Well, it's been decided by me. Yes, I'm going to die in the water on my first triathlon try. Which again has been decided by me that may or may not be this year.*
Last night, I went over to Luke's city to try out his gym. He got a few guest passes for me so that we can work out together. On his suggestion, we ate first, waited an hour and then swam. Maybe I can blame that for my lack of breathing abilities? I wanted to swim right away and then eat (and pig out!)
Anyway, his gym is this swanky place. Yay for suburbs. :-/ Like it's actually part of the hospital over there or at least has the same name as it and so I felt like I was walking in one and told him as much.
The lockers rooms themselves have flat screens. Has a whirlpool and sauna. They're carpeted. Oh and they have fancy lockers that you actually can pick your own lock code and everything! Towel service is free too. COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY DIFFERENT THAN MY YMCA. Did I mention that every single treadmill had a TV screen hooked up to the front of it?! But then again, once I asked him how much it is per month, I realised why. Eep!
He said that he can do 20 laps without stopping. When I found this out, I was thinking of course you can. While I'm stuck at 5 laps a set and feeling like I'm faltering and going to drown on my last laps. Later on I decided that I would blame his long arms and legs.
Our swimming night was a set of 6. Then a second set of 7 and then a final set of 5. That's all we did since we were running out of time. The 5th lap of the second set, I actually had to turn around a quarter of the way through and do the backstroke to give my poor arms a break. And even though we were taking a considerable amount of a break between sets, I was still getting tired sooner and sooner.
The only thing that I did better than Luke on swimming (!!!) was that I knew how to breathe through my strokes. He didn't. He did it for the first few laps but then he didn't after that. And he actually said that I looked like a swimmer doing that. I was extremely happy to hear that! Like very proud! Oh and then on the third set we were actually head for head for the 5 laps. I thought he was being nice and slowing down but come to find out he wasn't.
Next up to learn: flip turns. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I've been talking to my friend Rob who used to swim competitively in high school (until age 19) and been picking his brain about swimming, breathing, turns, working out, etc. He even asked if Luke could film me and then he could see my stroke as well. I'm going to get this thing down pat!
After the pool, we have half hour left of the gym so we did a few sit-ups and poor Luke tried doing chin-ups. He barely got 10 out, where he can usually pound out 10 easily. He said that after swimming, he never works out. Just showers and heads home. So that was a first for him. I told him to try running after swimming! That's an interesting feeling of the legs!
But I will also say that at the end of our 3rd set of laps, I was completely out of breath and gasping for air and my abs were working hard and my arms were sore and my legs were wobbly. And you know what? I loved it. I looked at Luke and I was telling him that I loved this feeling, that I was going to die, that I gave it my all that I had no more to give.
But I'm sure I'm not the only one out there right?
*Skirt Chaser 5k is the day before the Triathlon in June. I pick up my packet from 10am-4pm on Saturday, run the Skirt Chaser 5k that evening and then go to a hotel in Naperville for my triathlon on Sunday; a 750m swim, 14mi bike and 5k run. Can we say stupid?!
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