2016 Training - The Zen of Swimming

 

In 2015 I was so diligent about swim training. 

So diligent, and yet my whole swim experience was of near-drowning, oxygen-deprived agony.  

I would desperately struggle to stay with my teammate for 100-meters, gasping and sputtering the whole way.   

And before I could recover, we would do another 100-meters.   And then another, and another... 

I lived in constant dread at the prospect of the next horrific, nightmarish swim session.

My whole life deteriorated into a miserable, joyless slog -- I would go to bed dreading the thought of having to do a swim workout the next day, suffer through nightmares about swimming, and awaken to a wave of fear and dread at the prospect of that day’s workout. 

And I didn't improve.  

In fact my swimming got slower.  My time of 43 minutes for the triathlon swim in Korea was far longer than the  38 minutes it took me to cover 1.9-kilometers at Frankfurt and the 36 minutes it took me in Taiwan. 



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So this year I just do 20-minute relaxed sessions at my Spa

I use a big, buoyant pull buoy.  I focus on a few simple mechanics — chest down, stomach in, hips up.  Follow-through.

I don't worry about the clock or competitive concerns. Rather I simply try to stay in that present moment.  

Much of my focus is on breathing.  Bilateral breathing —  stroke, stroke, breath left, stroke, stoke, breath right.  

During these swims I start to realize a state of blissful placid calm.  I find that I am even achieving some of the meditative serenity and mindfulness that has always eluded me in yoga 

I am at one with the water surrounding me.  I am the water. The water is me.  There is no separation.  (Okay, I am starting to exaggerate, but only just a bit.) 

Anyway, I am not certain that there exists any relationship between these swim sessions and the tumultuous swim legs of my upcoming triathlons. We will see. But no matter -  my 2016 training is much more consistent with my training philosophy