So....as the title indicates, tonight was our first time swimming as a team at Tates Creek Pool. For those of you who have been following my blog throughout this experience, this is the pool where I had a very bad swim with Janine early on in our training. It was after that particular swim that I decided it was Lancaster Aquatic Center swimming or no swimming at all. Well, now we don't have that luxury because the UK pool is closed (can't remember if I already mentioned that or not).
I am happy to say that tonight's experience at Tates Creek was much better than the first. There were a lot less people and they had more lane lines open for swimmers. Practice consisted of drills and freestyle swimming with different amounts of rest between each set. We did have about 6 people in our one lane though which made it a little crowded. I hit the swimmer in front of me on more than one occasion and so the coach and mentors were yelling "pass him/her". Well...to say that passing heightens my anxiety a bit is a MAJOR understatement. After multiple times of passing I finally kind of got the hang of it but wouldn't consider myself prepared for passing in the future. Susan had more time to provide individual attention and pointers so that was really nice. I feel like I learned some real fundamental things that I was not doing correctly so that is an awesome thing.
After we were done swimming I was chit-chatting with Susan and I learned something about her that SHOCKED me! Susan - our hard core, super buff, super triathlete coach wasn't always a swimmer/biker/runner. Do you want to know what she spent most of her time doing as a youngster through college? CHEERING - yes, I didn't stutter - I said CHEERING. WHAT!?!?!?!? I am totally shocked and surprised by that. I just assumed she had always been doing this. It was a great story how it all started. She has been swimming most of her life but not really competitively - more for practical purposes of knowing HOW to swim rather than swim any distance or speed. Once she finished Cheering for UK and got married she took up playing tennis with her husband. Her husband encouraged her to run because his advice was that it would help her be a better tennis player. So - run she did and through running she met John of the local run shop - John's run/walk shop. Once John learned that she could swim and run he encouraged her to try a triathlon. She said she thought he was crazy because she didn't own that kind of bike. He helped her get a bike and she registered for her first event in which she ended up winning the women's division. She said from that point forward she was hooked and now look at her? AMAZING! I just figured she'd been doing this for forever. She now spends time coaching the UK masters swim team, coaching TNT participants and she even has her own event named after her. She went from not having a bike to now riding a bike that was custom made for her and even has her name written on it. ha! I just can't get over it. It was nice talking to her though. I feel like I know her better now and its just cool.
Anyhow - I am beat but happy that the swim went so well. I have officially swam 400 meters without stopping. That is 1/2 way there. Yay!
No comments:
Post a Comment