Irony

Life is full of irony it seems. 

You wanted to lose some fat, you ended up with lots of excess skins

When you watch your diet, but ended up carbo-loading like hell prior to the marathons 

You want to live healthier and run for passion, you ended driving so far to races

You want to just run everyday, feel the cool air in your hair, but ended up with ITBs, shin splints etc

... etc etc etc

And today, Nik Arief illustrated to us that wearing a wet suit adds bouyancy in the water (and swim a lot faster) which will definitely help my weak water threading. For a moment, I felt my prayers for fear of the open water swimming was answered.

The irony? I will be confined to swim in foreign waters only, with certain seawater temperatures as it is banned in Malaysia (talk about excuses for family travels... ehehe). Not bad if I have few riban ringgits to burn, and not succumbing to few months of cream crackers' diet.

Today, we had our swim drills after a week's absence. Coach Eric dished out 10x100m swim, with flipturns on every laps. After warming up, he watched us as we swim 4 strokes, and turn, and continue swimming on. That was relatively easy.

Then comes the wall drill - how to approach the wall, when to flip and all the things involved during the flippings, turning/twisting, and power projectile as we propel off the wall. 

For the record - I have no coordination skills whatsoever. Thank goodness my wife is not into dancing.

All the drills are better explained in the water more than in blog, so I'll save time writing and spend more time practising.

The hardest part for today was when our drill started. It proves that my breathing is still sporadic. Like pacing, I need to know when will be the last breath before the approach and the distance. A swimmer need to practice to know this by heart.

98% of my approaches and projection either ended in stopping half way, or almost drown under water. It seemed that the effort taken during the swim spared little energy required to flip and push me off the wall, and the time needed to recover into the normal swims.

As much as today was enlightening, I felt crappy.

Now, it all sounds like complaining, but it is just a step. I complained a lot when I first picked up running... breathing was hard, it was raining, I almost puke etc etc etc. I just need to get on the groove.