Off the Deck

Towards the end of practice on Tuesday, we were given a 200 kick as part of the warm down set. Nothing crazy or extreme. Still, I reached for my fins. A life long weak kicker, I have gotten into what is probably a bad habit — I put fins on for any kind of kick set.

Except that I barely got through one 100 with them that day. The throbbing across the top of my left foot was so bad that I had to take my that fin off RIGHT AWAY and finish the 200 without fins.

Very odd. As far as I knew, my foot didn’t hurt at all up until that moment. I couldn’t think of a recent left-foot trauma event either — I hadn’t dropped anything on it, hadn’t landed on it funny, etc.

I switched the fins on my feet to see if maybe that one fin was somehow mangled from the great equipment bag freeze of the week before. But nope, my left foot still killed, my right was fine.

Very peculiar.

Back at home later that night, I checked out my foot. I did have a slight bump where I had felt the pain, and there was some bruising. It still ached as well. Huh — apparently I did do something to my foot.

Luckily, my home remedy treatments are working well — slap some arnica on the area, elevate and ice the foot each night while watching the entire Olympic evening program, and wear sneakers, the loosest, most supportive shoes I have in my closet, as much as possible.

Since Tuesday, I sucked it up and kicked sans fins Thursday. It didn’t hurt so much kicking as when pushing off walls. But it is getting better. Today it was only a little irritated during the one kick set we did (you’ll be proud to know that although I used my fins then, I did not use my fins for the kick portion of the warm up).

Maybe this is a good wake up call — I doubt my kicking will improve if I use my fins all the time, so it’s time to kick my fin dependency and give my foot a chance to heal.

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

I really need to start bringing in my equipment bag for the night.

Normally I leave it in the trunk — who wants to drag fins, board, shower stuff, flipflops, cap and goggles in every evening?

Especially when I’m not rolling out of a car and into a house. No, there’s curb-side parking to be wrangled (often a block away) and many, many, many steps to reach my attic-nest in an old Victorian that dates from the 1890s.

If I could just wear my swim backpack and then have both hands free for my equipment bag, it wouldn’t be that bad. Reality? On most days I feel akin to a pack-mule: in addition to the swim backpack, I usually slog a cooler (I need breakfast, fruit, lunch and snack calories to get through the day!), a bag with work files, and some sort of “bonus” item such as grocery bags, a library book bag, or a box from the day’s mail.

So you can understand why it’s so appealing to leave my equipment bag in the trunk. And it’s not like I need any of that stuff until tomorrow, right?

Except that when you leave a wet equipment bag in the trunk, and a snow/ice storm rolls through, everything freezes.

Yep, it wasn’t what I’d call a big storm, but it was cold enough to wreak havoc on my loot. I had to run my flipflops under hot sink water to melt off the ice (in any case, there was no way I was going to put those on without a “pre-warm.”) My goggles actually shattered. Very vexing, but at least I had a spare in my backpack.

All of my shower stuff was frozen. Sitting on the warm deck for 90-ish minutes sort of started the thawing process, but it was like washing my skin and hair with a slushy.

At least my fins and cap seem to be made of tougher stuff — both survived unscathed. Or so it seems…

The new bottom line for winter? I like my stuff; I don’t want to replace it until I wear it out. I need to suck it up and bring in the equipment bag after every swim. I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that it’s already in its new roost, leaning against the wall along side the top stair.

In the meantime, I will remind myself that extra weight load-bearing on all of those steps only makes me stronger. Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Last Wednesday I swam in open water for my first 90 or so minutes of the season. A cloudy-cool day combined with a water temp of about 65 made me opt for my wetsuit.

Initially, I like putting on my wetsuit, but probably for the wrong reason — I feel like Emma Peel of The Avengers when hanging around in it on shore. But actually swimming in it? Not so much.

Foremost, it throws my alignment off (I know, I know, “bouyancy” is the main reason tri-geeks love their wetsuits). But I no longer feel like I am swimming downstream. Second, I have to widen my hand-strike position due to less shoulder mobility. That same lack of mobility makes swimming any other stroke but free too awkward to attempt — boring!

My third complaint is chaffing, right by the nape of my neck. I think it’s from the velcro-closure shifting around from a covered to exposed position when I swim. Whatever! It feels like I have a third-degree burn back there. A nice scaly patch of skin that now stings in the shower, in the sun, when my hair rubs it, when I apply lotion — basically when anything comes in contact with it.

Finally, getting the thing over and off my feet and ankles is nearly impossible. There I was — hopping around on one foot, losing my balance and keeling over in the water repeatedly while trying to get at least one leg off. If not for the kind and gracious Susan who not only offered her arm for balance but also got one wetsuit leg off of me (and never laughed, not even once!), I believe I would still be there, thrashing around. I do have some of that “glide” stuff made specifically for this problem, maybe I should actually bring it and use it…

Thankfully though, today it’s 90 degrees, the average temp predicted for the entire week — a promising water-warming trend to hopefully eliminate the need for the wetsuit by next Wednesday!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

I’ve got a lot of long, wavy fine hair. I just can’t “get by” sans cap when I swim — it’s like trying to swim through the swish-y scrub strip cycle in the car wash.

So there I was this past Thurday, standing on deck, playing the “can I wrangle one last swim?” game out of a cap that began to rip up the back when I put it on.

Absolutely, latex caps don’t have the longest life. But it’d be nice to have some warning that they were thinking of checking out versus just splitting apart one moment. For this reason, I carry a spare cap in my swimbag. On that Thursday however, my bag was located all the way across the outdoor pool, up a walkway, through a door, down another hallway, in a locker. I just wanted to get in and swim!

After cramming my hair into the now smaller cap, I decided I might get away with it if I could sort of hold the cap together with my split-strap goggles. I have to admit, that for the most part, this method worked. Well, at least when swimming free or back — I only had to re-wedge the cap down on my head during flip turns. And deal with that odd sucking noise by my right ear as a torn piece flapped around…

Butterfly and breast were another story though — we’ve all seen those races when someone’s cap slowly starts peeling off the head from front to back. Everyone else in the pool that day, and probably the guard too, must have thought I had some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder that compelled me to adjust my cap every 10 seconds during butterfly or breast. Either that or I was angling for a lot of breaks.

In all though, I can’t complain too much. Although distracting, the cap did hold it together for 90 minutes — not bad. Furthermore, it’s always fun to sort through the cap collection at home and pull out a fresh one. In many ways this rip was timely as it forced me to switch from a heat-absorbing navy blue one (thanks again to Teri Jean for picking it up for me at Olympics Trials!) to a heat-reflecting yellow one (and here a shout out to Chuck for picking it up at the Washington SC Nationals.) Just in time to help my head stay cooler during outdoor practices as it gets hotter this summer!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

A week ago I was slumming in the rec lane, which was packed with triathletes that morning. (Yes, they are easy to distinguish, no actual conversation required.)

Of the many men (I believe we went through a rotation of 8 or 10), all of them wore fins. Now, I totally understand using fins for a set per practice. After all, it’s easier to grasp the essence of some drills via fins, they are ideal for speed work, and of course kicking goes by much quicker with fins. But wearing them for an entire session?

Not a very savvy training technique.

Here are just three key reasons why:
1) Fins alter your position in the water. You need to learn to swim efficiently without any gear on.

2) Your body alignment is different when wearing a wetsuit. This alignment is not equal to that of with fins. So why train with a second artificial alignment?

3) You can’t wear fins during the swim leg of a triathlon.

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

p.s. Swimming the entire session consecutively with fins holding the same pace isn’t going to help much either, but that’s an explanation for another day.

p.p.s. A shout out to the lone female triathlete who was swimming sans fins that day: I applaud you. Yes, you may not have kept up with your male fin-ed triathletes that morning, but if you keep training without them, soon you will be passing them!

Today was my first day back in the water after sitting out almost two weeks with some sort of virus-crud. As if returning to the pool wasn’t exciting enough, I had forgotten I had a new cap packed in my bag.

This past Christmas my friend and fellow swimmer Danielle gave me a really fun cap — it was white with a snowman face on it, complete with coal eyes and a carrot nose. Hugely popular as it was this past winter, I had decided to swap it out for something a bit more spring-like right before I got sick.

The cap was a great gift — practical but fun. Perhaps more importantly though, it won me over to latex caps. Pre-snowman cap, I’d been using silicone ones for many years. Sure, they are a bit more expensive, but they last longer.

After a winter of latex though, I’m going to stick with latex. The key factor? They aren’t as hot as silicone. I particularly look forward to a cooler head outside this summer, especially if I pick out some new, light colored latex caps for the season.

I also like how latex fits a tad snugger — no more yanking my silicone cap down in between fly and IM repeats. (Although, this same quality makes latex a little more “hair grab-y” when you take it off, if you know what I mean).

My frivilous reason for switching to latex is very girl-ish: I can have fresh caps more frequently; and in crazy colors and patterns.

Of course, having sung the praises of latex, I am not forsaking silicone all together. I’m saving the silcone caps I already have for days when it’s freezing at practice outside, as well as for open water swims. Under those two conditions, keeping my head warm is a priority!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist