Before & After - Total Immersion Wrap Up

This coming Saturday is the last day of my Total Immersion class.  I started taking TI back in December, with little to no previous swim instruction.  My first season of triathlon swimming felt more like what I imagine a hamster would feel like if you threw it in a pool - lots of thrashing around, fear, and not much forward momentum.  Certainly the swim leg of my first two sprints was something that I survived, rather than excelled at.  I've already written one post mid-class extolling the virtues of TI swimming and how it has changed my experience in the water.  Coming to the end of the class I can only repeat the already positive things I've already said.  If pictures paint 1000 words, then videos must be even more illustrative.  So here you go:

BEFORE

AFTER

Some of the big differences should be obvious between my swimming at the beginning of class and end.  Overall, I'm a lot quieter in the water (less splashing).  That's not because I'm moving more slowly. I'm not. My overall stroke count for 25 meters has gone from 30 strokes per length to 19 strokes per length.  That's consistent at most paces for me now, even when I'm stroking pretty quickly (which I'm not in these videos bc of my sore shoulder).  My head position is much better, even though I have room to improve on that while breathing.  My balance in the water is greatly improved.  My legs no longer sink if I'm not kicking vigorously.  I can, in fact, swim without kicking at all and still maintain my position.  These are all huge improvements.

Some differences you cannot see.  That I enjoy swimming much much more now.  That I find it relaxing instead of stressful.  That I look forward to my swimming days instead of dread them.  That I'm looking forward to the open water season in a way I never did before.

There is a certain amount of discord regarding the "right way" to swim.  Total Immersion vs. conventional practice.  I cannot speak with any confidence about right and wrong outside my own experience, which is that TI helped me learn to swim in a way that was right for me.  By breaking down every part of your stroke, teaching me how to relax in the water, teaching balance, swimming has become a completely different sport.  Completely different experience.  I would highly recommend it to anyone who feels like a drowning hamster, is starting their first or second season and is still uncomfortable in the water, or just wants to learn a different way of looking at swimming.

(Side note - do not ever google "drowning hamster" in an attempt to find a funny cartoon for your blog.  It's disturbing.  People are sick)

Loose Ends - Injury / Diet Update:  

I went to physical therapy this afternoon for my shoulder and for a wicked case of TMJ that I seem to have developed.  It happens a few times per year when life gets particularly stressful.  Which it is for me at the moment.  A cocktail of work stress, kid stress, and taper week stress has caused my body to revolt.  I've cried about seven times in the last 24 hours, twice actually at work (which is awesome.  Highly recommended for your career). 

Anyway, the folks at Central Mass Physical Therapy are great.  A large proportion of their practitioners are triathletes, including my therapist Laura who also follows my blog.  The latter is great because they really take a whole-body, whole life approach to your therapy (including keeping you up and training as much as possible).  The latter is great both because she clearly has excellent taste in reading material, and because I never have to fill her in on what I've been up to.

Laura noted (rightly) that I never wrapped up my Clean Eating adventure.  I've alluded to it, but yes, I did drop off the clean eating wagon.  For a multitude of factors.  Cost, my son's utter rejection of all things gluten-free, and general laziness.  Once my running mileage starting topping over 15 miles per week, I switched onto the "Eat Everything in the Refrigerator" plan, with blatant disregard to what I was putting in my mouth, and a complete laziness as to meal planning and organization.  Which you really need to have.  Truthfully, my stomach problems did not seem to improve on the diet.  I may have been a little less moody (Jedi says he couldn't tell), but I believe the sugar was the biggest contributing factor. Maybe I wouldn't be the emotional mess I am right now if I'd stayed on plan.  Who knows. I'm still trying to reduce the amount of sugar I eat.  Despite the presence of these in my house (my Easter favorite):

Do.  Not.  Eat.  Whole.  Bag.  Not carbo-loading!

After having me go through the usual movement evaluation (bend over touch your toes, look down, touch your chin to your collarbone, etc.) Laura also confirmed what I already guessed.  That the exterior rotator cuff muscles in my right shoulder are quite weak and painful, and not really doing what they are supposed to.  Most likely they haven't been in years, since I first injured that shoulder during martial arts.  Also I have an epic amount of tension in my neck and upper shoulders, which is very likely contributing to the jaw pain.  Pain that, at the moment, is severe enough that I'm nauseous and almost seeing double.  She prescribed some excellent and unbelievably painful tricks with a foam roller and tennis ball, made seven more appointments over the next month, and thinks I'll be fine. Once again leaving me to wish I was a professional athlete who only had to concern themselves with their training, their therapy, and their nutrition, instead of all of the above plus that pesky job/family/bills/life.  Ah well.

Since it's taper week, I'll end this post with my biggest athletic project so far.  Resting.  With my kitty, working on my Boston Strong scarf for the Boston Marathon.

Last minute free advice for taper week?  Hit me!

Screw It

It's funny how life's experiences have a way of coming around again, no matter how far in the distant past you think you're placed them.  No matter how much you swear you've forgotten them.  Those following my blog for a while might remember that I come from a martial arts background.  It is, in fact, how I met my husband, and the reason I refer to him as the Jedi.  They might also remember that it has been years since my husband and I have practiced, mostly due to the lack of time and training partners that comes with moving and starting a family, but also due to the untimely death of our teacher a few years ago.  We have vague plans of starting a school at some point in the future - especially my husband who I think misses teaching.  But all things karate for me are tinged with a bit of regret and sadness, both at the loss of a friend and of what used to be a big part of my life.

This weekend brought martial arts to the front of my mind for two reasons.  First, because Lego's little guy is turning the big "0-5", and had a party in his dojo today.  I called dibs on making his cake, of course.  Unbeknownst to me, they would slice it (or try to) with a giant samurai sword.  Too funny.

Perhaps because karate was already on my mind this morning, I made a major mental connection between martial arts and swimming.  Really.  Total Immersion swimming teaches propulsion driven from a streamlined body position, weight shift emanating from the core, and their "two-beat" kick.  When I swim, I kick a lot.  It wears me out - give me a pull buoy and I can swim forever breathing every 3 strokes, but as soon as I have to integrate a flutter kick I'm sucking wind and sinking.

He just tried this, so front kick maybe?

Except I'm not anymore.  Gil had me and another student swim a lap today without kicking at all.  I did not sink, I did not break position, and I went just as fast as I do normally.  Unreal.  I laughed out loud.  Later, as Gil demonstrated the weight change coming from the hips at the switch of your stroking arm, a concept that is integrated into every TI drill that I've done, I had a "light bulb" moment.  The same weight shift that used to allow me to lock up my 300 lb training partner's wrist and throw him to the ground, using only the force of my core, is the same motion and source of power for swimming.  Not my shoulders or legs.  Combined with my increasing balance in the water, I am really getting somewhere!  My body does actually remember how to power via my hips - that "engine" is still there.  And getting stronger from my increasing yoga practice.  I said in my last post that my hope is that swimming will take the same role of active meditation that my martial arts practice used to fill.  I'm on my way.

We'll work on her hand position

My elation from this morning's swim practice was short lived, however, as Legos texted me that another storm was on it way.  It's an hour's drive to her house, putting my commute to and from the party in the leading edge of the storm with two sugar-crazed kiddos in tow.  What's more, the race course for tomorrow's ten mile race is near the blizzard zone.  It's in Foxborough (where the Patriots play.  Tom is leaving the kids with Giselle and coming out to cheer me on).  Which will be under about ten inches of snow by midnight tonight.

Light purple folks

Not an ideal situation for a race that I was already nervous for, since it is by far my longest attempt.  I hemmed and hawed at my husband, my coach, some training friends and some random bystanders at the birthday party.  Then I felt a bit of that bad-assedness I had in my twenties when I was actively practicing karate kick in.  I worked really hard for this.  My karate teacher, who was also a marathoner, would not stand for giving up because of a little snow.  He taught us:

• The first rule of self defense: believe in something worth defending. Or as Loreal puts it, "You are worth it".   Got it.
• The second rule of self defense: dress for the weather and wear the right shoes.

Dressing for the weather is no problem.  I have done plenty of cold runs.  (Side note: under this mantra, even on the rare occasions I went to parties in college I never forgot a coat for the walk home.  Never a scantily clad coed stumbling home in the freezing cold.)  But the shoes?  With ice and snow on roads that will likely not be 100% clear and dry by morning, my usual running shoes won't do.  Heck, I was planning on replacing them this coming week anyway because their tread is worn down to nothing and they have over 300 miles under them.  Even if every sporting goods store between the party and home wasn't sold out of YakTrax, Mini-spikes, and other running aids, the snow was coming down hard enough that side trips weren't an option.

Luckily, not only am I my sensei's student, but I am also my father's daughter.  Which means I can use power tools.

Type A labeling is genetic in our family

We were scheduled for a stop at Gramma and Grandpa's anyway after the party, so while the kids played I snuck down to my dad's workshop.  His workshop that looks like a cozier, better organized version of Lowes.  I found what I was looking for among his hundred neatly labeled drawers, came upstairs, and asked as nonchalantly as I possibly could if I could have 30 of his hex-head 1/2 inch sheet metal screws please?

To my parents' infinite credit, neither so much as batted an eye about why I felt the need to mutilate my shoes and run a stupidly long distance in a blizzard.  They adopted the calm patience I imagine they used when I was a teenager and insisted I would simply die if I couldn't wear $60 acid washed jeans to school.  Dad even threw in a hex driver for good measure.

Once we got home (a scary and long process in the building storm), I dug out the drill, my faithful yet nearly exhausted running shoes, and set about creating cleats for the ice.  I set a pattern of screw heads on the outer edges of each shoe (not the middle, which would interfere with foot strike).  I followed the places where there was the most wear on the tread.

Don't overdrill - stop once the head touches rubber

Completed

Winter storm Quintus, you've been screwed.

Today was not the best prep day for a long race.  Instead of eating clean I had pizza (with gluten crust) and birthday cake.  I've eaten so many Valentine's day chocolates that I'm seriously considering just stuffing a few Russell Stover's in my pockets for race fuel.  It's what I'm acclimated to now, right?  Instead of resting, I drove around like a madwoman with my kids in the snow.  But at least I have a better chance of staying on my feet tomorrow.  I hope.

Wish me luck and see you on the other side!!!!

Does anyone else use "aids" to run in the snow and ice?  Which do you like best and why?

Total Immersion - Mid-Class Review

My first triathlon swim did not go well.  To say the least.  It was a lake swim - the Quaboag Plantation Sprint Triathlon in West Brookfield, MA last July.  Only 400 meters, in a simple (ha!) triangle.  Walk in the water, wait, swim out, turn, swim back, proceed with your first triathlon.  Easy, right?  WRONG.

My time was well over 12 minutes.  For a quarter mile.  I got off track.  I got so winded I kept having to stop.  Once I finally did get out of the water I was still so out of breath that I never got it back on the bike or the run.  It was miserable.

Horrible race photo - coming out of the water.
See that guy behind me?  The wave that started
FIVE MINUTES after mine.  Yeah.

I'm not afraid of the water.  As a former scuba diver with hours and hours underwater, it is safe to say I like being in the water.  I was raised in upstate New York, where "the beach" meant a gritty strip of sand and dirt on the side of a lake, where you shared the water with all sorts of pond scum, frogs, fish, and Loch Ness monsters.  No trouble there.  Open water swimming doesn't make me claustrophobic, or anxious, or any of the other issues that often trouble newbie triathletes.

I simply don't know how to swim.

I learned to swim (meaning keep self afloat and propel self forward in some manner) at a lake beach.  My mom pretty much threw me in, kept watch to make sure I didn't drown, and that was about it.  (A method I stand by and in no way criticize). I was on the junior varsity swim team in the sixth grade for exactly one week before I quit because I was the slowest girl.

I went to the pool several times in preparation for my triathlon career.  I signed up for two different classes at the Y, but didn't find them particularly helpful.  Partially because I didn't show up half the time, but also because I just didn't understand what was being asked of me by the very competent and well-meaning instructors.  "I want to see more of a pull."  Pull on what?  Huh?  I even swam open water several times with a local group (and Gypsy for moral support).  But, in layman's term, I got no game....

Clearly I needed the basic basic basic package.  I had to take remedial gym in the first grade, I was so uncoordinated (really - this was a real thing in 1984.  Imagine any class with "remedial" in the title now!  Unthinkable).  I needed the equivalent for swimming.

I signed up for George Randall's Total Immersion swim course at my gym starting in early December.  I knew George only by reputation, by his welcoming attitude in local online groups for local OW swimmers, and through my friend Spark, who took his class in the fall while I was coaching kid soccer and mucking around on crutches.

Like the good little bookworm I am, I had read all about Total Immersion.  In simplest terms, TI is a way of breaking down and rebuilding every aspect of your stroke to achieve maximum efficiency in the water.  Dolphin-like swimming.  (As we learned in my last post, I like dolphins).  This is good.  But learning to swim from a book is like learning to... well... something that really doesn't work.  I needed to see it.

George is every bit as patient, calm, and encouraging in person as I had heard.  Which is excellent, as I can have worked up some pretty good tantrums when swimming isn't going well.  The first day he took videos of all the students, and asked us to count our strokes.

My stroke count was 30 for a 25 meter pool.  As a reference, this is pretty terrible.  A person my height should be able to keep her stroke count around 16-19 for this length.  Clearly, there was work to do.

George's comments:

Hi Miranda,

Glad you received the videos! Looks good I can see a lot of potential in your stroke. A few things I noticed:

Your left and right arm in your recovery phase as they enter the water are creating a lot of drag(splash)in front and around your body. The reason for this is your forearms are hitting water before your hands enter.  You're dropping your leading(catch arms)to soon both during breathing and non causing a loss in your streamline body position. You lift your head a little bit causing your hips to sink which results in more kicking to level your body to be parallel with the water.

We will cover everything in the class to address these issues and more.

If you have any questions don't hesitate.

Happy Laps

George 

See how nice he is??  Sheriff reviewed the videos as well and mostly agreed, with some added comments on my underwater hand and something about my butt.  (And now I'm putting a video of my butt out in public.  Hmm.)

Fast forwarding, today's class I was holding steady around 20 strokes per lengths at a variety of paces.  For those that are math challenged, 30-20 = 10, which is 1/3 better than I was.  That's a lot.  I am significantly more comfortable in the water, I look forward to swimming much more than I did.  TI has helped me make huge advances in my swimming in a relatively short amount of time.  Here's how:

The first day of class we worked on nothing but relaxing our heads. First objective and I'm already tense.  My reaction to anyone telling me to relax is usually to get angry, stubborn, and tense up.  I'm good like that.  You should see me in yoga!  Okay, shake it off.  Head down.  Stare at the bottom of the pool.  Relax.  Relax your neck.  Relax your head.  Do this for over an hour, and then practice it all week.

The next class we built on the first lesson of "head relaxed" to balancing in the water.  Just balance in the "skate" position, or rolled about 45 degrees so your shoulder is barely out.  George gives us visualizations to get our bodies in the right spot.  The next week we added an arm, but only the recovery arm, and only partway.  This is the mother of all baby-step programs.  I love it.

Even love the slogan.  Happy Laps!

I love the mission of Total Immersion.  To move as effortlessly and quickly through the water by being as efficient as possible.  Move through the water, not moving around in it.  This resonates with me both as a swimmer, but also as a metaphor for what I am trying to achieve as a whole by triathlon training.  I want to learn to relax.  To enjoy the water.  To enjoy life and not tense up.  To have better technique, so things are easier without having to thrash around and get winded (yes, still on a metaphor for life here.  Stay with me.)

I have zero ambition of becoming and elite swimmer.  Of completing Escape from Alcatraz.  Of being Michael Phelps (my nose is big enough as is thanks).  My #1 swimming goal?  To be the fit 70 year old woman who swims 3 times a week because she loves it, and is still healthy because of it.  Sheriff and I have talked several times about getting older, about our bodies breaking down, and that running and even biking someday will fall by the wayside.  But swimming is for life.  As Sheriff commented on a recent swim workout of mine, "swimming is harder to see improvement overall and being a good swimmer is badass".  Huzzah!

TI class wraps up in another 6 weeks.  We will take more videos then and I'll do a final wrap up post then, along with any questions anyone has for me or for George (comments please!).  George will also be teaching at the TRI-MANIA Boston Expo on March 29th.  I cannot recommend enough that you check it out if you are going!

Lastly, as George has quite graciously become a follower of my little blog, and has noticed that everyone gets nicknames (here's the "who" and "why")..... today he asked me if he was going to get a nickname.  Drumroll George, I christen thee....

Gill

It had to be a fish.  Duh. I almost went with Dori, just because George really is just so nice and so positive.  And he talks a lot (sorry George, you do!  Not in a bad way).  But a female blue fish with no memory wasn't quite right.  So I went with Gill.  The mentoring thing, the determination.  George has shared that he was overwhelmingly afraid of the water when he started - to the point that he couldn't put his face under.  To go from there to the instructor and athlete he is now is some epic determination.  I haven't been summoned to the initiation ceremony at the top of Mt. Wannahockaloogie yet.  I assume that's the last day of class.

Please leave any questions or comments about TI for me or George.  We will respond in the next post.  Learn more about Total Immersion at https://totalimmersion.net.

Usual disclaimer... these thoughts are my own, I am not sponsored, paid by, or compensated in any way by Total Immersion.  Just my two cents.

Happy Laps!