Nightswimming or dark swimming...take your pick

Here is a little REM "Nightswimming" for some background music if needed.

Granted OK...i haven't really gotten into much detail about a few things about this next season and well, I really don't know too much about next season except a few things. I have a coach, and a team and well a goal. There are some other races in between that will be worked on and worked towards but July is the main one.

Katie b. has been coached by 'coach Brian'...or CB as she refers to him, since this summer so i've heard stories of CB for awhile but not until IMAZ did I actually get to meet him. I guess I can't say anything mean and nasty about him cuz...uh...he reads my blog. (Hi coach!) In all honesty he's a great guy and nothing mean and nasty could be said about him.

But this whole 'coaching' this is pretty new to me in someways. Joe did coach me to an under two hour half marathon back in 2006. But that was for 2 months of coaching...for one sport. This is for months and for the whole triathlon deal. I played soccer in high school...but not very well and I did play competitive ultimate frisbee (i know...many people look at me strange when I say I played in a league. There are competitive leagues out there and university teams) in college and for awhile after but again nothing like this. So all a little new.

But back to the point of this morning. Swim Time Trial. It looked like this: warm up...then do 3x100 at threshold pace with 10 second breaks between the 100s. Then 30 second break then do it 2 more times.

Not that I have internalized what my 'threshold pace' is for swimming, but I get this whole TT thing. OK. I get it. I can do this. Maybe really slowly. But I can definitely do it. I get to the gym and walk onto the pool deck only to discover that there are.no.lights.! Actually there is no power in the pool area, just the emergency lights. Hmmmm....ooooookay. At least I wasn't being reliant on the split timer for my splits or I would have had to do this another day. I now have a handy dandy new little watch specifically for swimming I picked up so I was golden for the AM.

Here are a few tidbits and funny bits from the TT this morning that should be pointed out:

• There was minimal light in the pool area.
• I have darkly tinted goggles so I can barely see to begin with inside, much less without any lights on.
• I know I'm supposed to rest 10 seconds between 100s, but i have no split timer, and I can't read my watch...so i'm stuck hitting the split/lap on my watch and just counting to 10. Don't ask me why I found this endlessly funny, but I did.
  
• It was dark.
• Did I mention it was dark? It was dark.
• Good thing about it being dark and not being able to see much of anything is I had no idea how fast or slow I was swimming because I couldn't read my watch because...oh did you catch what I said before? It was dark and my goggles are darkly tinted. Basically blind swimming.
• Even though this was an indoor pool the roof was leaking...so it was raining inside too which actually was kinda 'cold' (for San Diego at least) and a little disorienting to be hit by really cold water halfway through every length.I know I know...whine...no...not asking for sympathy.
  

Overall the TT went fine. According to coach, apparently because I 'timed' my rests I was being anal. Anal or notsosmart? I vote for the latter. In MY defense...I was afraid to hit 'stop' in between laps because i might never get my watch to start properly again...cuz , you, know...IT WAS DARK. I knew if I just hit the 'lap' for everything I would be fine in the end and I would just record the rests. Maybe coach didn't actually need me to GIVE him the times of my rests. But i was just being thorough in my data collection. Sheesh...OK...maybe anal...just a wee little bit. :-) OR just funny?

I hope they get the lights working soon. I do like being able to sorta see, just a wee little bit.