coming up August 29th!), last Friday I swam a half mile in open water at the Dolphin Club in San Francisco.  A half a mile!  Yay.  Sure, I stopped to cough up water *and* caught myself swimming in the total opposite direction of where I wanted to go a couple of times, but all in all, it was a success!

This workout starts with a 4 mile bike ride from the Embarcadero BART station along the wharf.  The touristy hustle and bustle down there is always entertaining and merits a mention on this blog because it's a segment that I always look forward to riding for various reasons.  From Pier 29 to Ghirardelli Square, the sidewalks are flooded with droves of tourists from all over the world walking around taking pictures and noticing everything (which turns this run-of-the-mill ride into a kind of parade of urban American traffic).  Instead of cutting off tour buses, I all of the sudden feel like waving to them (Miss Oakland style of course: elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist, middle finger... ooops! jk).  One time I was overwhelmed with the urge to just start chanting USA USA USA!  Haha....  Anyway, I don't know why I'm so weird, but I enjoy the idea of sending tourists home with crazy cyclist stories.  :)

Back to the swim though - the first time I went to the Dolphin Club was before my second tri and I barely made it to the first buoy and back.  The second time, two Fridays ago, I went with a friend who encouraged me the whole time.  She was like, yay, first buoy!  Yay.  Second buoy...  ONE MORE BUOY!  ...and so on and so forth.  She helped me prove to myself that the distance was possible.  So, this last Friday I finally did the whole 1/2 mile by myself.  Definitely a milestone!  So that felt great.  Woohoo!

I love the Dolphin Club so much now!  The water is 68 degrees and has an absolutely gorgeous view of the Golden Gate bridge.  Also, in addition to the beautiful swim and the wild ride that gets me there, the sauna there is incredible (that is a story for another blog post though - hehe!).  I'm hoping a few more open water swims is enough to get me ready for race day.  The Oakland Tri Fest Sprint has a swim of .6 miles which will be the most swimming I've ever done in a race!  Eyeyey.  Oh my gosh...  I have butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it!

Alright - that's all for now.  More later!

Swimming Milestone #2

This Monday marked the first OTC swim practice *ever* that actually felt like a recovery swim.  I swam 1500m (including a warm up and cool down) and was never really winded even though we did four 200s at 70% for the main set.  All this can be attributed to the Total Immersion online swimming tutorials and the outstanding OTC coaches at these Monday night Mills practices.

Oh - haha - something hilarious happened at the start of this workout.  There was this little boy (maybe 6 years old??) getting out of the shallowest lane and I asked him if he was done swimming there (I knew he was - I just felt like modeling politeness for some dumb reason).  He was like, "You shouldn't swim here.  It's better practice down there where you can't touch!" LOL...  Doh!  I was like, "Okay.  Thanks!"  ...and then slunked into the kiddie lane anyway.  Ha!

It's true that it's pretty lazy to stay in the stubby shallow end of the pool, but OTC considers it the "slow lane" and I'm preeeeeeeetty sure I'm the slowest swimmer there, so......  PLUS, I rely on the floor of the pool to be there for me if I need to stop swimming to cough up a mouthful of delicious pool water or whatever (yes, of course, this still happens occasionally).  I intend to get into the deep end soon, but *that* - my dear little boy - is a milestone for another day.  ;)

The next swim goal on my horizon is to swim continuously for 10 minutes. That may entail getting into some open water soon where there's nothing tempting to hang on to....  Eeeek!  Alright.  That's all for now.  More later!

Swimming Milestone #1

Timed 100 @ 1:45ish.  I can also tell the difference between fast and slow in the pool now.  So yay for that.  Haha.

Swimming is by far the area of triathlon racing that I stand to improve the most in a short period of time.  The first real milestone actually may have been a few practices ago where I actually felt like I was *swimming* instead of *not drowning*...  My goals have progressed each week and now just about every time I get in the pool I feel like I'm getting more comfortable and faster (which is the goal - ha!).

Lately, I've been practicing a method called Total Immersion (the site was recommended to me by Coach Chris at the OTC Mills swim workouts), which the basic gist I've gathered is as follows:
1.  Relax the recovery arm (high elbow, but fingertips almost drag along the water's surface before dropping into the water)
2.  Emphasize feeling the surface area of the arm catch the water at a target point in front of shoulder
3.  Kick once at the same time and with the same leg as the entry arm upon entry

Now, this last point is what has helped me the most with my anxiety in the water.  If ever I feel scared like I might drown I just go back to this rhythm (kick and stroke same side just once together!)...  This really helps my body calm down.  I'm not sure what it is about this that actually works, but - for some reason seriously I have no idea why - it calms my whole body down and gives me the confidence I need to keep going.  If my kicking is frantic and I'm gasping for air, I just go back to this easy rhythm (kick and stroke on the same side together).  It brings my heart rate down immediately and I'm able to focus on other things like relaxing my neck and catching the water and rotating my body to take breaths.  Anyways, I'm definitely learning a lot in the pool.  I'm starting to crave harder workouts, but I know I still just need to hit my stride...

Just Another Day in Paradise

Tonight we ventured to Paris to steal a tough four-set win (25-20, 19-25, 16-25, 21-25) against a formidable rival.  It felt so great to get a W!

I also finally found my name on USAVB dot com.  It doesn't really matter, but for some reason it feels super good just to see my name on the same list as some of the greatest female volleyball players in the world right now (Logan Tom, Nicole Davis, Alisha Glass - just to name a few)!

That's all for now.  More later!

Flying Dream

I soared over a cobble-stone swirl of city streets at the base of a dark green forested mountain range.  The sky was gloomy and gray, but I was looking down through low clouds over the town to choose where I would touch down.  I zoomed in onto the town square where a woman wore her dark hair down.  Her hair was parted down the middle and dangling in thin layers over swoops of cotton clothing.  A mother sat nearby watching her daughter dart about the wicker cafe seats.  

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I promised a former student-athlete of mine that I would blog as soon as I started flying in my dreams.  Normally it means that I'm in a really good place in my life.  :)