Fun or Die?

Swimming is a confusing sport, because sometimes you do it for fun, and other times you do it not to die.  And when I'm swimming, sometimes I'm not sure which one it is.  -- Demetri Martin

Most people come into triathlon comfortable with one sport or another, lucky people come in comfortable in two.  I don't know if anyone comes in fully comfortable in all three.  If so, I hate those people.

I am a runner.  I ran (slowly) in junior high and high school, and I've run (slowly) on and off most of my adult life.  I'm comfortable on the run -- in part, because the run portion of the triathlon, although it comes at the end, is the hardest to screw up.  You can fall off a bike.  You can drown on the swim.  But, generally (heart attacks, etc. aside), the worst you can do on the run is trip and get back up again.  That's comforting to me.

I am not comfortable on the bike, but I am not uncomfortable.  I had a bike as a kid, but didn't get an adult bike until 6 or so years ago.  I still get a little nervous in heavy traffic and my handling skills are such that I'm not able to ride in pacelines or anything yet.  I've fallen on my bike -- usually a product of my own stupidity, taking a corner fast or forgetting to unclip my pedals.  I've never had a serious bike accident -- knock on wood.  But I think that, once I get on the bike, I will always finish a triathlon.  (Even if I have a miserable flatting situation, like in a tri last summer.)

The part of the tri which is absolutely uncomfortable for me is the swim.  I'm an adult-onset swimmer.  I took lessons at the Y 6 years ago, just so I could get from one end of a 25m pool to the other without stopping.  In my first tri, way back then, I had to flip over and backstroke a little in a pool swim because I couldn't handle the swim.  The swim portion of the tri is my albatross.

And because the swim portion is my albatross, my efforts to toss off the fear are starting to take on epic proportions.  Beyond the OWS issues that I've talked about (and the clinics, etc., to work on that), I am probably going to start swimming in a masters swim program a couple nights a week so that I can get some correction of my (undoubtedly) poor swim technique.  No offense to the people at the Y who taught me to swim, but I think they were trying to keep me from drowning -- not trying to make me an efficient swimmer with any sort of average speed.

This is going to be an amazing journey, but boy is it going to keep me busy.