Just a quick note this morning to throw some Kudos out to Alasdair and the GTC crew for really pushing me and giving me the tools this year to improve my swim. Last night was the final “sanctioned” indoor swim of the season with the Guelph Triathlon Club. And, it was the final time trial of the year.
I had managed to make the first time trial back in February. I’d chosen to do a 750m swim – and managed to pull it off in 13:17 (average pace of 1:46 / 100 m). Now, even then that was a VERY good time for me. My expectations were of coming in around 2:00/100m or 15 minutes for the full 750m. The fact that I broke the 2minute barrier was a huge pat on the back and boost to my confidence.
Since, I have done the video analysis of my stroke, been swimming consistently 3x a week – once a week with the GTC crew and 2 times on my own. Brian (my lane buddy) has consistently been pushing me to swim harder and faster than I necessarily would on my own. And the fact that I have that peer pressure has ensured I stay consistent with the my efforts and really push through with the drills (including kicking!!)
So last night when I got in the water to do a 750m all-out swim I was little nervous to see whether I had improved. Most others were posting times somewhat or a LOT lower than their previous TTs…. so it would be embarrassing not to at least improve a bit.
Brian was timing me with my watch. we agreed to give me a “half-way” warning and then another warning with one lap to go. We discussed how my watch worked, I warmed up with an easy 100m swim…. and then I was off. I had made sure when I started that I could watch the swim clock myself on the turns to see how I was pacing. And, things looked like they were going well….
I tried to keep track of the number of laps I had done (needed to count to 15!) but with the oxygen deprived state of my brain I lost count somewhere. I got the “half-way” warning …. but for those of you doing the math — half-way means either I did 7 and have 8 left… or I did 8 and have 7 left. I didn’t know which Brian had chosen.
I was a bit disappointed when I thought I would have reached the “last lap” and didn’t get the warning. Thinking I had taken a bit of time off… and then got the “last lap” on the the next touch of the wall. Nonetheless I pushed through to the end. My time was about 30 seconds slower than in February.
It was at that point Brian looked at me and said “it’s when your watch says 15 at the top that you stop, right?”…. I looked at him, looked at the watch and we both ended up chuckling. I had done an extra 50 m…. so my time was actually NOT 30 seconds slower, but about 20 seconds faster than in Feb!
I had a time of 12:53 or 1:43/100m. An improvement of 3 seconds /100m…. Not anything to write home about. And I’m still no dolphin…. but I’ll take that as a sign that I continue to improve… and I’ll take any kind of improvement in the water I can get!
