Full Contact Swimming
John Hirsch told me I need to get in the pool 4 days a week if I wanna be a triathlete by summertime. Lucky for me, my hip, ITB, piriformis, sartorius, and iliopsoas are still at war with each other (or maybe they finally joined forces and decided to gang up on me), thus running was not an option today. Nothing says “Screw it all” like heading out for a run and turning around precisely 40 seconds later because the pain is too great and there is a weakness in your leg that prevents you from going through full hip flexion or external rotation (not that I typically externally rotate my hip while running, but a range of motion evaluation revealed that the particular movement I just mentioned is nearly impossible right now).
So, this all leads me to where I ended up today, which was the pool. Andy and I headed over to the YMCA for some lap swimming. Note: I am not a very good swimmer, and Andy claims to have grown up with sufficient swim lessons, indicating that he was a better swimmer than me. That combined with his career in competitive water skiing led me to believe that he would indeed slaughter me in the pool.
The one slight issue, however, was that Andy had not swam, and I mean really swam, in years. I have been doing so regularly since September, although not as often as I would like. I can, however, swim continuously for 30 minutes or so without a break and not drown. For me, that is like winning a stage of the Tour. It is a HUGE accomplishment in and of itself.
We were fortunate enough to be able to share our own lane. Rather than draft off each other and head down on the right and back on the left, we decided to just each claim our own side of the lane. That was where the trouble began.
Andy is a faster swimmer than me. Andy is a guy, he is taller than me, is bigger, and has significantly more upper body strength. He was outpacing me every lap. He also splashes a lot. This was a bit unnerving, but I got over it. Several times I found us swimming fairly close in terms of pace, and he would inevitable drift towards my side of the lane and then the fun would begin.
Nothing says I Love You like a swift kick to the thigh, shoulder, arm, face, etc. Ah yes…full contact swimming. The result would be me messing up my stroke, swallowing water, sputtering, inhaling some more chlorinated 82degree goodness into my sinuses, coughing, then settling back into my stroke.
Normally I would have gotten angry at his flagrant misdirection of various limbs, but instead I just went with it. I mean..if I am going to start racing triathlons, I suppose I need to get used to the mass start swims at some point, right?
