Friday, April 07, 2006

special needs

I was too tired to go to grp. swim lastnight, for some unknown reason (maybe it was the previous days not-so-great swim lesson, the pm track workout, or the dryer finally dying and the mounting piles of dirty laundry.....) I woke up way too early..2:30 am too early on thursday. i tried to go back to sleep but after an hour it was clear that it was not gonna happen.

i packed up my bike and gear w/the intention of going for a ride at lunch time as it will most likey RAIN again this weekend. T called me around 11am at work and agreed w/needed to buy a new dryer and washer too! so i scrapped my plans for ride and we went to SEARS on my lunch break.

by the time i got home from work, i was toast, but i also think i need to rearrange the swim schedule 3 days in a row of swimming is too much. while the grp lesson was fun, the 1:1 session was discouraging. i'm also not so sure of my instructor. she showed up in street clothes and never got into the pool. nor is she a great communicator. sure, she's nice, but i have special needs and i already can tell i'm a challenge for her. after showing her what i could do on my own i.e. thrash maddly down the lane..........head bobbing upwards the whole time....
she asked "how far to you have to swim in the event?"
i said "a quarter of a mile"
and she said not so convincingly, "huh, okay that's doable"
( good fucking thing lady, cause you have some work ahead of you!!!)

the track workout with the tri group was fun, i was back in my comfort zone. we did an interval session, 3 slow laps 2 fast 2 slow 1 fast 1 slow. i shouldn't of ate pizza and hour before, but aside from a little tummy upset i led the pack. i'll remind you most of the folks in my group are NOT runners, a few of them are older, and most of them come from a strong swimming or biking background. after the discouraging 1:1 swim lesson it felt good to be good at something!

so here in lies my dilemma. fun is in most cases my internal motivator. if i'm not having fun i usually don't follow through. running while it wasn't always fun (speedwork, yuk) i have enough proficiency at it to get me through the less funner aspects.
swimming is a totally different thing. i suck at it. the swim instructor touched abit on muscle memory, and the need to practice good form but she's never demonstrated it only TALKED about it. i'm considering buying the TOTAL IMMERSION DVD, but hell, why spend MORE money??? i think she needs to talk less and get her ass in the pool and demonstrate. i need to open my mouth and ask her if she'll do this.