What I Learned About Open Water Swimming

Many thanks to Rob for taking a group of us Cville Traithletes out to the lake at Walnut Creek Park on Saturday for some open water swimming. Those that were there, I think picked up some good tips on how to handle open water swimming. Here's what I learned.

1) At the start, it's generally better to find some clear space to swim. Try to stay out of the scrum in the middle. Rob had a great analogy that explains why the scrum at the start happens. Take a pack of straws and hold them in your hand upright. This is bascially what everyone looks like at the start line before swimming. Everyone is crammed close together and is upright either on land or treading water if it's an in water start. OK, now let all the straws go and see what happens. They all fall down on top of each other! Some starws are buried like three deep - depending on how many starws you use.

This is compelling for a couple reasons. First, it shows that the scrum is the result of simple geometry. It is not because triathletes are a bunch of hypercompetitive goons . OK maybe many are - but the scrum would happen even if the race was populated by 1,000 pacificsts and buddhists!

So, if I know that this is going to hppen no matter what. And we know WHY it's going to happen, I can take steps to make sure I'm not on the bottom of the pile of straws. I can create some space for myself. The easiest way of course is simply to move to a location where there are fewer people. I love Rob's suggestion for in water starts to get yoursefl to a horizontal position before the gun goes off. People will naturally give you space as you scull out with your hands and as your legs kick up behind them - great call!

2) Following and drafting - BUYER BEWARE. Be careful who you choose to try and follow or draft from. They may or may not know what they are doing and you could get screwed. This actually happened when we did some practice swimming. Tre headded off to the wrong buy with 1 other guy in town right behind him. They both ended up way off course and behind on that particular siwm by more than a minute.

3) Know the course really well ahead of time. During you warm up its a really good idea to be sure to have looked in detail at the entire course. Make sure you know where the first bouy is you are swimming to - some I demonstrated myself in our first practice run by swimming in completely the wroing direction. Make sure you know where the turns are and how you want to handle them. Know what the finish area looks like and what you'll need to deal with.

4) Keep swimming! Whatever happens, just keep plugging away. It takes A LOT more energy to restart once you've stopped than it does to simply slow down a little bit while you ctach your breath if you need to.

Rob had lots of other good tips too, but I wanted to capture a couple key things I took away.

Congrats to all the Cville International Triathletes!

Great job y'all! Lot's of high finishes by the local crew. For those who don't know, this is a tough course! The lake siwm in pretty nice. Then you're in for 40K of pretty solid hill riding. Finally you are treated to 10K on a course designed for mountain bikes! Watch out for roots, switchbacks and the occaisional mud hole!

http://www.cvilletriathlete.com/RaceCenter/International/tabid/198/Default.aspx

Cville Bike & Tri Rocks!

Today I must give a shout out to the dudes at Cville Bike & Tri! HOLLA!

On Friday afternoon I was tuning my bike up a little bit - the derailleur has become a little sticky from many miles of riding - some of it in the rain. So I'm giving it a little lube hear and there and making some adjustments to the limit screws. Suddenly one of the fastener pins just pops right out! OK, this doesn't seem too good. So I try to push the pin back in, but it just won't stay in place.

So I take the bike up to the Cville Bike & Tri guys who explain that this particular part is machine pressed at the factory and is really not fixable. OH CRAP! How can that be? The bike a barely 1 year old! Now I'm thinking that a nice weekend of bike riding is going to be killed while I get this part replaced.

No worries they say. Good news is they have the same part in stock. Bad news is the part costs $70. OK, as bike parts go, that's not too bad - but I wasn't really looking for ways to get ride of my ca$h.

But wait there's more. Paul gets on the phone with the manufacturer and in 15 minutes has approval to send the old derailleur back as a warranty replacement. YAY! I get my bike back the very next day and the weekend is saved!

Thanks guys!

The Need for Speed

Terrible headline. I know, I know.

We ran on the track this morning. I met up with some folks from the Cville Triathlon group at the UVA track. This was the first time I had run an organized track workout since high school! It was fun. Nicole had planned at set of 6 x 1,000m with 3 minutes rest in between. I honestly didn't know what the heck I was doing. I showed up with no real plan for the day - I even forgot to bring my watch so I could check splits! What a goof!

The workout was pretty good, but I have a feeling a real coach would call it a failure. My 1K splits were: 3:37, 3:36, 3:38, 3:37, 3:28, 3:24. These felt very easy. I was feeling pretty stiff for the first three. Then during the second half my legs finally started to loosen up a bit and felt strong.

Should also say, I held back for most of these on purpose. Since I have no idea how my body is going to respond to running a little bit faster, I am paranoid of blowing a gasket. As I gain some experience with this, I'll be more comfortable challenging myself. For the next few weeks, as I layer in this type of work, I'll be loafing it just a little bit.

Definitely felt like a strange workout. I'm a little lost in all this stuff - don't know what types of pace I should be holding, not sure what the right rest interval is and don't know how these are supposed to feel. So, time to do some research and reading! My favorite - a new area to explore. This should be good.

BLOWOUT!

And I don't mean that in the good sense. Went riding with the Tuesday/Thursday group last night. About 10 miles into a 30 miles ride, my rear tire took a full on blow out! Shredded the tire and exposed the wiring that runs along the rim. Unridable. Lucky for me Brendan was kind enough to head on back and grab a vehicle to rescue. Many thanks Brenda!

Here's how the tire looks nows. I'm glad a was cruising along pretty slowly when this went, could have been ugly.