July 2008 Archives

A dry, waterless day. I wanted to swim, to try to reinforce what bits went right yesterday, but I was beat, and had a couple of things I needed to do this morning.

Tonight, I run a pace group with the Nike Club Run, and there will be the free beer afterwards. I haven't had any beer, incidentally, since the run last Thursday, which no doubt has contributed to the downward crawl of my weight from an undisclosed figure, back under 210. If I can start the marathon training season finally at my long-time goal of sub-200, I will be unstoppable, at least until such time as I am stopped.

Breakthrough!

Yesterday, the swimmer I talked to emphasized the importance of not swimming flat, but of rolling the body from side to side with every stroke, which, in addition to being more hydrodynamically efficient, would make it easier for me to get more time to breathe.

I had read this last year in a book my friend Eve loaned me, on the Total Immersion technique. In my early swimming attempts last year, I tried to adopt it, with some degree of success. But this year, I bull-headedly have focused less on technique and more on just trying to muscle through the water and the fear.

This morning, I felt pretty beaten-up from yesterday, but I was anxious to get in the water. I swam three 200-meter lengths. On the first, I rolled a lot, and it was difficult. For a short time at the beginning, it seemed to kind of work, sporadically, but I still got too far out of breath, and I still had to stop six or seven times, and it still took me ten minutes.

Near the end, I resorted to the breast stroke, trying to keep moving forward, and trying to not have to resort to standing up.

I was disappointed, but found a little more determination, a little more fight than I had before, and there's hope in that. Coming back up Barton Springs, I alternated breast stroke and freestyle, anything to keep moving forward. I stood only three or four times, and got through it about 30 seconds faster. OK, 30 seconds less really-slower.

One last shot at the 200 meters. Before I started, a girl that was no more than five or six swam in front of me, stroking quickly but smoothly. I saw the roll, got it firmly in my mind, and went at it again.

It was still not pretty. But 8:30 later, with only a few stops and a few times resorting to the breaststroke, I was at the other end.

It's not much, but it's something, something to build on and give reason to believe I can get through this.

After a whole day straight of whipping the water into a frenzy for 30 minutes, you'd think I'd have it down pat. OK, you'd think I'd not get any worse.

Yesterday morning was worse. Armed with several printed pages of Googled swimming advice, I tried to measure out my breaths - four to five seconds of exhaling in the water, then a second to splutter, swallow some water, then plunge mightily back underwater. Usually, I could make a go for 20-30 feet before dying. But I was immediately in trouble, immediately panicking and less at home in the water than I would in a vat of boiling Diet Dr. Pepper.

To be clear, I don't like Dr. Pepper, and I suspect I like it much less when boiling all around me. Just a guess.

I covered 400 meters, somehow. I even considered stopping to ogle the wrinkly topless woman that laid on her back playing guitar, just to hide the fact that I was really stopping because I was dying.

The whole time, I tried to think of who was still around that I could co-opt into training me. In five days. Former US Junior Olympic team member Fagan moved away last month. And always, being in the water reminds me even more of the friendship I lost last year. Two, really, her and her husband.

Granted, as good a friend and swim coach as she was, I think I baffled her. One night a couple of years ago, she took a group of us out to Stacy Pool. Again, everyone else claimed to "not swim," a claim they could repeat in calm voices while doing laps using various strokes. Damn them.

Meanwhile, Holly watched me struggle back and forth, perplexed at where to begin. After all, she was used to teaching beginner children, and I was clearly something far less competent than that. She downgraded my assignment to something - swimming on my side or something. My butt sank,threatening to dredge the bottom of the pool. She suggested I try floating on my back. This I could do, but it didn't get me anywhere. Eventually, through a series of declining levels of challenge, I splashed around the shallow end and tried not to drown.

Remembering Holly only compounded the growing sense of failure, permeating my will like water filling a lung. I came out of the water, and emailed Christina, telling her that it was all a really bad idea. Again, full-time immediate access to email is not always a good thing.

I got back on the bike, rode to Mellow Johnny's to drop off my backpack, and then took the road bike back out for a quick, hard ten miles, for 15 total. If I can survive the water in the triathlon, the swimming's gonna piss me off enough that I will do well on the bike.

Back at the office, the new receptionist, who used to play water polo, asked me how the drowning went. The day before, we had talked about it, and she tried to dispense advice, though it required her standing up and swimming while standing behind her desk to try to remember how she did things. Yesterday, the office assistant chimed in, saying she's trying to learn, too, and that there's a former competitive swimmer upstairs that she's been talking to. Then she's on the phone and, unbeknownst to me, gets him to come down.
 
Super tall dude - like, 6'6" or something. Real nice kid. The office assistant introduces us, saying, "Rob has a question about swimming." I told him that it wasn't so much a matter of "a" question, and that if it had to be one question, it would be, "...How do you... swim?"
 
I felt a bit silly, but he was understanding. This was really nice, considering he was a 12-time All American, three-time NCAA champ, Olympic Trials semi-finalist, and former American record holder on the UT swim team. Thankfully, the only thing he failed at was in making me feel any dumber.

He teaches Masters swimmers, and, coincidentally, swims with Holly. There was some comfort in that, actually.

I was tempted to go and try out the new information. Instead, I ran a little under five miles with Christina and went home, where, with all three events under my belt for the day, I crashed out quickly.

Triathloning is, as many of my triathlete friends have tried to tell me, stupid.

Sounds like one of my whiny, all-is-lost entries, right? But, no, I am referring to the literal process of drowning training that I'm undergoing.

Early last year, being surrounded by triathlete types, I got it in my head to attempt a triathlon. Incidnetally, the very fact that every time I talk about it, I have to avoid saying "try a triathlon" should be a clue that this is just not for me at all.

I was going to the pool three or four times a week, reading the "Total Immersion" book my friend Eve lent me, and sort of making progress. Sort of. Then April 2007 happened, and on top of everything, loading my abject fear of water on top of everything else was just a bit too much. So, that was that. I forfeited my $50 Rookie Tri entry fee, and eventually removed the $110 tri-geek aero bars from my road bike. Sanity restored.

My girlfriend Christina, though, is not satisfied with running every damned day. She also feels some need to swim and bike, and I somehow got re-infected with the not-at-all-overwhelming urge to do a triathlon. I started going out to Barton Springs and flailing around again this summer, but in the last month, once again I let myself get derailed.

Last Sunday, I played Supportive Boyfriend as Christina took on the Small Texan Tri down in Boerne. I was excited for her, even at 4:30 in the morning, but once we got there, I quickly realized that I'm a lousy spectator. I'm used to running races or helping at races. The sitting and watching thing was unacceptable.

Ubiquitous connectivity plus spare time are bad things. Minutes after she bolted out of the transition area on her bike, I was on the iPhone, discovering that registration was still open for Jack's Generic Triathlon the following Sunday. Dammit.

Christina had a rough time on the run, but kicked butt overall, finishing her longest tri yet (800 meter swim, 28 mile bike, 10K run), and placing third in her age group. Sitting at IHOP, she told me she thought I could get through Jack's Generic, and that I should do it. Before the pancakes and spinach omelette arrived, I was registered.

I could pull my tri-geek aero bars off of her bike, and buy some tri shorts. And, oh, yeah, I have to learn to swim. There's that.

Yesterday, I went back down to Barton Springs. I did not, in fact, pick up right where I'd left off a month earlier, which, to be clear, was "Not Quite As Likely to Immediately Sink to The Bottom and Die."

I am unimpressed when most people tell me they can't swim. A little elaboration usually reveals that the vast majority of these people just can't swim well, or as fast as they'd like, or as fast as Michael Phelps. My problem, on the other hand, is that I am terrified of the water. I'm anxious on my way to swim. I can be hanging on the edge of a pool having just winded myself doing a lap with several stops, and I will still panic until I push myself up out of it.

The weird thing is, I also love the water. I like being in it, I even like moving around in it. I like wading out into the ocean until either the water is right to my nostrils, or until I remember my college friend April, and how she lost her right arm to a shark, in waist-deep water.

In the Cayman Islands when I was in junior high, I remember snorkeling, going deeper every time, diving down for another conch shell that the boat's captain would later pull the inhabitant out of to turn into a delicious salad. I remember the deepest dive, looking back up, lungs starting to burn, and thinking, "well, this is challenging."

But when I try to swim, and I exert myself, and I have to breathe... then there's a problem. I sometimes wonder if the fear is more accurately of not being able to breathe. I can panic sometimes drinking a glass of water. When I tell this to those people who claim they can't swim, I finally see understanding sweep across their faces, and I see that their mental bar for swimming incompetence has finally been properly set.

So, yesterday, I tried to recapture some sort of rhythm, where I give a few awkward strokes, holding my breath like it's the last I'll ever get, because, in fact, it might be the last I'll ever get. Then the turning of my head out of the water, the whale-like expulsion of air, and the short, quick gasp that most often seems to only inflate my cheeks. Then, again like a whale after breaking the surface, I plunge below the surface, sinking slightly, which only makes matters worse.

I tried relaxing, but it's very difficult to relax and completely panic at the same time.

I covered 500 meters, the distance I'll have to cover on Sunday, but it was in fits and starts, with lots of standing and wheezing and curious looks from small children who swam around me like otters.

Dejected, I returned to work. I emailed friend and Ironman Joey to ask a less technical triathloning question: "I know I'll be dead last out of the water, but will I be wasting everyone's time and insulting the sport?"

Joey's response:

Consider the swim in terms of $/hour and you will be getting the most for your money. The sport is inhuman and therefore cannot be insulted. Any person who is insulted needs to answer the following:

How does Rob Hill sucking water hurt you in any way?

And so, laughing, I decided that the daily drownings would continue.