Caving to my Demons

In my last post I said "I'm now at a point where swimming feels really good and my swim confidence is at an all time high...if I have a poor swim at Sunday's tri I'll be very disappointed." Well, I am disappointed. I had some concern going in, mainly with wondering how I'd handle the water temperature. Last year I freaked when I put my face in the cold water and had an awful swim. I did well at my OWS practice so I thought I'd be OK, but this was still sitting there in the back of my mind. I was also concerned with forecast of high winds that could kick up swells on the lake. The winds ended up being quite mild and the lake was calm and the water temperature was a "balmy" 69 degrees and was not a factor. Still, I had a poor swim. So, what happened? I don't exactly know, but I just couldn't relax and kept feeling like I simply could not keep the effort up. I swam decently on the out leg but after making the first turn I gave in to my demons and started doing side stroke. I tried switching back to free style a few times but kept giving it up and going back to side stroke. When I made the second turn and was heading back towards shore I forced myself to stay with free style and finished up decently. Last year I did most of the swim side stroke, back stroke, and breast stroke, just trying to survive and get out of the water; the swim took 20 minutes for 750 meters. My goal this year was to do freestyle the whole way and to cut the swim time to around 16 minutes. My official time was 15:10. I should be ecstatic...but I'm not. Sure, I beat my time goal but I failed in my other goal, to give my best effort. I should probably cut myself some slack and go woohoo over my time improvement but I was hoping for something more. I've lost some of my confidence. Give me some time for the disappointment to fade and I'll be fine but right now they are my wounds and I want to lick them a while more.

Swimming by Numbers

I grew up on Long Island. I was in, or near, water pretty much all of my adolescent years. I took some swim lessons at various times but was never on a swim team or anything like that. I generally have no fear of water. Imagine my surprise when I started triathlon training and discovered that I was a really lousy swimmer! As soon as I tried lap swimming for the first time it was obvious that I needed help; my kick was terrible, I could barely turn to breathe, and it turns out that my stroke was completely old school (not sure when the stroke mechanics all changed).

I've always been good at learning things by reading and I've gotten a long way in triathlon by figuring out things by myself. Swimming is a big exception to this; I knew I was overmatched and needed help. I started doing private lessons with a coach at my pool and pretty much had to start from scratch. I definitely did not take to it like a fish to water. Gains came only through expert help and a lot of hard work at lap swimming. It took me from January through May to be able to swim 300 meters straight, the length of the swim in my first tri in July, and that took a mix of crawl and side stroke. I was able to do that first tri (a pool swim) all crawl, but the 1000m open water swim (OWS) for my August Iron Girl tri was a fairly ugly mix of crawl, side, and back stroke.

I made huge gains during the fall of 2007 and winter of 2008 because I was having knee issues and swim was just about all I was allowed to do. By then, I was swimming without a coach and figuring it all out on my own. My speed was decent (for a 48yo triathlete, sucky for a SWIMMER) but my body position in the water was not great and I was working at it harder than I should have been. In the game of "swim golf" (strokes needed to swim a 25m length) I was needing 28 strokes. Basically, if I wasn't stroking my heart out I was sinking.

This last January I joined the Mid Maryland Triathlon Club. Through them I took a one day swim clinic in March that included an underwater videotaping and stroke analysis. Before the videotaping we were put through various drills designed to teach us about balance in the water and help give us an awareness of our body position. I learned a lot just from this, but the swim analysis was eye opening. I learned that my body position and roll wasn't bad but that my stroke basically lacked any glide (as I said above it was stroke or sink), my hand entry was poor, and my catch was too far out to the side. I was taught how to do the catch up drill and other balance drills and then sent on my way.

The next few weeks were frustrating as I broke down my swim and tried to build it back up, always keeping in mind what I had seen in my stroke and what I was taught to correct it. I was slower than ever and felt uncoordinated and out of synch in the pool. I was sucking water.

I'm not sure when it happened but somewhere in mid to late April it all started coming together. It started to feel comfortable. I had glide. My stroke count was dropping (on Tuesday I had it down to 20!). I wasn't working as hard but my speed was increasing!

I'm now at a point where swimming feels really good and my swim confidence is at an all time high. I don't want to put too much pressure on myself, but if I have a poor swim at Sunday's tri I'll be very disappointed.

I am a shark among minnows!

Is religion based on intolerance?

I may kick myself later for writing about religion and politics, but here goes!

Yesterday I posted this to my Facebook wall:

saw this in a Washington Post Article "DC protesters denounce gay marriage": by the organizing pastor to the protesters "I am appointing you to take the word far and wide and speak up for Jesus." So, he's got a pipeline to Jesus' opinions on same-sex marriage? Didn't Jesus espouse love and tolerance?

I got the typical, supportive responses I expected from friends and family, but I also got a response I wasn't expecting at all from a family friend. He said "all religion is based on intolerance." While that's certainly not stated out front in the bullet points, I suppose this statement is basically right. In its most basic form religion was invented to answer the question of why the world is the way it is. Most religions seem to take the stance that "we've got it right and you've got it wrong", with little room for accepting the differences or admission that maybe they're both wrong.

I came to the conclusion years ago that most of the world's ills were perpetrated in the name of religion and concluded that I didn't want any part of that. A religious person says that there is a god; an atheist says there is no god; an agnostic says he just doesn't know. I consider myself an apathist; I just don't care. A person doesn't need religion to have morals. When I'm forced to label myself I actually consider myself a secular humanist, holding the idea that reason, ethics, and justice can serve as the basis of moral reflection and decision-making.

A friend of mine liked to say that religion was invented by the devil as a way of dividing mankind. I believe that religion was a human invention, but it has achieved the same result.

The Yellow Days

It happens right about this time every year in the DC Metro area; the whole place becomes covered with a fine yellow dust. Know who's to blame? The trees! I've never lived any other place where the trees put out so much pollen! Right now it's the oak trees that are at high pollenation status and everything, especially the cars, are tinged greenish yellow; it certainly doesn't help that I park under an oak an night. The car washes must do extra good business right about now. If we get enough of a rain to wash off the cars then there will be yellow-stained rivers of runoff in the streets.

A year or two ago I accidentally left my car windows cracked when it started to rain and the dust got dripped into the car causing yellow stains on the seats and carpets. Even a stain remover didn't get rid of it all. Amazing, just amazing!

They're messing with our minds!

There is a very interesting article in today's Washington Post that talks about the effect of food and eating on the brain. Whereas most research investigates the link between eating and physiology this researcher, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, says that food composition affects brain chemistry, making us crave particular foods. He focuses on sugar, fat, and salt saying that they compel us to over eat rather than satisfying hunger.

" "Highly palatable" foods -- those containing fat, sugar and salt -- stimulate the brain to release dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with the pleasure center, he found. In time, the brain gets wired so that dopamine pathways light up at the mere suggestion of the food, such as driving past a fast-food restaurant, and the urge to eat the food grows insistent. Once the food is eaten, the brain releases opioids, which bring emotional relief. Together, dopamine and opioids create a pathway that can activate every time a person is reminded about the particular food. This happens regardless of whether the person is hungry."

As you might expect, restaurants and food producers know all this and manipulate the content of their products to exploit it. What we need to do is become aware of this problem and make better food choices so that we can minimize the effects and take control of our dietary health.

Two weeks to go til Tri

My first tri of the season will be the Kinetic Sprint Tri on May 10 at Lake Anna, VA. With two weeks to go I am trying to figure out what would be the best use of my training time. I have this next week to go at it hard but then I'll need to do some tapering during the week before the race. So far this spring I've only done one bike/run brick and think it might be a good idea to do one more. That would have to be next weekend. I also have the opportunity to do an open water swim (OWS) in Sunday May 3. I should probably definitely do this. The water is guaranteed to be cold but I know that it will also be cold on race day so this would be especially good practice. Of course, if it doesn't go well I'll be worrying that much more about the race swim.

I used this weekend for a hard bike ride yesterday and a long but lower intensity run today. It was unseasonably hot here so it was all a bit harder than usual. I think I was a bit dehydrated when I started the ride so that didn't help at all.

Last year this race took place in a cool, pouring rain. I certainly didn't need to worry about overheating but I'm definitely hoping for better, dryer weather this year.