Pool Time

My 11:30am meeting got canceled this morning so I thought it was perfect since there is an 11:30am spin class at the gym and I haven't been to one in a couple of months.  But, then I noticed my teammate, Jasmine, who will be crossing the IM Canada finish line in two weeks (woo hoo), posted a Youtube video of last year's IMC swim start (I am somewhere in that crowd on the beach).  This video literally put a pit in my stomach.  

I can honestly say it is the first time that I actually got nervous.  Why?  I just swam 2.4 miles less than two weeks ago.  I know I can do it.  But, I also know that it wasn't easy.  And, that I have neglected my swim workouts because a) I'm not motivated like I am with the bike and run workouts; and b) it's not convenient finding a pool on the road that has lap swimming in the hours that I can go.  Let's face it.  Swimming is just not convenient at all - the cold, the wet, the changing, the showering, the chlorine, the locker rooms, the getting dressed while still wet, the hanging of stuff to dry, etc.  All the disciplines have their own variation of that, but swimming is twice as much effort.

OK, I digress.  So after literally feeling sick to my stomach from watching this, I decided it might be a good idea go to the pool instead!  And, I reflected that I have not been to the pool once this summer.  How can that be, you ask?  You're training for an effin Ironman, you exclaim.  Yeah, yeah I know.  It's not like I haven't been swimming.  It's that I haven't been going to the pool and have been opting for open water instead.  Missing pool workouts means I'm missing out on techniques and drills and cardiovascular building.  Open water has given me the confidence that I can swim without stopping, practice with sighting, dealing with waves, salt water, choppy water, seasickness, etc., and has provided lots of experience learning where I get the wetsuit hickeys and where I just get rubbed raw (all very good things to know and learn from come race  day).

Anyway, I'm swimming and my stroke feels like crap.  Slowly as the workout progressed, I noticed that I began to swim smoother, my catch up was better, my stroke got longer, etc.  Although I might as well have been in the open water because I managed to get motion sickness from all the fasties in the lane next to me making so many waves with their dolphin kicks.  But the reality of how much time I have been away from the pool kicked in when I had to remind myself I couldn't just pee whenever I felt like it (as one of the coaches at Vineman said, "There are two kinds of people.  Those that pee in their wetsuit and those that lie about it and say they don't pee in their wetsuit").

Bottom line:  I will be forcing myself to actual pool workouts at least twice a week for the next three months no matter how inconvenient it is.  Because now that I've made it public, I have to own up to it.