by the time its warm enough to swim outside again I want to be a bilateral breather. YUP - you heard me.... that means lap after lap after lap of one arm swimming... its the only way I seem to be able to get a breath on my left side. I hold my right arm out infront at full stretch and keep it there- just using my left arm to swim with.
so far, if I concentrate really hard on keeping my right arm stiff I choke a smidge less...
so by new year I will have a bigger left arm and 1/2 my back/lats will be ripping out of my shirt!!
by warm water time my left arm will not fit into my wet suit..
any advice here? ... at all?
woah.. check this picture out:
winter is clearly a time for reminiscing...
remember the first swim clinic we did in Sharon back in ... eerrrr ...was it June?
lets unpick that event...
we both had the day off - nice, sunny so off we went on your old bike..
you suggested it and what a great day to exciting things - going to Sharon on the back of your suzuki (for those others out there this is Sauce's new bike...) and my first swim in open water after I failed completely to swim a stroke at Walden pond a week or so prior...
we got to Sharon.. met up with our tri pal ... the plan was to text when we were there and workout which coffee shop we would meet in and all go to the clinic together... EASY! one coffee shop in Sharon ... such a metropolis!.. sun shone so we hung for a short while
time to get to the state park and get this show on the road... first we got changed in to our swimming duds uh oh .....THAT'S the loo!
then we got together down at the waters edge... ... the water is freezing cold and we 3 are in a minority.. WET SUITS! we don't have any... panic panic panic now what?
just a point of note here - while we were looking at the water and psyching up for this thing (is gravel shuffling and kicking at the waters edge the equivalent of being a tire kicker when buying a car?) my ONLY smile happened when I was watching an ample woman struggle into a wet suit... totally oblivious that I would soon be doing the same jiggle pull squeeze dance.
man - this was a HUGE disaster for me ... the 'ample woman' turned out to be one of the instructors... they gave us a lesson on the beach
talked about all the jostling and pushing that occurs at the start of a swim-race.. and how to position ones-self if a 'poor' swimmer .. woah.. let me on the outside edge of the group.. I'm just not ready to be 'jostled'... the instructor woman offered to jostle anyone who wanted it (I was struck dumb! she is 4 times my width WTF!) I have NEVER felt so skinny and white in my entire life SHIT at least Sauce and our guy pal are as white and skinny AND just as WET SUIT less as I am... BUT
it was fucking awful - Sauce just hit it running (she can swim) guy pal went for it too but did need to grab onto one of the 'support kayaks' for a short time - they were there to prevent the masses from drowning.. Max Performance would not look too professional if registered racers expired at the first hurdle.
this is Sauce... after the swim... champ or what?
so they both completed the 3/4 mile swim... myself and one other woman did not! she was the one that kept us hanging around half naked in the cold at the start of the clinic by asking a gazillion questions! it was a nightmare... I think I swam 50 yards! seriously thought my number was up... and NO WAY was I doing this triathlon in 6 weeks time.... (don't worry folk - I tell you how I got it together on the next wet day) I became a bitter, angry and completely de skilled person....
I could not even bring myself to partake in the 'refreshments' or use the 'proper loos' I had not earned the right to do that. to be fair all 3 of us were disappointed at the outcome BUT we totally knew 'The Swim' needed 110% of our attention ... the first tri was so close...
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