Less than two weeks remain before my big event, and I’ve decided it’s high time to start recording some of my thoughts, seeing as I’m not sure if I’ll do one of these again (at this distance) and anyway, like anything else, there’s no time like the first time.
Also, for these last two weeks, I am ditching audio devices during my training, since I won’t be allowed to use them during the race. This gives me an exorbitant amount of think time during which, left to my own devices, I might create a plot to take over the world or something. And if said plot was hatched and proved successful, I doubt I’d really WANT the world once I had it….in which case I’d have to hand it over to my parents. And they’re too busy taking care of my dog and finding homes for various stray cats I send them to worry about running a world.
So…better I use that time to reflect on my training thus far.
Today, during my swim, I was thinking about how I even made it to this point. In September of last year, I was huffing and puffing after swimming just ONE LENGTH (that’s 25 yards, or one trip across the short part of an Olympic-size pool). Now I’m swimming the whole 1.2 miles (which is about 76 lengths….yikes!) in about 43 minutes, and contemplating how I can get it down to 40 minutes by race day.
What’s nuts is, swimming was the event I was most concerned about going into this. In August and September, I was getting into the pool, doing a few laps in horribly incorrect form, and thinking I just “wasn’t a swimmer.”
Thank God I mentioned to Jamela that I was thinking of training for a triathlon. The stellar teacher / opera singer / kindest person I know also just HAPPENS to be an experienced swimmer who has TRAINED PEOPLE FOR TRIATHLONS. You know, like, in her spare time. (What??)
So, she volunteered to help me out. We started meeting on Mondays and Wednesdays at 8 p.m. at the Tulane Reily Center, and kept up our tradition for a long time. We’d swim first, and run afterwards.
I remember when I first felt like “a swimmer” was after our first swim lesson, Oct. 26th, when I learned the correct way to breathe and proper form with my stroke.
Because I was SO WORRIED about the swim, I’ve devoted the most attention to that event. I don’t think I’ve missed a single swim workout in my 20-week training plan. And now, I do believe it’s my strongest event (knock on wood). My new swim challenge is the dreaded open water swim, during which I’m convinced I’m going to be attacked by school of hungry piranhas, or the giant alligator from Placid Lake.
I’m hoping my healthy fear of nature will help me get to that 40-minute mark.
Peace,
HH
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