Learning to Swim

In my first triathlon some six years ago the swim was only 400 yards. I searched for a triathlon with the shortest possible swim leg. I still almost drowned. I went off course and panicked and started hyperventilating in my effort to catch up with the rest of the field. The lifeguards on their surf boards surrounded me asking me if I needed to be rescued. I managed to recover by floating on my back for a minute. I then dog paddled the rest of the course. It was a little embarassing to stagger out of the water minutes after all the other participants had finished the swim. But I was happy to survive. Which has generally been my attitude toward the swim part of the triathlon ever since.

So yesterday I met my unofficial triathlon coach, Keren Miers, at the central Tokyo public pool. Keren was alarmed at my poor swimming form and more importantly that I fail to do drills and intervals during my swim training. I usually just go back and forth, back and forth, at my slow speed, until I get bored and stop.

Keren taught me several new drills yesterday that even I could grasp and implement:
- Practice by balling my fingers into a fist to force me to use my whole arm to generate power
- Think about reaching up and "pulling the basketball down" with each stroke
- Spread my fingers out more to create more surface tension (apparently every child learning to swim is taught this and I somehow missed that lesson)

Swim: 75 minutes (2 kilometers)
Bike: 60 minutes (25 kilometers) spin class