The Washing Machine

A mass swim start to a triathlon is pretty intense. Everyone is packed in close, vertical in the water...and then the gun goes off. Now everyone tries to get horizontal so they can start swimming. It's at this point that I'm reminded of Someone's Law of Something Physics Related that says 2 solid bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time.  With everyone trying to occupy the same space, people end up on top of, under, next to, and inside (so I've heard) each other. The peaceful serenity of a calm lake turns to old school WWE wrestling in a washing machine at the sound of the gun.

A new triathlete practices their swim, bike, and run. A good triathlete practices their transitions. An awesome triathlete practices... the swim start.

Want to swim faster?

When I was younger, my grandfather would take my cousin and I to watch greyhound races. It's okay, we're from the South and that's just one of the things you do when you're 10 and spend the summer with your grandfather.

If you've never been (to the dog races...not the South), it's very similar to horse racing except there are no jockeys. My grandfather told me the dogs go so fast that no one could ever hang on. The other big difference is that there is a "rabbit" that travels along the inside rail of the loop and is the carrot for the dogs to chase. I'm pretty sure it's just a pillow though with some kind of yummy liver and bacon flavor because the dogs just maul it once they cross the finish line.

This is the time when you're asking yourself "Wow, what a great story, but what does this have to do with making me swim faster?" and the answer is...What's your rabbit? In the pool this could be the feet of your lane partner in front of you or swimmers in neighboring lanes. At today's swim practice, I was in one of the faster lanes that I don't usually swim in and was surrounded by fast swimmers on both sides. Lo and behold, I was able to keep up with the shorter intervals and probably had the best swim practice of my aquatic career.

I'm pretty sure there's some anthropologic predator-prey theory that could explain this, but chasing stuff is fun and it'll push you to go harder more than any yelling the coach on deck can muster.

Finding a rabbit isn't just for swimming. It works the same for cycling and running, too. Find someone 100 yards ahead of you, track them down...and then maul them at the finish line.

Go hard. Go harder. Repeat.

I was on a swim team when I was 11 and swam through high school earning a Varsity letter although I was never very good. When I decided to get serious about triathlon training, I joined the SCAQ masters swim team, and that has made all the difference.

Not in any sort of swimming shape, when I first joined SCAQ this past April, I could swim about 100 yds before my arms started to feel like cooked spaghetti noodles. Today I was able to complete 3 sets of a 100, 200, 300, 400 ladder on a 1:30 interval.

3000 yards in 45 minutes!

It used to be unthinkable: How do people push themselves so far? How can someone run 26 miles or ride a bike over 100 miles? One of the biggest lessons I've learned in increasing distances is how to mentally just keep going. Mental toughness can overcome physical toughness, you just have to work at it.

For me, there's no better time to work at it than when I'm staring at a balck line 8 feet below going back and forth convincing myself to just keep swimming.



@heystevelang