Swim Day

So I have attempted to try this triathlon business. And well, if I’m going to do it I might as well give it my best, so it seems to me that I should learn form the best.  Lucky for me and my Olympic connections I had the privilege to contact Simon Whitfield, Olympic gold and silver medalist in the triathlon.  I asked him if I could join in on some of his training sessions in Victoria, being the nice guy and champion he is, he kindly obliged to beating me into a pulp. Through the next four training sessions I very quickly learned why he was one of the best and I had a long way to go before I could call myself a triathlete, or even anything else other than a rower for that matter.

I arrived in Victoria a night early to make sure I was ready for my day of swimming and 6 x 1 mile running the next day.  When I arrived at the pool for 7:30am, I had no idea what the workout was going to be.  I also had no idea who other than Simon would be doing it.  It was nice to see he had a great training group of athletes at is side; Kyle Jones, Brent McMahon & Lauren Groves.  Coming from rowing,  we depended heavily on our teammates to help us push through our training.  The reason for this is seeing how everyone else was performing, which in turn allowed you to measure yourself daily on how you think you should be doing.  So it was no surprise that the triathletes were doing the same thing,  although I was curious if this was the case being an individual sport.

The workout was written on a small piece of paper and wetted to a kick board tilted up so we could check it as we turned on our laps.  I enjoyed looking at the nomenclature of the “sets” described, to be honest I cannot remember what they were, but it bore close resemblance to our rowing “pieces” which were acronyms like P for pyramid and SC for staircase alongside  numbers for rate changes or times or distances.  What was very clear was that the total distance was 4500m roughly 2000m more than I have ever swan in a single workout before!

That aside I was up for the challenge and was ready to see how my 2 months of swimming was going to stack up against some of the best triathletes in the country, let alone the world. Well, to be honest I was not surprised to see that they were much faster than I. And after doing the warm up I was ready to almost call it a day, but seeing Simon and rest of the gang attack the workout definitely inspired me to not look like a quitter.  It was definitely a bit of an ego blow as lap after lap I was having to move out of the way of the lead swimmers.

As the workout came to an end, Simon took the time to help me with my stroke.  Being a novice to the sport I have been looking for all tips and ideas on how to get better, needless to say I was more than excited to hear what Simon had to say.  At this point in the day I must also say that I was impressed with his generosity of his time especially having a family at home as well as a visiting mother! His tips were delivered to me in a way that made me feel not like the complete novice that I was.  After a few attempts I was seeing what he was trying to explain.  note that I said ’seeing’… not ‘doing’…I figure that will come with another couple hundred workouts of this nature!

As we parted from the pool I was reminded that the next workout was in 3 hours, 6X 1 Mile at elk lake big gravel parking lot…. Details to follow soon…