From Barge to Yacht

On my way to a personal record in the 200 Backstroke event at the 2010 Ozark Championship

My swim coach is some kind of wonderful. Two years ago if my triathlon coach hadn't shoved me out the door and into a Masters swim group, I might never have crossed paths with Hap, who gets up at o'dark-thirty several times a week to be at the pool and herd a bunch of driven (sometimes whiny J) athletes across the 4,000 yard goal line. The fact it's in excruciating multiples of 25 yards doesn't seem to faze him one bit. He hands out the swim sets like he's handing out candy; at least he expects us to receive them as if they were J. In our lane we often stand there, slack-jawed, and I can't tell if it's because it's only 5:15AM or we're in shock over the interval times he's given us to complete. You want us to do WHAT in HOW MANY MINUTES??

Inevitably we almost always end up finishing within the given interval. It's funny how he knows exactly where the "challenge" line is, which means he also knows where my "sandbagging" line is. I rarely get a pass to loaf. Putting on the Puppy Eyes alone doesn't work. I had to have raced or trained with serious intensity the weekend before to get a reprieve from the intervals du jour. Otherwise it's Go Big or Go Home, as my tri coach Jen likes to say J.

I'm holding my own in the water and to be honest it hasn't come easy; it's been a lot of hard work, and I'm still learning. However, as Tom Hanks said in A League of Their Own, "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great." A good friend and former Junior Olympic swimmer once told me there aren't many good swimmers. It simply takes a lot of time, patience, and perseverance; and in today's microwave society, 2 extra seconds at the stoplight is too long, never mind 2 (or more) years in the pool.

The key to swimming is learning how to swim. The key to swimming fast is learning how to stop moving through the water like a barge and more like a yacht. A barge can carry a large load, but it's never meant for speed. A yacht is sleek and its rudder is tapered to a point beneath the water's surface; it's meant not only for comfort but also for remarkable speed, especially given its size.

This principle is key when wanting to go fast for longer periods, actually anything more than 50 yards. The muscles wear out rather quickly when they're consuming precious oxygen at a rate greater than the lungs are bringing it in; it is imperative to move through the water as efficiently as possible. This is not to say strength and power aren't important, they are, but using the water to your advantage brings big gains that cannot be had by simply muscling your way from one end of the pool to the other. You must be more on your side, ie, like a yacht, than on your stomach like a barge. This reduces drag and also has the added benefit of being able to "unwind" like a loaded spring when snapping the legs and hips, and initiating the roll from one hip to the other, thus producing forward propulsion from the power core of the body, not from using your arms to pull your way through the water. Think of the power generated by Albert Pujols when he slugs a home run over center field. The rotation begins at his feet and gathers momentum as he prepares to snap his hips, finally culminating in his arms/bat coming around to connect with the ball. If he stood still and simply swung his arms, there is no way he could put the same force behind the bat when it hits the ball. The same is true of swimming fast.

Swimming is a worthy sport for several reasons. The first is that a person can swim literally until the day he/she dies. In contrast to running or even walking, swimming has such little impact from the forces of gravity that one can still get a good workout due to the large number of muscle groups involved, despite the condition of many joints. This is heaven for weary knees and ankles, even weak hips.

Second, swimming is the only sport where you actually feel better coming out of the water than when getting in. The sense of cool water moving around you can be therapeutic and refreshing, thus further enhancing the overall feeling of satisfaction. This is usually not the case with other sports such as biking or running, where the workout almost always results in fatigued muscles.

Third, swimming promotes strength as well as elasticity in muscle fibers, which translates to less vulnerability to injury throughout a person's entire life. When properly taught, the body learns to stretch out in the water and use muscles in a way that causes them to work together to produce correct stroke technique. This can only be done by the brain telling the body exactly which muscle fibers to recruit for a given movement at any given time. The heavy involvement of brain activity keeps neurons fresh and firing, and may actually promote healthy cognitive functions well into the sunset years of life.

I'm still a student of swimming and will likely be one for the rest of my life. It's ok though. The rewards have been more than worth the price. Yes, people look at me screwy when I tell them the alarm goes off at 4:08 AM, and I'm in the water by 5:15. But I've made a lot of new friends, I'm more fit than ever, and I'm home from swim practice as most people are reading the paper and enjoying their first cup of java for the day. More importantly, the discipline of working toward a not-so-immediate reward spills over into other areas of my life and is always waiting with the gift of that lesson to be learned: many things in this life (and the next J) are definitely worth waiting and working for.

Let the Games Begin! – Maxtrax Duathlon Race Report

Thunder, rain… I read Saturday's forecast with some trepidation…but not too much J. I've been in much worse, such as finishing an entire triathlon in rain so hard it was coming at me sideways and I couldn't look straight ahead while on the bike. This was small potatoes in comparison.

I needn't have worried – the forecast turned beautiful for race day and it was spectacular indeed, 50F and sunny by gun time.

This is the beginning of my 6^th year racing triathlons. With no prior athletic background in any of the three disciplines of swimming, biking, or running, I had brazenly taken on the sport in 2004 when I watched the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii and wept over many of the athletes' stories. Pro or amateur, their unflinching determination to reach a goal was indeed something I could relate to in my life thus far. Suffice it to say 25 years ago I was an odds-on favorite to be a loser in a gutter somewhere, pissed at the world. That the pendulum has swung entirely the other way is due to the influence of many wonderful people in my life, particularly my husband who is the greatest man I've ever known, my family, and of course God Himself, who struck my brain with the proverbial lightning bolt 16 years ago and made me realize there's more to life than meets my finite and limited view of things. But that's another post J.

Last year racing was tough. By this time I was already suffering from a tendon injury near my left knee, and there was more to follow that took the trials of training from adversarial to positively ludicrous. I ended the season with a stress fracture in my right foot that made me relook at EVERYTHING I was doing to pursue this passion. I had no choice but to retreat to the basics and focus on getting stronger, period. Over the winter I incorporated additional swimming, core work, as well as yoga, and not the "meditative" stuff either. This was extreme, and it stretched and strengthened every muscle fiber in my body as well as my thinking. I had badly underestimated the power of yoga and its potential to elongate the body's elasticity.

I also changed my running shoes and raised the saddle on my bike which helped ease the compression on the tendons that run on the outside of the upper leg. After I healed up, the track became my new friend as I retooled my running technique and learned to land on my forefoot (instead of my heel), drive my arms to enhance forward propulsion, and toe off in much the same way a plane does when taking off from the runway. It sure didn't come about overnight and I'm still learning, but I'm miles away from where I was as a 10:00/mile runner.

Five months into consistent and patient effort, I reached a new milestone in my swimming and moved on to the next faster lane at Masters practice. Even I was bewildered at how much farther I could stretch an arm forward to "grab" more water. The days of swimming 3,300 yards were behind me as 4,000+ yards became a regular occurrence at Monday morning swim practice.

So this past Saturday I was pumped with fair excitement. It was the first opportunity to put my new skills to the test in an early-season duathlon.

I'm no newbie when it comes to triathlon, but the first race of the season always has a "blowing the dust off" feel to it. I had rehearsed my transitions, even my setup, and it still felt like I was forgetting something, though I actually wasn't.

We all lined up at the Start and the gun finally went off. Amazingly I was hanging with the pack and still feeling pretty good. When I could see the Mile 1 marker just up ahead I stole a peek at my watch and nearly soiled myself when I saw the first number was 7…what the?? No way, I thought; this must be mismarked.

I was wong J. On the way back I looked at my watch again after Mile 2 and was only a few seconds off from the first mile. Sure I was working hard, but…crikey! Well, alrighty then – let the games begin!

I took all of 1 minute in transition to fling the shoes off, put the bike shoes and helmet on, and fly onto my steed. The bike course was windy and hilly, but I was alternating between watching the road and watching the speed on my computer. Giddy up girl! It was exhilarating to fly down a hill at 30mph, pedal strongly and consistently up the next, and pass guys on the bike.

I flew back into transition to rack my wheels and pull on my running shoes one last time. This year I have Yankz, also known as speed laces; say goodbye to bending over and tying laces, these cool dudes make it possible to slip on running shoes like slippers.

And off I went in the hunt for more of the same speed. I was a tad slower this time but knowing I had a Personal Best in the bag spurred me on that much more.

The last hill coming to the Finish was a killer, but I absolutely left everything on the course and sprinted one last time to cross the line for a total time that was 2 minutes faster than last year – huge for a "short course" race.

I barely noticed the drive home – I am grateful beyond words to God, my family, and my coach. I realize not every race or workout is going to be top shelf, but I sure know the kind of potential that lives in a person when the heart and mind are in the right place.

Let the games begin! J