Life in the Fast Lane (and neat news)

Masters Swim

Oh yeah, the switched to long course too

You know what's harder than having a rough day in the water alone?
Having a rough day in the water on a team. I was draaaaaaaging ass last night during Masters. Last Thursday was pretty great. I felt fast, I felt strong, I felt good. But for whatever reason, last night was one of those nights. Where no matter how hard I wanted to push I couldn't It was a mental block and a physical one, and they played against each other. I probably would have been ok if I didn't get in feeling slow. But I did. And then I got put in the fast lane, which I deserve, and started getting my ass kicked. Getting your ass kicked either a) makes you work harder to hang or b) drives your motivation into the bottom of the pool. I can get to option a, but last night was all about option b. I was having none of it. I seriously considered bailing on the workout about halfway through. And if I was swimming alone I probably would have. I'd have thought, "I got in 1500yds, that's good enough for today," and gotten out. I'd have felt crappy about myself for bailing, but it would have happened.
Not in a group. No matter how slow I feel and out of it I am, swimming in a group will keep my egocentric ass in the pool.
Oh yeah, the other thing that probably contributed to my death by swimming was, as you noticed in the above picture you observant reader you, long course! Yep, this is one of them fancy-shmancy pools that can be converted from long course to short course. For those of you out there in InternetsLand who don't know what those terms mean, very quickly-
Short Course- the pool is 25 yds long, this is traditional distance for most swim leagues because most pools are this length
Long Course- the pool is 50m long, this is the distance of Olympic pools.
Often there is a long course season and a short course season for swimmers, normally so the fast people can adjust in time for Big Meets. Where I was coming up we predominantly swam short course. Our pool was not set up for long course. I did a few long course meets, but they were few and far between. It's a fun novelty for me, but man is it an adjustment.
The difference between a meter and a yard is very small, but the difference between 25yds and 50m is huge. It screws with your brain. You start looking for a wall long before you get to it, and if you're dumb enough to glance up as your swimming because the wall has to be coming up I must be done with this lap soon only to see it waaaaaaaaaay off in the distance you do the Big Sigh Of Disappointment. You adjust rather quickly, but it's still a long way. 100m is only 109.3yds, so it doesn't seem like much, but those 9.3s add up when you aren't used to it.
To be sure, long course is better for triathletes to train in. I love the wall, I have a good turn, I can use the wall. But in the open water? No walls. Fewer turns in the pool are good for me.
There is also some nifty-neat news in the world of Dirtbag Fitness. Today I was part of a podcast put on by Kevin Koskella, of TriSwimCoach. He was looking to talk about relationships and triathlon and I threw myself into the conversation mostly because of this article. He liked what I had to say, so myself and Kat Gunsur, who wrote this article for active.com. It's funny, you should read it. We had a fun, good conversation. I'm really glad I got to be a part of it. Kevin says it'll take him about ten days to edit and post the pod and you can be sure I'll be talking it up here, on the twitters, and on Facebook. Wow, that was a lot of links in one paragraph. This is my first podcast and the next step in Dirtbag Fitness taking over the world!