It‘s a fact that I haven‘t trained enough in the water and that I can‘t turn back the clock as the Ironman Rapperswil is coming closer and closer (3rd of June). And I am a bit pissed about myself that I didn‘t fight my inner weak in the first discipline. But I have to go through that and that‘s why I was joining yesterdays open water swim with mixed feelings …
With a lot of respect I‘ve entered the water with many other athletes. It looked like the low temperatures were very selective and only the ambitious athletes were in present.
A bit overmotivated, our coaches proposed to start with two hard and fast water starts … that was exactly what i wasn‘t looking for. We normally do that in pre-race trainings to bring up all the adrenaline and the lactate. Yesterday it was the right therapy.
It was an absolutely realistic situation and out of a sudden my motivation was back and I decided to swim with the „stronger“ group several times out to the boat on the long track. Loads of cold water but also long and good strokes. I concentrated on the view out on the boat and the buoys and breathing out. And I found a good rhythm to swim with the first half of the group. All with enough power in the backhand. Great! All positive feelings were back and my new swim suit feels perfect.
The learning of yesterdays swim training is the following: Sometimes we can not turn back the time and bring back the things we haven‘t done. That’s a fact. But we can make the best out of the situation by focussing on the things we can influence, our strengths and thinking positive. For me in open water these elements are: finding the rhythm, breathing out, long and strong strokes (high ellbow), orientation after all 12 strokes and trying to find fast legs. Then I‘ll find the easyness I need to step out of water to bring back the 2 or 3 minutes on the bike and on the run where I am faster than ever before. But that‘s a different story I‘ll write about my last long trainings of this weekend.
Related articles
- Triathlons – Leg 1: The Swim (sarabozich.com)
- First Swim (brokenandbarefoot.wordpress.com)
- Do whatever makes you feel good (diamandmoon.com)
- Swim technique (iswimmer.wordpress.com)
- What open water swimmers say and what they mean (ssssswim.com)
@fight inner weak 