The riding has been going very well...but I spend most of my time on my 20 year old bike dreaming about a new one. By the way, it's a little dangerous to daydream on a bike at 20 mph. Regardless, I have a great desire to obtain new wheels! I'm struggling though...new road bike or new tri specific bike. I honestly won't decide until I finish my 2 planned triathlons this year (well, maybe one). Of course, right now I would lean towards a tri specific bike, but I want to make sure I'm going to enjoy these tris before I spend the $$$. Bikes, after all, are an investment. I'm sure there will be more updates on this in future posts...hopefully near future.
After the marathon, when I really started hitting the pool, I had to go through some swimming growth. Those that know me, know that I've never been a strong swimmer.
I didn't grow up swimming...could barely even get a lap in the pool in high school. A friend of mine, Rich taught me to swim (for exercise) in my early 20's. As much as that helped, I only swam then for about one year. Now I'm in my 30's...okay, late 30's and I'm trying to take it back up, with no help in the pool...for triathlons?!? Now, I'm jumping in and cranking out 2800 yards at a time. Okay, it's been a struggle at times though. For example, I've had several instances where I've tried to concentrate so hard on my swimming, that I forgot to turn my head out of the water to breathe. Not good, when you don't have gills. Luckily, I was able to work through those issues.
Now that I'm getting pretty comfortable in the pool, I've decided to try and improve by implementing flip turns. This is actually, quite funny to me...the thought of me doing flip turns. I have very little coordination in the pool and if you could see my attempts at flip turns now, you'd laugh. So far, out of the maybe 20 turns I've done, I've had maybe 4 where I thought "hey, that was pretty good!" Of course, those were followed by ones where I thought "wow, that was really not good and hopefully nobody was watching." Usually these are the ones where I've turned much earlier than I should (you really have to get pretty close to the wall to do it right, but I fear cracking my heel on the concrete) and go to kick but my feet find nothing but water...this is a disappointing feeling. So far, I've learned one very important lesson for those attempting to learn flip turns on your own. Make sure you've completed your rotation before you kick off the wall. If you don't, you push off the wall and drive your head right into the floor of the pool. I don't recommend this method. Fortunately for me, I had two advantages in this particular situation: 1) the floor of this particular pool is smooth and designed for lap swimming; therefore, it hasn't been left rough like many public pools. Had it been that way, I would have lost approximately 16.2% of the hair I have left. 2) I have a very hard head. My dad and brother will back me up on this. Sure everyone's skull is pretty tough, but the Taylor boys seem to be a little more so...either that or we've been hit so hard so many times that those portions of the brain no longer recognize the pain and simply sacrifice a few more brain cells. Still, hitting my head was not that pleasurable and I will try to avoid this on all future swims. If I'm unsuccessful, I'll be the guy in the pool wearing my bike helmet...makes for faster transitions anyway, right?
I'm now down to one week until my first triathlon...a sprint distance (750 meter swim, 14 mile bike and 3.5 mile run). I'm nervous...but in an anxious way, so I think that's good. I've rented my wet suit (water temps of high 60s...well, maybe not after this week's heat wave) and have all the gear I need. Now I just need to get to the race and give it all I can. My next blog should be my race report...I know you're waiting to read it.
"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." - Steve Prefontaine
Thanks for reading.
- Brian
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