Yesterday, I felt like an elephant. On April 16, I hope I feel like an eel.
Eel or elephant? I briefly touched on this the other day in a dailymile post, but I figured I would reiterate the point here as well. While both eels and elephant are actually quite adept swimmers, I have to imagine that swimming comes much more naturally to eels and that it is much more difficult for elephants. Eel’s bodies are completely streamlined, and they seem to glide effortlessly through the water. Elephants, on the other hand, look much more labored in the water. They flail their legs around and appear to move rather slowly. That’s exactly how I felt yesterday.
My first few swim workouts had gone great. I was experiencing minimal soreness and rapid progression. Yardage increased from 2000 yards up to 3700 yards. But yesterday was a different story. Every set felt like I was dragging bricks along with me. I couldn’t find a rhythm and felt like I was flailing around in the pool. Add to this the fact that the entire time I was swimming, I was thinking about my competitive swimming days and the quick paces I could easily maintain and how far away from those I seem to be. I was definitely an elephant.
So as all of you know, I am an aspiring triathlete. For the past 2 years, I have been running and slowly lowering my run times. Last year, I added biking to the mix and began to enjoy the benefits of cross-training. However, there was still one component missing from the mix: swimming. I used to rationalize my way around this fact by saying “Oh, I swam in high school and college,” ”I’ve been swimming since I was 4,” ”Swimming comes naturally to me” and other excuses like that. The truth is, I haven’t really swam since I graduated from college eight years ago, and my swim skills are nowhere near where they once were.
So, with a new resolve and the Escape from Ft. DeSoto sprint tri in April (course map), I set out to change my swimming ways. I purchased all the essentials I would need: swim bag, suit, goggles and a kickboard. I also purchased a book of workouts called Workouts in a Binder: For Swimmers, Triathletes and Coaches. The only thing missing from my awesome swimming comeback plan was a pool. With memberships to the Y running somewhere north of $60/month, I had to find a better solution. Enter Gandy Pool, our city-run lap pool. The same pool I trained in as a high schooler offers single visits for $3. Additionally, you can purchase a 20 visit pass for $40, bringing the cost down to $2/visit. That was much closer to my kind of price range. Then, my mom happened to be working at the Open House for the city community center, and they were offering 40 visits for $60 or$1.50/visit. They were speaking my language! Then, to make things even better, my mom purchased the pass for me as her way of showing support of my goals and endeavors.
I know that every athlete has good and bad days and that it is not realistic to expect every workout to be a stellar one. Some days you feel like and eel and some days you feel like an elephant. Here’s to hoping I have more eel days than elephant days! So join me as I Tri To Be…an eel.
