Me and Old Splashy Guy..

Sweet, I woke up this morning and hit the pool by 4:50 am with not a sole in sight until about 5:20 am when Old Splashy Guy showed up. (more on him later) As I started warming up, I realized that my triceps were feeling really fatigued and I remembered that on Wednesday I lifted weights concentrating on biceps/triceps. Not even realizing that it would bother me today.

So as my triceps were feeling heavy and tight I managed to get warmed up and get a few 50's done and work on my bilateral breathing when Old Splash Guy (OSG) showed up. He jumped in the lane next to me and began to swim. As I was swimming with my head in the water I could hear this muffled kurplunk sound echoing through the water and thought what in the heck is that?

As I hit the wall to turn I stopped, waited my 20 seconds and saw OSG violent striking the water like it had just kicked his dog! I mean, the water was literally splashing out of the pool on his side and almost on my side even though our pool only has 2 lanes. So I took off on my next set of 50 and I could here the depth charge kurplunks from the other end of the pool. As we approached each other I kind of got splashed as I was breathing, which, was not really a problem until after I passed him when the water became really wavy causing me to rehydrate myself with pool water, I know it has salt but gee's I don't highly recommend this! LOL. (oh yea, we even have a lane divider and it was still wavy) So keep going and here we are approaching again and yes, once more I start learning the Value of Bilateral breathing. So I switch side to breath when we pass and yet again the water behind him is all over the place.

I think to myself, self; this is only a little wavy water in a control pool where you can touch the bottom if need be and realize that IM swim starts could be really scary! After reading some interesting posting on swim starts from fellow IMOO'ers, I now know that my swimming needs Major improvement and I need to relax when I unintentionally decide to rehydrate with pool water, yuk again.

So I swim about 500 y, and I stop to notice OSG is taking about 36 strokes per 25 yards! But he is continuously swimming and hasn't stopped. So I guess he's got it down far better than I, at this point.

When I finally reach 650 y I seem to have this problem which involves screaming and acting like a fish in shallow water, Calve Cramps! And one thing I cannot stand is my calve cramping! I felt it in the 650y set and kept going and when I got to the 700 y set it began to cramp so I stopped in the middle of the pool. I thought what the heck, why do I always cramp around 700 yards, I thought maybe it was my nutrition yesterday but that went out the window when I know it just happens no matter day I swim. So I guess it's due to overall deconditioning of swimming and that's when I realize that my swimming sucks and actually admired OSG who kept turning out laps. After the cramping starts no matter how I swim it will immediately start again so then my swim is done. This is something that I will have to improve on because cramps are part of Ironman and you cannot simply give in when your on the swim!

I am sure we all run into a OSG somewhere along our adventures of swimming and even though he made all kinds of water waves and splashes it was nice to have a different swim condition, although definetly not Ironman swim starts but at least something to make me think about my current swimming condition and where I need to go to take that 1 Step Closer to Ironman.

Rockon`