Off the Deck

One of my all-time favorite childhood book series is the Ant & Bee collection by Angela Banner. I’ve known them by heart for decades now, but some days I have to re-read one for the millionth time because something happening in my life makes me think of a particular story.

Over the past winter, I was thinking a lot about Ant & Bee and The Doctor. (Bee catches a cold. A model patient, Bee bounces back quickly. Then Ant catches a more serious illness, a virus, and must be quarantined for a month. He is not such a good patient. I am sure you can see where this is headed — I am most certainly more Ant-like.)

Lately though, I’ve been thinking a lot about my favorite book from the series, Ant & Bee and the Secret a lot. In this book, Bee initially proves to be better than Ant at several activities — hopscotch, jump rope and story-telling. Each time, Bee makes fun of Ant’s efforts and calls Ant “stupid.”

Of course, Ant becomes “cross” and runs away. Except that when he eventually comes back, suddenly Ant is better than Bee at whatever game they were playing earlier. Ultimately Ant’s mystery is solved with the help of Kind Dog (Bee deliberately makes Ant feel stupid so he can have Kind Dog “track” Ant as soon as he runs off.) Ant’s “secrect” turns out to be school.

I think this book is on my mind so much lately because I feel like Ant in a way. I was cross with my old training situation so I ran off to swim with kids under a new coach. Thanks to my new enviornment and Coach Mark, I’m learning something new at every practice. In another month or two (epecially when I have more strength to apply to my strokes — right now I am kind of wiped out a lot from juggling swimming, weights paddling and running) I think I’m going to startle swimmers I haven’t trained with for awhile.

Yep, lots of technique changes take time to assimilate into “automatic and with speed,” but I’m starting to get “aha!” flashes here and there at practice now…yay!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

My 16-hour day last Saturday continued after we switched lakes: the Catalina Channel swimmers wanted to get in another long open water training swim.

Foremost, for the paddlers, the conditions were so much better this time. Perfect temperature. Not too hot, not too cold. No wind. May we have similar glass-like water conditions on the ocean in August!

Unfortunately, Slippery Otter (when you paddle for hours on end you start to feel sort of Native-American-ish, so I decided we all needed Native American-ish names for the summer) and I wanted to smack the swimmers with our oars by loop two. Despite voicing our strong anti-separating stance after the last paddle, there was about a mile between two pairs of swimmers by the end of the second loop.

Did I mention that there is an island in the middle of the lake? Yep, that’s right. Thanks to Bird Island (and I don’t fault the birds. They need a place to nest), you can’t do an entire lake-scan from any point on the water. And then there’s the Bermuda Triangle Corner. Due to a rocky, deeply curving shoreline, the swimmers simply vanish in that cove.

After the first paddle, Slippery Otter and I felt horrible for days after because we couldn’t stay with everyone four the entire six hours. By the end of the second loop during our second time out though, we realized that the swimmers were bringing it on themselves. If they didn’t stay reasonably close together, we couldn’t promise that we could feed them on scheudule, let alone site them.

As a result, the paddle-minions are threatening to unionize unless we have a second kayak for the third training swim coming up in July. A 12-box of Pop-Tarts per paddle session may also be part of our negotiating terms. Definitely the strawberry ones with frosting and sprinkles.

Thanks to the addition of Grumbling Bear (Jagged Mountain’s son), we had a third paddler this past Saturday. Not only was it great to have more help (and fresh arms/shoulders) but once Grumbling Bear took over for me, I was able to get in and swim at the end. For me, it’s definitely hard to be out on the water all day and not swim!

Although I worked the entire time at the 6K earlier that morning and then paddled for several hours, I was still “fresher” than the swimmers who were on hour six by then. I kind of felt like a friendly dolphin, encouraging on tired saliors as I swam ahead, behind, in between and to one side and the other of one pair of Catalina swimmers. Even though the water temperature was 73-degrees, I needed to keep moving to stay warm!

Certainly, the long day was good “handle anything that comes my way” training for Catalina in August…

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist & paddle-minion

A special shout-out to Slippery Otter who paddled the entire time — way to train, paddle-minion!!!

Yesterday was a big swim day. So big, in fact, that I need to cover the events in a part one/two format.*

It started with the National 6K in Windsor. Although my preference is always to swim, it’s always good to have an opportunity to live up to my self-professed swim evangelism title — giving back to the sport that has given me so much is very important to me. And, after seeing the flip side of an event, the competitive swimmer in me now has a greater appreciation for having events. It takes a lot of time, energy, money, organization and people to make them happen.

The morning was fun and went by in a blur. I jumped from job to job: register swimmers, cart water bottles to water’s edge, count swimmers/get cap numbers for the raffle during the first loop, call out finisher’s times. Of course, the added perk of the morning was being able to see a lot of the race. Competitive swimming of any type never fails to entertain me, and I always learn so much just by watching.

We had great weather, Karen Reeder did an outstanding organizational job (nice site, no glitches, got off on time, plenty of supplies, creative thoughtful touches like changing tents for men and women, I could go on and on…), and I met a lot of nice officials and swim-spouses. Best of all though, was seeing everyone do so well. I thought it would be hard to watch and not compete, but I totally got caught up in every swimmer’s story and results!

After the race wrapped up, the Catalina 2010 crew moved onto another lake for swimming. Stay tuned for Part II of Super Saturday!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Shout Out of the Day: To all Swim Dads everywhere on their super Sunday today. They help us pursue our passion, and as we know, swimming is a way life!

*And of course the Santa Clara meet was on TV this weekend too. Hopefully I can catch repeats…

Hell yeah, I know streamlining is one of the keys to easy, fast swimming.

But getting my body to streamline 100% in the water (and geez, after last night’s practice we can add “off the blocks” to my “places to streamline” list) well, that might prove to be another story.

The thing that most vexes (scares?) me is that I’m probably starting from square one — I suspect that I wasn’t super-streamlining even as an young, bend-y, quick-to-recover age grouper. So it’s not a matter of “snapping back” or tapping deep into “muscle memory.” Nope, must figure out how to streamline now. As a fossil.

Last night I spied Erica, a young whipper-snapper and summer assistant coach, doing an on-deck demo of streamline position for a kid a few lanes over. Her FOREARMS were criss-crossing. I’m lucky if I can get my hands to touch. And even that takes a lot of warming up.

Which makes me kind of panick-y. What’s it going to take for me to be able to streamline? Will I be able to? Or am I genetically flexibility-challenged and thus doomed for the rest of my swimming days?

If I just keep at it during practice, will everything eventually click? Do I have to find a way to squeeze in yoga, one more activity, to the already tight daily schedule? Do I have to strike it rich and hire two “mashers” to stretch me daily like Dara Tores?

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

p.s. Two shout-outs today:

1) A shout out to Kenny Allen for embracing the “summer suit” spirit with his groovy new “peace” TYR training suit.

2) To the owner of a silver SUV — love your “Swim Taxi” bumper sticker!

If you’re a regular reader, you know by now that I’ve been working on improving my technique a lot lately. Current focus is freestyle, breaststroke, turns & starts, and streamlining, streamlining, streamlining all the time.

So if I am sore in new places, that’s a good sign, right? As in “I am using my body differently in the water.”

My soreness is also movement-specific per muscle group, another sign I think I am successfully making adjustments in the water. For example, the freestyle tweaks refer back to my new lower lat and tricep soreness. Major changes to my breaststroke has brought on inner thigh, glute and outside hip fatigue. And that emphasis on streamlining 100%? I can feel it in my core, all the time.

Perhaps the flip side of this equation is equally important to note too: I no longer have shoulder pain after practice. On second thought, maybe it’s more important. Pain-free swimming hopefully means my body agrees with the “gentler” (i.e. emphasis on recovery phase per stroke) approach I am learning from Coach Mark. Less wear and tear on my body? More years in the pool as I age — yay!

Being sore while training isn’t fun, but I know it won’t last long. And, if a little soreness now translates into less effort but swimming faster later, heck yeah — bring it on!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Today I did my first little local meet since early last fall. During the week leading up to the meet, I was really encouraged by how much I was looking forward to racing again.

The past two months have been a huge, accelerated rebuilding phase for me. After spending a winter in virus-purgatory, I am finally healthy (two months and holding sans a sniffle!) Thanks to a new team, training approach and worth-his-weight-in-gold Coach Mark, my attitude has done a 180, from “burned out” to “can’t wait to get to practice.”
And again, thanks to Coach Mark, I have been working, working and working to improve my technique across the board.

Therefore I was particularly excited to see if I could put it all together today under race conditions. Especially at my fave race venue, outdoor LCM.

But today was not meant to be my day. As much as I hate to admit it, I had a really tough time due to weather conditions. On the drive over to the pool I heard on the radio that it was 48 degrees. That in itself may not have been too much handle (especially if water temp was decent and I was doing just one distance event), but it also rained on/off throughout the meet and it was very windy.

Did I mention that I lean towards the tiny-delicate? Yep, the in/out race format is often not a good one for me because I easily slip into “need external source of heat now” mode. It’s one of the reasons why I swim strongest in summer — I can get stiff-from-cold-can’t-move at an indoor meet (Hello last meet I did Fall ‘09 — scratched the rest of my events after the first two. Just…couldn’t…function…bbbbrrrrrr.)

I did as much as I could today, but it’s minor consolation. I knew the weather was going to be bad, so I brought my parka, lined sweats, and several suits. My original plan per race was to warm-up, race, warm down, then change suits and thus conserve some heat with dry suit/sweats/parka intervals. After my first race, a very sluggish 50 fly, I was too cold to get back in to warm up pre-200 IM, so I had another sluggish race.

“Japanese snow monkey in hot spring” became my ad hoc plan — stay in the continous warm-up/cool down lane until my last event, the 200 free. Absolutely, the water was the warmest place to be (no hot showers at this pool, and the heats were moving too fast to jump in the car.) But I was shivering and teeth chattering while crouching in the water. So I switched to “shark-mode”: keep moving or die.

Swimming continous easy free/back helped a bit. I warmed up enough to hang in there until the 200 free, and while not stellar, I felt as if I was loose enough to at least apply some of the new-to-me technique principals. Which, several hours later and still a bit chilled post-shower, nap under covers and tea, was enough to motivate me to stay committed to pratice, working on my technique and finding more meets to get my race groove back.

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

I experienced my first fly-breast connection glimmer earlier this week.

Theorectically, I have long understood how these two strokes are similar. Ever since submerging your head underwater was no longer considered a rule-breaker, I have been able to see how butterfly and breast share some elements.

The actual physical click between the two strokes had yet to come for me though. It’s been a particularly vexing issue over the years. Fly has always been my super power; breast has always been my Achilles Heel. If these two strokes were now so freakin’ similar, why couldn’t I get my body to find the link between the two?!? Even my mom, years ago, assumed my breast would drastically improve with the rule change because she too saw how the “new” breast was more like fly.

But no, I spent years (decades?) feeling like a breaststroke slug. I have yet to race a 200 breast because I’ve avoided it like the plague. To me, the 200 breast is the hardest event. And I swim the grudge-events such as the 400 IM, 200 fly, 1500 free, etc. all the time.

Thanks to Coach Mark and his drills however, I had my first moments of fly-breast connection this past Tuesday at practice. The magic drill sequence that did it? 1) With fins, breastroke pull with fly kick. 2) With fins, alternate breast and fly pull with fly kick.

It was amazing to finally feel the fly-like timing in breast and other similar elements like setting up for the “hinge” phase of each pull. Even more amazing, these new elements stuck with me after I took my fins off and did straight breast.

The other correction that had a huge impact was being told to maintain “high feet” to help keep my stroke hoizontal and thus heading down the lane, not down to the bottom of the pool.

I swam more breast on Tuesday night than I ever had at a practice before. And you know what? I wasn’t wiped out after just one 50, and it was actually fun. Kudos Coach Mark!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Eeeeek! After a very snowy winter and cool, rainy spring, of course we’re now experiencing a peak growth/bloom phase.

I don’t need a weather report to let me know that the pollen count is off the charts; when I swim outside I get an insta-allergy furball. Seriously. I can just smell the stuff I am allergic to blooming around the pool and can feel myself inhaling pollen.

Reaction? Beyond the normal allergy symptoms, I get this weird, sapped-out feeling. It’s not painful, but I can’t seem to function at normal levels. I feel disjointed/awkward — as if my established brain-muscle neuron pathways are not functioning.

The really weird thing is that until this week, I’ve always assumed that May was the seasonal uber-allergy month. But now that I think about it, it might be June for me. I’ve never really swam well in June. My times are always way off at the annual mid-June masters meet here. And allergies, not conditioning, may have been at fault during the annual, first-of-the-season “Out of Shape Meet” I attended each year while an age grouper.

I guess it’s good to have new awareness, but I can’t think of anything beyond my already extensive existing allergy regimen (shots, meds, nasal lavage, steaming, avoidance) to do that might help me over my June slump.

Maybe knowing I probably won’t throw down a PR in June is enough?

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

My summer minion-ship continued this a.m. with counting for the Math Savant during a postal swim.

Absolutely, I have counted for swimmers in so many distance races that I can’t even hazard a “total” count — tons of 500s, 1650s, 1500s and even occasional 800s and 1000s.

But a 5K postal is a whole different kettle of fish. Especially for the math- challenged like me. Early into it I decided not to put the counter in per 100. First, I knew the Math Savant wouldn’t care. (Heck, I wouldn’t care either in the same situation. What difference is it going to make if I know I am at either 3100 or 3200?)

Second, it would have been too crazy to count each 100 and record each split. Particularly because managing a lot of numbers at once makes me a little panicky.

Instead, I decided to make it like Sesame Street. Today was brought to the Math Savant by the Number 9: I assumed that the 500/1000 marks would be “good enough” indicators.

As if I wasn’t already out of my math comfort zone (do I even have one?) with counting and recording, I was also factoring splits in my head every few 100s to be on the alert for deviance from the pre-determined pace.

Yep, working with math was a good thing for me today. Hopefully, if I keep messing with splits, intervals etc. in my head this summer, I’ll be able to factor pace while at practice and thus fine-tune my workouts. I will never reach the Math Savant level though. The ability to tell me his last 100 split while rolling into the wall for the 3K feed mini-break is his super power.

Being on deck versus the pool proved to be a bonus lesson per technique. I had a lot of time to really study a variety of strokes and turns. It was fantastic visual reinforcement of several points that Coach Mark has made to me lately as I work on changing my technique.

It was interesting to see different distance approach styles as well. Some swimmers just motored through their 5/10K. Others stopped to feed and check their pace, time and lap count. Even the diversity in fueling options was interesting to see — everything from endurance-athlete-specific drinks to Gatorade to Mike and Ike Candy.

My final two lessons of the day illustrate the range of information I am open to and sucking up lately. 1) I brought my new-ish camera to the pool for the first time. It was fun to snap away (I hope to add images to this blog before the year is out.) But clearly I have a lot to learn still — how to take multiple shots to get at least once decent action image, how to handle deep shade and bright light at the same time in a pool, when to zoom and much more.

And finally, 2) Even quick Zen moments outside go a long way towards cultivating inner peace. What could be better for my soul than to take in bright clear blue skies, feel the sun and a cool morning breeze on my skin, and smell the freshness of everything growing around me while quiet water splashes from the pool fill my ears. My version of heaven, definitely.

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Today while teaching myself how to use Google Earth, I was trying to think of locations to use as test-cases.

Of course, my first thought ran to “pools.” So I checked out one of my faves of all time, the 50 lcm x 25 scy outdoor pool where I spent all of my age group summers. (What can I say. It’s one of my “happy places.”)

From there it was an easy leap to wonder if my old team now has a website.

Yep, they do.

It was interesting to see how the team has changed since my childhood. Foremost, they have fewer practices but use more pools. And it all seems very formal now. (Maybe this is just because you can put any manner of official-type files on the web today? Back in the day we were all about mimeographs, word of mouth and phone trees.)

Most stunning though, was the records page. I was amazed to see that we still held so many records. I mean, we’re talking 30+ years later. And we’re the only “era” in the books. The remaining records are “modern,” having been set within the past few years.

When I was growing up, I was aware that my area was strong in swimming. And I knew that both of my teams (age group and scholastic) were powerhouses: we won a lot of titles, high point trophies, set a lot records and sent a lot of swimmers to States, JOs and beyond every year.

Absolutely, we trained hard — doubles most days of the week and dryland. But this was the training protocol of the day, we really weren’t doing anything different from other teams.

Until today, I always took my age group team situation — training and results — for granted. Back then, we just swam. Sure, we always made finals, won events, set records and more. But it just seemed like “goal-setting and achieveing” in one area of your life.

And I’ve always assumed that every subsequent age group team in my hometown was just like us — dedicated, goofy, close as close can be and talented.

Today, several decades later, it’s just starting to sink in — we had lightening in a bottle. What amazing good fortune to have grown up and trained together under the cicumstances we had.

It’s an honor to have shared the lanes.

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist