Going Nomad |
At the end of summer 2019, I decided to take a break from marathons and triathlons and instead go for a swim in 2020. By mid-September I was working with a coach for "a few pointers" which turned into a complete overhaul of my freestyle stroke. Turns out ideas about efficient swimming had changed in the 20+ years since I first learned to swim freestyle in earnest, which was when I was at what was at the time called the "sport akademie"). Since then, I have learned a lot about swimming. Turns out, there are two camps, two philosophies, on swimming. The camp I stumbled into by randomly picking a coach without even knowing about said camps is called full immersion. This camp believes in swimming with the entire body, engaging the core, hips, back; not just the shoulders. Proponents tend to talk metaphor: "swim downhill", "swim through the tunnel", "patient lead arm", "swim quietly" are just a few. I also changed my kick from a flutter-kick to the so-called two beat kick, which is, I've been told, the way to go in choppy waters. I gave myself till Christmas to relearn and perfect my freestyle stroke as much as possible. Now that the new year has arrived, it's time to swim more, longer, with more intervals and also to start strategizing for my three 2020 swims, which are, in chronological order, the Skaha Lake ultra swim (11.8km), then the Ijsselmeer crossing (22km), and then in the fall, the Alcatraz to San Francisco swim (a mere 3km but the waters are cold, choppy and there are sharks, so there's that). To help fight boredom (inevitable in the pool), I bought an underwater MP3 player, so I am rocking it out in the pool to Passenger and Meatloaf (bucket list item to sing this in a Karaoke bar; always been my pick-me-up song when getting tired in marathons or triathlons, so know it inside out. Can do both voices too.) My main challenge is, of course, the Ijsselmeer swim. I have, however, a terrific support team for that swim, even though all members initially questioned my mental state with one person texting me back after reading my request, "Dearest Gerda. Have you gone mad?"
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