I've made a lot of progress in the pool in the past 3 months. When I first started swimming at the gym I had to do sets of 80 or 60 meters, because I couldn't swim 100 meters continuously. By December 31 I could swim 2000 meters continuously, and at the end of January I had stretched that out to 2500 meters. That's still a long way from the Ironman distance of 3800 meters though (2.4 miles). My plan was to slowly build-up to the distance over time (2600 one week, then 2700, then 2800, etc.), but I'm an impatient person.
So on Wednesday morning I woke up at 4:00am and went to the gym with the intention of tackling the Ironman distance.
The Ironman Florida swim course is a little unusual: instead of one 2.4 mile loop, they have a 1.2 mile loop that athletes complete twice. So halfway through the swim you have to exit the water, run along the beach for a hundred feet, and then re-enter the water.
Having the swim broken up like this allows athletes to drink some water and quickly eat some food before starting the second lap. So I planned my swim to mirror that: I would swim 1900m, stop for 30 seconds to eat a gel pack and drink some water, and then do the second 1900m. After my standard 400m warmup (4x20m, 2x40, 2x60, 2x40, 2x20) I began.
The first 200m was not easy. I always mentally try to focus on one lap at a time, but it's impossible to ignore that I'm attempting to swim the length of 42 football fields. My arms were sore, and I was second-guessing my decision to attempt this mid-week instead of on Monday when my arms are fresher. I eventually settled into a groove however, and let my mind water as I methodically churned out lap after lap. It's difficult to keep count over such a distance so I broke the swim up into 10-lap segments, swimming breast-stroke on each 10th lap. Swimming breast stroke every few minutes also mimics "sighting" in a race, where you briefly switch strokes in order to make sure you're swimming in the right direction. You'd be surprised how difficult it is to swim in a straight line when you're not staring at tiles at the bottom of a pool.
I finished the first half in 41:00 (2:09/100m pace), and quickly ate my gel pack and a few gulps of water before beginning the second 1900m. I've never eaten anything midway through a swim (I usually swim on an empty stomach) so I was pleased to find that the gel pack did not bother my stomach.
The second half was a breeze. My arms felt great and I felt like I could swim endlessly, so at the 3500 mark I picked up the pace. By the last few laps I was swimming as hard as I could, and finished the second half in 40:00 even (2:06/100m pace). Overall my time was 1:21:00, a pace of 2:08 per 100 meters.
I learned several things from this experience. First, that my body is capable of doing the distance without dying (woohoo!). Second, that I can swim the distance and still feel fresh at the end. This is crucial for obvious reasons: the swim is nothing more than a warm-up for the remaining 138.2 miles of biking and running. Third, I have a benchmark time that I can measure all my long swims against.
So individually I've completed the run (26.2 miles) and the swim (2.4 miles). Now all I need to do is focus on the bike. 260 days to go!
So on Wednesday morning I woke up at 4:00am and went to the gym with the intention of tackling the Ironman distance.
The Ironman Florida swim course is a little unusual: instead of one 2.4 mile loop, they have a 1.2 mile loop that athletes complete twice. So halfway through the swim you have to exit the water, run along the beach for a hundred feet, and then re-enter the water.
Having the swim broken up like this allows athletes to drink some water and quickly eat some food before starting the second lap. So I planned my swim to mirror that: I would swim 1900m, stop for 30 seconds to eat a gel pack and drink some water, and then do the second 1900m. After my standard 400m warmup (4x20m, 2x40, 2x60, 2x40, 2x20) I began.
The first 200m was not easy. I always mentally try to focus on one lap at a time, but it's impossible to ignore that I'm attempting to swim the length of 42 football fields. My arms were sore, and I was second-guessing my decision to attempt this mid-week instead of on Monday when my arms are fresher. I eventually settled into a groove however, and let my mind water as I methodically churned out lap after lap. It's difficult to keep count over such a distance so I broke the swim up into 10-lap segments, swimming breast-stroke on each 10th lap. Swimming breast stroke every few minutes also mimics "sighting" in a race, where you briefly switch strokes in order to make sure you're swimming in the right direction. You'd be surprised how difficult it is to swim in a straight line when you're not staring at tiles at the bottom of a pool.
I finished the first half in 41:00 (2:09/100m pace), and quickly ate my gel pack and a few gulps of water before beginning the second 1900m. I've never eaten anything midway through a swim (I usually swim on an empty stomach) so I was pleased to find that the gel pack did not bother my stomach.
The second half was a breeze. My arms felt great and I felt like I could swim endlessly, so at the 3500 mark I picked up the pace. By the last few laps I was swimming as hard as I could, and finished the second half in 40:00 even (2:06/100m pace). Overall my time was 1:21:00, a pace of 2:08 per 100 meters.
I learned several things from this experience. First, that my body is capable of doing the distance without dying (woohoo!). Second, that I can swim the distance and still feel fresh at the end. This is crucial for obvious reasons: the swim is nothing more than a warm-up for the remaining 138.2 miles of biking and running. Third, I have a benchmark time that I can measure all my long swims against.
So individually I've completed the run (26.2 miles) and the swim (2.4 miles). Now all I need to do is focus on the bike. 260 days to go!
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