Three years ago, I had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel... I was drowning in myself, locked in a miserable cycle of depression, self loathing, over eating, heavy drinking, chain smoking, all tucked neatly in a general malaise about life, love, and the future...
If you're a regular reader of this blog, then you know that I got into triathlon on a "dare", or a challenge thrown down by one of my former students... One of my very first posts describes my first swim "workout", which was nothing more than a few laps, more than a few stops, and way more than a few curse words...
But, over the past three years, I've learned how to swim... not just splash around, but swim for time, for triathlon, for races... It hasn't been easy, I can tell you that... My parents always say that I was a "water baby"... There's a great story about me jumping off a 2 story pontoon boat, which isn't that funny, until you hear that I was only about 2 when I did it... This past Christmas, as a gag gift, I received a framed copy of my "Learn to Swim" graduation certificate from when I was about 3 years old...
 | ||
| Had no idea this thing even existed... |
 |
| I learned to swim... |
I say all of this to illustrate the idea that I've always enjoyed being around water... Until three years ago, I enjoyed being around the water, that of a pool or beach, with beer in hand (and I still do)...So, take this natural gravitation towards swimming and water, and it kind of makes sense that swimming for triathlon would be something that I'd ultimately enjoy...
2012 has been an especially tough year for me: writing/finishing a dissertation, the end of a relationship, getting a new job and moving away from all of the comforts I have known, and the subsequent frustration and loneliness all of those things bring... I've had a pretty good triathlon season, albeit fairly short... only 4 races, with 2 podium slots (a 2nd and a 1st in the Clydes)... final race coming up this weekend...
I've tried to broaden my horizons, both physically and mentally, with the types of races that I do... I volunteered at a duathlon this year, I did a trail race in Montana... all kind of outside of my comfort zone of triathlon or running races...
So when I heard about a 2mi Open Water Swim race to be held right outside of Columbia, I decided, what the hell, go for it... My swimming has improved drastically over the last year or so, and I am shooting for a full Ironman sometime in 2014, so I wanted to see just what a 2mi OWS was like... see if I could finish it... see if it sucked as bad as everyone says it does... I figured I liked water enough to be in it for over an hour, let's do this...
A few days before the event (I shy away from calling it a "race" because it was more like a charity event), I found out there was also a 5k as an option after the swim... 2 mile swim followed by a 5k? Sure, why not...
Leading up to the race, I was not in love with swimming, which concerned me... In fact, I was hating swimming... I was making it to the pool maybe once a week and at that, giving it less than a half assed effort when I was there... I had a lot of excuses: work made me tired, I hadn't eaten enough throughout the day and was sluggish, the pool would be too crowded, I wasn't sure if it'd be LCM or SCY... and so on... So, leading up the race, my longest swim was a 2000 SCY, in which I felt pretty good... boring to say the least, but I swam the whole thing and nailed it in about 35'ish or so minutes...
Race day comes... up early, as usual...
Head out to Lake Murray Dam, get turned around something awful, get misleading information from the police officer as to where the race actually starts, finally find the site, park, and head down to check in... Pay the extra 10 bucks to run the 5k, and head to transition...
There were only a handful of people who were swimming then running... our transition area was just a giant tarp on the ground, roped off with some caution tape... classy...
Decided not to wear a wetsuit for the race, mainly because I thought I had a shot at placing for the event... hindsight? bad decision...
Get bussed over the Dam to the Irmo side of the Lake... basically, we were to swim from the Irmo side to the Lexington side, hop out the water, then run about halfway across the Dam, then to the finish line...
I was shooting for a swim time of an hour or less, based on my swim times leading up to the race itself.. I had entered a 100y time of about 1:30, so I was placed in wave 2...
Here we go:
No swim warmup... awesome...
Hop in the water with the others in my wave and instantly realize that shit, this is gonna be a long day... You can't really see the exact beach on the other side of the lake, but you know it's "that way"... there were kayakers and boaters that were lining the course to provide support and direction, but in my case, it didn't matter much...
Gun goes off and so does my wave...
I started out pretty conservative, knowing that burning too many matches early would lead to a miserable swim or even a DNF... I try my best to sight, but keep veering off to the right, which is a horrible habit I have when I swim open water... Maybe it's because I only breathe on one side and I somehow overcompensate when pulling... who knows...
There really isn't much to report about the swim itself... it was boring... like, really really boring... I should have probably marked the halfway point by walking along the Dam beforehand, but I simply wasn't that smart... I only popped up a couple of times to see where the next buoy was, but other than that, I swam... and swam... and swam... veer to the right, swim back towards the pack... veer right again, swim back again... this is how the entire race was for me...
Hit the beach in a time of 1:06:43 (by my Garmin) which, by my standards (and my gross lack of training) wasn't too bad... I swam the whole thing and never really felt overwhelmingly tired... I just felt bored...
 |
| It looks like a straight line from here, but if you zoom in, it's a typical Garmin "all over the place" type track, since the unit loses satellite signal every time it goes under the water... |
 |
| Finishing the swim, headed to T1 |
Right as I hit the beach, I decided that the 5k run was a horrible idea... I've made bad decisions before, but I hadn't really thought this one through apparently...
In and out of T1 in about a minute...
On to the run, which included a short but steep hill to get out of the park and onto the sidewalk of the Dam, which, was filled with recreational joggers and walkers, as well as race traffic...
Easy out and back on the Dam... except... except for the fact that I had EXCRUCIATINGLY painful shin splints the ENTIRE time! This is not something I had prepared for... at all... I even stopped for a few brief seconds to try to stretch out a little bit... it didn't help much...
 |
| Quick out and back along the Dam... even with shin splints, I still managed to average 8:39/mi |
Cross the finish line in 1:34:00.65, good enough for 7th place out of 23... (6/17 males)...
I was exhausted by the time I was done... no... exhausted doesn't cover it... absolutely shelled approaches what I was...
What I learned:
1. I bit off more than I could effectively chew based on my training... The next time I do something like this, which will surely be next year's race, I HAVE to train for it... in fact, I have to get in the Lake and practice my OWS... Now that I have connected with some other local triathletes, I now have a group to swim with...
2. I can swim 2 miles without stopping... this is a big accomplishment for me, since just three years ago, I had trouble making it 4 lengths of the pool without stopping... it's encouraging to know that I can do what I once thought impossible... well, not only that, but it's encouraging to know that I want to do the things I once thought impossible...
3. Swimming 2 miles is NOT... I repeat, NOT, going to be an "all the time" thing... it was boring, and halfway through, I actually asked myself what the hell I was doing... I didn't "want" to really swim 2 miles... It was more of a need... a need to prove to myself that I could do it... now, I've proven it, and now, I will only continue to swim that far, open water, when racing a full Ironman...(or doing this race... or other long distance OWS ;)
So now, I can swim 2 miles and ride 98 miles... just need to knock off a marathon, then I will fully trust myself that I can complete an Ironman...
Thanks for reading...
No comments:
Post a Comment