"The Great Equalizer"

In the water buoyancy is everything.  You will know of course that things float or sink based on their weight, compared to the weight of the water they displace.  So big things with lots of air space float, and smaller denser things tend to sink. That's why the old girls at the pool with a few extra chins, porous old bones, and other extra buoyant material would never be able to drown even if they tried.  I happpen to have very dense bones and not very much trapped air in other forms, and as such I sink lilke a rock.  That reality, combined with a lack of athletic ability handicaps me in a serious way when to moving through the water.

So I started this DVD based program called "easy freestyle" from a company called Total Immersion.  The whole program is focused on relaxing in the water, getting streamlined, and getting the most forward motion out of the least amount of exertion.  It starts you right back at the basics and I think it is gonna help me.  Never having had any kind of formal swim coaching I think it will be good to start from scratch.  I am cautiously optimistic but we will see how it goes.  I think it is gonna challenge me mentally as I try to figure it out, but since I know my swimming weakness is not due to strength or fitness limitations, in my head is where the answers lie.  Stay tuned.

In order to challenge myself I do wish to tell you the specific goal I have in mind for the swim training, and perhaps racing portion of Ironman.  In my earlier life (10 years ago) I could swim fairly endlessly at a 20 min/km pace in my speedo.  In preperation for 2009 that had deteriorated to about 23-24 minutes.  I could still do 20 min k's in my wetsuit (in the pool) and in actual fact my Ironman time was just slightly slower than that (1hour 23mins total).  My goal?  I want to get back to the 20 mins in the pool(speedo time), and if I can do that, I believe I can get my overall Ironman time down to 1 hour, 10 mins.  I think I can do it!  Stay tuned.

The swimmin pool at the Y, or rather the mens change room at the Y, gave me my chuckle of the day yesterday as well, and I wish to share it with you.  Actually it was more than a chuckle.  I was laughing my bare ass off  along with a few other naked old gofers.  Here's the scene.

A gentleman cames in from the shower area, arrives at his locker and proceeds to look for the key to his lock.  After frantically searching his person (he was naked) and looking through his towel and his swim trunks, he came to the conclusion that he had either lost the key, or locked it in his locker.  So he puts his trunks back on and heads off to find the maintenance guy.  Some few minutes later he returns with a guy in tow who is carrying a fearsome looking set of bolt cutters.  The gentleman points out the lock in question and the maintneance guy proceeds to snap it in half and toss the parts in the garbage can.  The gentleman says thanks, and proceeds to open  his locker.  I had my back turned by then and so all I heard was, "aaahhh just a minute please", in an attempt to call the maintanance guy back.  "I think I got the wrong locker".  Of course that set up a chorus of groans and laughs from all concerned, including me.  It was priceless.  Apparently his was the adjacent locker.....a locker which innocently displayed a different but similar lock....with you guessed it....the key in the lock!  That's when I started rolling on the floor. 

10 k run today, 52 mins

"Most of us, swimming against the tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise and encouragement - and we will make the goal".---Robert Collier

love
peter