A Big Step Forward

If you've been reading my modest blog with even marginal attentiveness, you know that swimming is my weak link when it comes to the triathlon for which I am training.  I only learned to swim in August, 2011.  I could float and flail before that, but I couldn't convincingly replicate anything that looked like swimming.  I've made progress in the pool that has shocked me.  I have had swim sessions of longer than 3000 yard, though mostly because I lost count of my laps.  I have witnessed my stroke become more efficient as my body glides more effortlessly through the water, and I have lowered my average 100 yard swim time exponentially.

I've also suffered my setbacks.  Having introduced my upper body to regular exertion for the first time ever, my left shoulder was the first to give out.  Over the past 2 months, I've barely been in the pool.  It's been frustrating to make such fulfilling progress to only find myself sidelined while I try and work through an injury. 

Even with my swimming routine down by 80% or more, I've recently taken a huge step forward which guarantees that my 2.4 mile swim in Madison will be less demoralizing than I feared it might be.  Understand, 99.9999% of my training has been in a pool.  I'm still anxious about swimming 2.4 miles in the open water.  And I am particularly uptight about swimming amidst 2500 others.  I don't even like sharing a lap lane in the pool with just one other swimmer.  In my vision, I will start somewhere at the back of the pack, swim at my own pace without worrying about being run over by others, pass those who may be even slower than I am, and make some good progress on the bike and run portions of the event. 

But still, a feeling of dread has been hanging over me.  I've been in enough short-course bicycle races- road, track, mountain bike, to know what it feels like to be lapped.  It's hardly encouraging.  And with a 2-lap swim leg, my greatest fear is being lapped.  Understand, if I am lapped, the first to reach my heels will be the professionals who will pass me like I'm laying in bed.  Swimming amongst some pretty accomplished swimmers at the pool, I can't understand how people can make their bodies move so swiftly through the water.  It would be pretty depressing to be coming to the end of lap 1, only to be overtaken by those who are just about to exit the water, having finished 2 laps in the same amount of time.

I'm proud to brag that I can now guarantee that I will not be lapped in the swim leg of Ironman Wisconsin.  I can say with 100% confidence that I know this to be true.  Progress comes in small bits and big chunks.  It's nice to know, over months of training hard, that the body is becoming stronger and is growing accustomed to moving faster, even if just marginally so.  But every once in a while you may take a big step forward that feels better than anything else.  And, even though I've barely been able to swim on account of my injured shoulder, I no longer fear being lapped in Lake Monona because, well, I won't be lapped. 

If I sound like a bit of a braggart, maybe I am.  But I don't think it's possible to make it through a challenge as physically trying as an Ironman without a certain confidence and bravado.  And even more than that is the knowledge that the swim course has been changed from a 2-lap 1.2 mile course, to a single lap 2.4 mile swim.  Thank you God, or Ironman Wisconsin race director, or whoever helped assure me that, come  September, I will not be lapped in the water. 

Did I mention that the bike and run legs are run over a multi-lap course?