Fish out of water got back in, finally

Me and Bob, my coach from age 6-18 on WWRX :) 

For the readers out there that don't already know this, swimming is my specialty when it comes to athletics.  That's part of the reason I'm excited to do this triathlon--I know that I will do well in at least a third of the race.

There is one slight problem though: until last night, I haven't swam a lap in a pool for over a year and a half. In the last five or six years, I've swam an average of once per year.

The good news is that swimming is a sport that is all about technique. My  coach throughout my childhood, Bob, drilled technique into me.  I saw Bob more than I saw my father during the years I swam.  Swimming technique is second nature to me. It is second nature to anyone who was coached by Bob. Forgetting it would be like forgetting how to ride a bike.  Even if I were to go another ten years without swimming, I know that I could hop into a pool during adult lap swim in Anywhere, USA and probably be the  fastest  person there, and not because I am in particularly good shape.

The bad news is that this is far from being the case when I practice with a competitive team.  It's impossible to go from "not swimming at all" to "fast" without putting some work in.  This became clear to me when I went to a Master's Team (Agua at Asphalt Green on the UES) practice a couple of years ago.  While I was able to complete the workout with everyone, I was immovably exhausted by the end.  I didn't go back again.

So, for this triathlon, I'm confident in my ability to become fast again and finish in the top portion of swimmers.    But I won't be very competitive unless I start practicing.

To remedy this, I headed to Stuyvesant High School around 7:00 PM yesterday.  The high school is about 15 minutes from my apartment.  I was excited to see the pool-- Stuyvesant has a reputation for being one of the best public schools in the country.  Frank McCourt taught there. Four of its graduates have won Nobel Prizes. I thought the pool would be as impressive as the its reputation.

But it wasn't. The pool was a standard high school pool, and it looked like any other high school pool I had swam in before (except for maybe the one at Greenwich High).  The locker room was a rusty and dirty, the pool was a poorly lit, and the water was a little too warm.  For me--this is a good thing. The pool made me feel right at home.  It felt like a place that people came to work hard. For me, fancy pools are places I went to compete at the ends of seasons and get best times.  These pools (like Stuyvesant's) are training pools.

My workout started with a warm-up of a 400 yd swim, a 200 yd kick, and another 200 yd. swim.  The main workout was: 900 yd swim, 1 min rest, 600 yd pull (no legs), 1 min rest, 400 yd swim, 200 yd kick, 3x100 IMs, and 6x50yd backstroke.  It ended with a 200 yd cool down.  Total yards = 3900. The workout took me about an hour and 15 mins.

My times were abysmally slow.  I'm really sore and exhausted today.  I know that I'll be able to do a 1500 meter swim, but unless I start swimming on a regular basis, I won't be at the top of the pack in June.  So, I am going to join Stuyvesant's Community Center and start swimming there on a regular basis, hopefully two to four times a week.