Swimming

Ever since I got my new bike, almost 2 years ago, I’ve been intrigued by trying to do a triathlon. There are a lot of reasons it’s a good idea for me, and one big reason it’s not. As an older athlete, using a variety of muscles is a great way to stay in shape and avoid injury. Triathlons end up using your whole body, so they definitely check that box. Triathlons also require a lot more planning and strategy than just a plain road race. That’s good for my aging brain, if a little intimidating. I like new challenges, and triathlons definitely check that box!

HOWEVER, and this is a big one, when I first started toying with this idea seriously last summer, I quickly discovered that my swimming was abysmal. I can swim, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sure if I ever took lessons beyond when I was a little kid. I can do the crawl, but it left me breathless, gasping for air, and a little panic-stricken at the end of a lap!

I first started going to the pool last August. When I first started I could barely swim a lap (25 yards) using the crawl, so I did a lot of breaststroke. I tried to do the backstroke but I flat out sunk when I did! I bought a kick board and tried practicing with that, but I had hardly any power in my kick and I was so slow I felt like I might be going backwards!

Something had to change if I was going to make this idea a reality. I’m planning on doing a sprint Tri: 600 yard swim (in a lake), 15 mile bike ride, 5k run. The tri that I settled on is beginner friendly, no time cut off, and it’s at the end of the summer (Labor Day weekend) so the water will be warm enough that I won’t need a wetsuit so that’s one less complication to deal with. 

I started researching different swim training options. Anything I found in person was either for adults that need to learn to swim, or were for coaching and too expensive. I started researching online. I looked at 3 different options. The first one was TriDot. It’s very popular but I found it overwhelming and it was more for training people that already can swim well. There’s another program called Effortless Swimming, and there’s a third one called Total Immersion (I’m sure there are others but these are the ones I looked at). I settled on Total Immersion. I could purchase an online course for $50 that included an ebook, eworkbook, and videos.

I did the complete course before I started swimming laps again. Basically it completely broke down the freestyle stroke method into small pieces and I practiced each piece until I felt confident that I was doing it correctly and then followed the directions for putting them all together.

By March I was swimming laps again. What a difference! I could swim lap after lap without feeling tired or gasping for air!

I’m slowly working my way up now to increasing the amount of time I can swim continuously. I’m up to 200 yards, which would have been impossible last year. It won’t be long before I’ll need to start swimming in open water, which from everything I’ve read will be another challenge.

Besides swimming I still need to run and bike, although I’m not covering big distances right now. However I can’t be satisfied with training for just one activity, can I? I’m doing a couple long bike rides in July, and at the beginning of October I’m going to run the TCM 10 Mile race, that was cancelled last year. 

The biggest limitation that I feel like age puts on me now is that I get more tired than I used to. For example, I worked in the yard this morning, pulling weeds and doing some pruning. I was out there most of the morning and now I’m trashed, but I’m supposed to do a short bike ride this afternoon. It’s only 35 minutes, maybe 6-7 miles, and it will probably feel good, but it’s going to take some motivation to get me out there. I better start working on that!