Swimming a drag every time?

Hi,

At my first 1/4 Triathlon the swimming thing was arwfull, I thought I should die or drown. At least
I continued, and finished before 12 others of 180. Will it be everytime like this, are do you get
used to it. I practice swimming so much I can but I am on my limmits of muscle pain, tireness.

How did you do?

Bernard

It does not have to always be that way. You described my early triathlons perfectly. I was a back of
the pack swimmer who learned to swim as an adult for the express purpose of doing triathlons.
Learning to swim as an adult was one of the more difficult things I've done. If you have not already
- join a triathlon club, find a Masters' swim program, swim with them, like it or not. You will get
continuously better. It takes TONS of work, at least it has for me.

My first race I was 3rd to last out of the water. My most recent race I came in second place. I'm
still not a great swimmer, but it doesn't hold me back the way it once did, nor does it tire me out.
I've managed the 2.4 mile swim portion of Ironman a couple of times now, and in my first triathlon I
thought I'd drown within .25 miles.

Hang in there. Its not easy, but it is possible, and worth the effort.

On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 16:32:15 +0200, "Bernard" <bernard> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>At my first 1/4 Triathlon the swimming thing was arwfull, I thought I should die or drown. At least
>I continued, and finished before 12 others of 180.

This is key the next time out you'll know what to expect and be a little more relaxed.

>Will it be everytime like this,

no
>are do you get used to it.

Yes, a little bit more each time you do it.

>I practice swimming so much I can but I am on my limmits of muscle pain, tireness.
>
>How did you do?

I started swimming a while ago. I spent the first 6-8 months doing very little swimming and
mostly drilling and technique refinement(Mostly TI Stuff). With the help of some other
"good" swimmers and joing a masters class I finally got to the point of feeling comfortable
with my stroke and in the water. To me the swim is more about confidence and technique in
the water than it is pure raw power. Reguardless of who you are the first time you're in a
"school" of swimmers being pummeled and you look around and your a quater mile from shore
its a bit disconcerting. All the power and speed in the world isn't going to make you fast
if you panic. Unlike running or cycling IMO it's much more difficult to recover from " to
fast of a start" in the swim than it is in the other two. In the other two disciplines you
can just slow down and breath harder until you recover. In swimming your breathing must
remain rythmatic adn you are only offered periods at which you can breath. An over zelous
start can lead to stoping and panic. After you hit that "OH MY GOD I"M GOING TO DROWN"
feeling it's very difficult to regain you're composure. In short... I'd work on technique
until you can swim "comfortablly" almost indefinately. KNOWING you can swim alot further
than your racing helps alot. Then I would work on open water swimming and sighting. After
that racing will be a bit less stressfull.

Congrats on your first TRI.

~Matt
>
>Bernard

"Bernard" <bernard> wrote in message news:<3f0049db$0$309$ba620e4c@reader0.news.skynet.be>...
> Hi,
>
> At my first 1/4 Triathlon the swimming thing was arwfull, I thought I should die or drown. At
> least I continued, and finished before 12 others of 180. Will it be everytime like this, are do
> you get used to it. I practice swimming so much I can but I am on my limmits of muscle pain,
> tireness.
>
> How did you do?
>
> Bernard

My strong guess is that you didn't have enough distance under your belt for the race length, and
bonked mid-way through. There's two ways to better this. The first is to train more for the swim.
You really need to be doing more distance in your training swims than you will be doing in your
race. If you don't, you will likely wear out before you finish - trying to finish a long race when
your arms have given out is a terrible thing, as you found out! If you are used to doing that
distance, it will become much, much easier to complete it in the race. Also, practice in open water
as much as possible. It's very different than a pool, and you don't get the chance to stop on the
wall for a breather! The second way to do better is to watch both your pace and your stroke. If you
go out too fast, you will inevitably die, no matter how well you have trained. Also, it's natural
for people to use a high turnover to gain speed, but this is often akin to spinning your car wheels
in the mud - you don't go very far for all of that effort. Maintain a long, strong stroke throughout
at a pace you can keep up. One last thing - if you completely die, you can always switch to breast
stroke. This can be a lot easier (and faster) than doing free when your arms turn to lead weights.

Bernard <bernard> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> At my first 1/4 Triathlon the swimming thing was arwfull, I thought I should die or drown. At
> least I continued, and finished before 12 others of 180. Will it be everytime like this, are do
> you get used to it. I practice swimming so much I can but I am on my limmits of muscle pain,
> tireness.
>
> How did you do?

Very clearly it won't be - and wasn't, for 167 other people in your race.

Get a coach. Get a coach.

GET A COACH. swim with others.

That said, did I mention that masters swimming is a great and cheap way to get a coach? If
you're not comfortable swimming in masters, you might be able to find some classes designed to
bring you up to speed a bit. I know my gym offers a pre-masters class that focuses on technique
and comfort in the water. In my admittedly limited masters experience (I've only swam with MIT's
masters), masters assumes a reasonable degree of comfort and builds from there.

As a bit of personal experience on why to join masters, here's a sample of some of my workouts over
the last 8 months. Most of 2002 was merely using swimming as a break from marathon training, and I'd
never done anything competitive in my life. Started swimming 3x week in mid October:

10/15/2002 swim ? 1750 yards

Around the beginning of december, I started begging an ex-high school swimmer friend of mine to give
me a swimming clue:

10/16/2002 1:15 2200 yards
10/17/2002 ? time, 3100 yards
10/18/2003 50:00 3100 yards 16 x 100 @ 1:45 felt hard, but not completely dead.

joined masters in early Feb 2003:

10/19/2003 1:15:00 3450 10x100 @ 1:35 was a bit easy.

10/20/2003 1:10:00 3250 10x100 @ 1:27.5. Yowch

We've had the pool in 50 meter config, so it's hard to say what my times are lately. The rate of
progress definitely slowed down over the last two months - I've been shifting some effort to the
bike, because I'm now weaker there than in the swim.

So, pretty much, in 8 months I took myself from being a not so good swimmer to finishing the swim
6th/45 two weeks ago in 20:13, about a minute and a 45 seconds after the first guy out of the water
(median swim finish was 24:39). It gets a lot better.

And I'm _not_ a very fast swimmer in the grand scheme of things. Lots of people in our masters
program out swim me by a good margin...

Good luck. (And did I mention: get a coach and swim with others? it'll help like you
wouldn't believe!)

-Dave

--
work: dga - at - lcs.mit.edu me: angio - at - pobox.com MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
http://www.angio.net/ (note that my reply-to address is vaguely despammed...) bulk emailers: I do
not accept unsolicited email. Do not mail me.

it gets easier. See if you can locate a Masters Swim workout in your area (and someone for stroke
critique) . My first workout with a Masters swim I couldn't do 50 meters without gasping &
resting... just a few weeks and was able to do the race distances with ease

--
Eric Lose 513-984-3831 ELose@cinci.rr.com "Bernard" <bernard> wrote in message
news:3f0049db$0$309$ba620e4c@reader0.news.skynet.be...
> Hi,
>
> At my first 1/4 Triathlon the swimming thing was arwfull, I thought I
should
> die or drown. At least I continued, and finished before 12 others of 180. Will it be everytime
> like this, are do you get used to it. I practice swimming so much I can but I am on my limmits of
> muscle pain, tireness.
>
> How did you do?
>
> Bernard

Who swims in drag? That'd be really gay, but fun.

Steven

"Bernard" <bernard> wrote in message news:<3f0049db$0$309$ba620e4c@reader0.news.skynet.be>...
> Hi,
>
> At my first 1/4 Triathlon the swimming thing was arwfull, I thought I should die or drown. At
> least I continued, and finished before 12 others of 180. Will it be everytime like this, are do
> you get used to it. I practice swimming so much I can but I am on my limmits of muscle pain,
> tireness.
>
> How did you do?
>
> Bernard