Catherine Juon's "one thing" to not DNF swim in Muncie?
Muncie is just 3 weeks away, and I'm concerned I'm so slow that I'll DNF the swim. I can think of a lot of things to work on, but with the limited time, I'm thinking I'd be wise to find the "one thing" that would make the most difference and focus on that.
Brief backstory: I've had some amount of swim panic on all ~6 of my sprint / oly tri's. After struggling in my first race of the season 2 weeks ago, I signed up for another tri this past weekend to work on it before Muncie. I finally overcame my fear of warming up in the water before a race, and actually swam the whole way for the first time with no sidestroke, no kayaks, no omigod maybe I should have them pull me out panic. Yeah!
Assuming I've now learned to manage my nerves, the next issue is speed - or rather, lack thereof in the swim. It's frustrating, because I've gone from last in the pack to improving everything outside of the swim to the point where I can be competitive (in local sprints; not Ironman. ;-). This weekend I improved every aspect of my time over last weekend (swim, transition times, bike, run), netting me 5th place, same as last weekend. I came in 3rd on the bike (21.9), 3rd on the run (9:00), last in transition (this I know how to fix!) and last in the swim by 2 full minutes - 17 minutes (37:25).
My concern is at that rate in a sprint, and with the extra traffic to navigate in the Ironman swim and my fledgling sighting ability (in other words, it's not likely I'll swim the shortest possible distance!), my odds don't seem good. So, what to do?
- Do I embark on finding a local coach to "fix" my stroke?
- Do I just spend more time in open water working on sighting without messing up my stroke?
- Do I drive to Indy (4 hours each way) and spend a weekend at a 2nd Total Immersion clinic this weekend? (did one a couple years ago)
- Do I take my Total Immersion book to the pool and work the drills every day between now and Muncie?
- Take a magic swim faster pill?
Help? I have no concerns about being able to do the work of the bike or the run at Muncie, it's just the swim. And because my swim offers so many opportunities for improvement ;-), it's hard to know what the smartest investment of my time would be in the short window I've got before Muncie. Looking forward to your sage advice.
Comments
If it were me....
1. Read Mike Roberts swim info inside the team like it was my job (overall and short term this is a great resource)
2. Not miss a single swim workout and focus on FORM (remember, you're only suppose to swim as fast as your ability to maintain form)
3. Draft in the swim on race day (1. if you're comfortable and 2. if its possible)
4. Let the cards go where they go on race day, there is no magic swim pill, I think if you are calm, focus on form and not miss a single training swim day from now until then, you'll make it. But if not, thats a learning tool, its ok, if you've done all you can do and thats where your fitness and swim stroke is on race day, then the rest is out of your control, if its not in your control its not in your box.
I would be interested to see what others in the team have to say but as someone who is a slow swimmer, those are the things I've always done, and its worked for me. I had someone review my stroke (still need to do another analysis again) I got comfortable with OWS (joined a group and swam twice a week for over a year) and have mastered the art of drafting in the swim (no clue how much time it actually adds but if nothing else, it helps me swim more straight!)
Catherine,
Sadly, there's no magic pill. And, frankly, there's not much you can do with your stroke in 3 weeks. That said, there's a lot you can do. First, you have to get the DNF thought out of your head. Permanently. You've got plenty of time, and you will finish. But that DNF nonsense will do absolutely nothing positive for you. Second, by accomplishing #1, you can start to relax a bit. Tension is terrible for swimming and it will slow you down tremendously. And you will tense up long before you panic. So, you absolutely need to focus on relaxing during the race. Which is far easier said than done. I hate being swallowed up and surrounded by a crowd in the water (I'll walk down 30 flights of stairs before jamming into a crowded elevator). My solution is long, slow breaths. Forget counting strokes and focus only on the sound of your breathing. Find a calming word and slowly say it under water while you're slowly exhaling. I would avoid words like "help," "sucks" and "terrified" and instead go with "butterflies," "Upton" or "Hasselhoff" - whatever helps navigate you to a happy spot. You're in one of the very last waves in Muncie, which is good. Not as many people will swim over you, so find a line and go as straight as possible, even if you have to sight constantly. Third, swim as much as you can in the next two weeks, in a pool or in a lake. Swim 2,500 yards straight a few times and build the confidence that you can do this. Finally, I'm pretty sure Muncie is a classic "fence" race, meaning water temps are always in the mid-70's, close to the cut-off. If it's 78-80 and you have a wetsuit, wear the wetsuit, even if it means going off in the last wave.
Then, once Muncie is done, start planning a long-term swim improvement project.
Best of luck.
MR
Thanks, all!
Indeed, I know the attitude makes a difference, and I'm happy that I've made progress there with my most comfortable swim yet in my last tri. My strategy there was to tell myself "it's just another swim" as I don't have issues with open water practice - just race day. It just seems like it will be harder to maintain that mantra at Ironman.(!) Hasselholf did make make me giggle though, so I'll keep that in mind to add levity race morning. :-)
My concern about making it in time is genuine (albiet stated overly dramatically)...
I read the swim thread of Mike's - lots of info there! Clearly he's our team swim expert. :-) With so many things to potentially focus on, it's a bit hard to know where to start. So I reflected that one thing I do differently in swimming vs. other disciplines—I don't track workouts. So I finally broke down and got the Garmin Swim and did a half iron swim and finished in ~53 minutes. This leaves me feeling a bit more confident, as I'm still hopeful I can make minor improvements between now and the race that should keep me in the 50 min. range even with losses for sighting, traffic, etc.
Even better, I happened to be doing my test in a lane next to a national tri champ, who when I shared my test, offered that with a time like that, I basically wasn't pulling the water. She observed enough of my stroke to give me my "one thing" to work on. She noted my right arm stays nearly horizontal and I adjust my wrist to point my fingers down and "pull"... It sounds like I need to keep my wrist straighter and extend my arm down—which felt to me like "over the barrel" while under the water—and I always thought that phrase was only about getting my elbow up out of the water. And maybe that is what it's supposed to mean, but I'm going to try to apply it to underwater and measure again and see if things improve!
1) Focusing on form is critical in the swim, as others have mentioned above. It helps you to calm down and obviously it helps your form. In the swims leading up to the race, make sure you figure out what it is while you're swimming that helps you focus on form rather than panicking. For me, when I start to feel anxious in the swim, I count to 100. then count to 100 again. and again. and again.
2) Get that DNF crap out of your head as Mike stated. I DNFed IMWI on the bike by 3 minutes last year. I'm 100% positive that if I would have had a better defense against the pesky thoughts and worries the last 20 miles, I would have finished. You're right. You need to find that one thing that's going to keep you motivated, and pushing hard. Unfortunately, I, and probably no one on the team knows exactly what that is for you. If you need a little boost in the positive thinking & mental strength category over the next couple weeks & you're into reading -maybe try picking up the books Grit or Swimming to Antarctica, both have inspired me to persevere when the going gets tough or when I start to question my ability.
Good luck to you! I'm looking forward to reading your race report. You're going to crush it!
All the advice given above is excellent and there is nothing I can say better, other than I am a beginning swimmer. I took up Tri's to bust my fear (ie, never learned to swim), I am slow but using the techniques above I get it done.
I am also racing (participating in) Muncie, look me up if you want to chat.
-Mike
Catherine, kudos to you for biting the bullet to measure your swim. I can't tell you how many people are so spun up about things that they haven't even measured. As they say in business: if you measure it, you can manage it. The best part about 53 minutes for 2100 yards is that you know know your 100 pace is 2:30 -- that's for a continuous room of course, not for individual repetitions. You probably seem closer to 210 if you are doing 100's. The point is you want to work on getting those 100 interval times down in the two-minute range by improved technique. That will then translate backup to your longer swims. Good luck with what you're working on, making improvements to the swim is challenging but super exciting!
Thanks, all! And @Mike, I look forward to meeting you in Muncie! I appreciate the good mojo, words of encouragement, and additional context more than you'll ever know!
Today I had the funniest practice ever—better swim therapy than one could ever plan. A couple tri buddies switched gears to do my prescribed race rehearsal in open water instead of the SBR workout they had planned... We stopped after one out and back across the lake for a technique lesson... And stopped to "chat" with a guy on a pontoon boat on the other side of the lake—he was playing 20 questions about our swim buoys and everything under the sun(?!)... And even with all of that I *STILL* finished in less than 1:10. So, presuming I don't stop to chat up all the people on kayaks during the race, I'm thinking I should be good.
Also, lesson learned: pack both mirrored and non-mirrored googles for race day... It was dark and rainy this morning, and I could hardly see with the mirrored goggles on. Dark water/dark sky/dark goggles=bad combo!