vLog Update – Swimming thoughts
Text to video thoughts above (Unedited, no styling)
okay I guess I’ll catch one last segment again I’m trying to keep these under 10 minutes so that uh they work well um and just some further thoughts about uh more in the Life area I try to keep some of the more flourished type opinions and stuff out because I have my own opinions of course um but you know I’m a consultant by trade so in it that’s kind of what I do for work kind of uh connecting and segueing in off of the last set of thoughts and so you know one of the things I find is that the different elements by which we
practice and do things with it’s a lot of times those different things help us frame what we can and can’t do or how flexible we are so again one of the things I really try to focus and concentrate on is the capability of um
and the idea of transference like there is a lot that we learn in various contexts and the better that we can adapt those to our shifting contexts or environments the better it doesn’t necessarily mean that we can control the variables necessarily so oftentimes we have to let that control go but we can control our attitude and the capability and our flexibility by which those other things that we can such as our own personal attitudes the efforts we exert um the quote unquote hustle or fast speed or lack of speed that we exert I find a lot of the time for example that [Music] whether it is you know mainly Triathlon and work for example right like I’ve been asking a lot more for context it’s I’ve kind of adopted this mindset that it’s not my requirement or responsibility to convince somebody that goes in my work context that’s with my hobby of triathlon like I used to be a big person of giving out free advice but free advice without proper context you know most people you know I always used to say you know free advice is what it’s worth take what you need and discard the rest which I still do but without proper context and until the person is ready for the message you know share what you what you feel and then you have to let the other person convince themselves I mean that’s not my requirement so um and sure there are times where that means I have to enforce or stick to my boundaries for my wellness and health and that may not align with another person and sometimes that may cause them to be angry or you know put them in the space of things where they choose or choose not to control and where I choose to control um and again you know that’s why I love the concept of practice so like often when I swim I tell people a lot of times one of my favorite parts of swimming it’s not that for example in Triathlon the most disrespected discipline of the three Sports in one full exercise because it is three Sports and then there is the Mind Game there’s nutrition and a few other elements too but the three actual disciplines it’s a swim to a bike to a run and there are transitions so there are changes in there that’s the whole sport it’s not a oh hey I’m excellent at one of the three or two of the three disciplines and I just kind of hang on the rest sure you can do that um but you know I learned after my first experience with the 70.3 distance that I had to respect the swim appropriately I did not my first time I swam three minutes over time in this Triathlon for example and the last one I did for the full of the Iron Man I was well before time granted I also had the current assist but you know I respected it in the framework of which I needed to so one of the things I love about the swim and I call it my Sanctuary now is when I’m in the off season and not in a training plan that’s focused for example and there’s not necessarily purpose I only concentrate on two things breathing and my stroke and kind of the measurement for me to know what headspace I’m in or my health of my attitude and what I can or can’t control and how frustrated I am or the Deep work that I need to do is really reflective in how I can actually just get to the point of I’m looking at in my breathing correctly am I not drowning and how is my stroke to make sure that I’m not drowning as well and that is one of the beautiful pieces of swimming because if I am able to get to that point then I know that I’m in a pretty good space and I learned through a lot of process that for me and it wasn’t so I started my first I did my first 70.3 in 2015. that was St George not necessarily the best choice for folks to take off one or bite into one of the hardest ones but it is it’s still considered one of the toughest courses worldwide and one of the top five to ten everybody argues about ranking whatever um but when I first showed up didn’t respect it and then the year after I said hey you know what uh I learned that at that point and to really improve I needed to swim at least three or four times a week which I did I put in half hour sessions three to four times a week more up into an hour session for me at the time I was swimming anywhere from 1800 to 2200 yards and recently in the Ironman California it took me 41 minutes to do uh 23 well 2700 yards um now granted that may not necessarily translate into Open Water swims well sometimes it does sometimes it doesn’t um but the lesson learned there was learning technique how to breathe because to me the biggest uh return on investment from a triathlon perspective with swimming is if you can come out of the water not filling gas you are not playing ketchup for the rest of the disciplines you basically are able to end the three sports or the three disciplines turn the swim into your warm-up and sure at a bigger event 70.3 or bigger jumping into the cold water that is difficult to do so it takes training to be able to go okay the first five or ten minutes is where I’m going to take my time find my breathing find my stroke not panic and various people have you know different problems with open water in the group and sometimes if it’s a pool swim same thing that you respected the temperature of the pool was going to be you know that that’s going to take you into basically being warmed up and then based on the distance you know again from Sprint to Olympic to the half or 70.3 all the way up to the full once I got my feet underneath me from being at a horizontal and the blood going the way it does and then finally trying to find its way that’s not a turn lane bud but whatever um anyways uh as that becomes comfortable you know and so I had a you know three quarter of a mile to one mile transition in Sacramento once I got my feet under me and realized you know hey all my blood transfer is going crazy on this one bigger you know big swim so it was about two and a half miles and I swam a little bit more chasing down that one buoy but once I got my feet underneath me and uh I got about I would say about a third of the way into the transition because anyways I was walking with a guy from El Salvador kind of getting him some encouragement hopefully he ended up uh finishing probably better than me without the bike mechanical problems uh hopefully he had a good day um you know about a third of the way through I said hey you know I just kind of started trotting and felt really good got up to being able to change and and moving on out so anyways just had some thoughts I wanted to spin out again I want to keep this about 10 minutes talking about swim and respecting the swim and where to have your head space and you know there’s a lot of Roi return on investment where you can find in the pool and swimming so like for the 70.3 for example I normally swim the 1.2 mile distance uh comfortably in about 45 minutes maybe a little uh faster in the open water and for me I would like to cut another five to ten minutes off that which I think I can very handily and it not be a me killing myself and coming out of the water gassed I think I can find a way that that will be like a very strong warm-up and I find that when I personally I am able to really concentrate on the two major things for swimming of having breath so being able to breathe and having a strong and solid stroke those are two very good measurements I can control to understand and know where I am at and so that I can control coming out of the water not gassed warmed up more or less and then ready to take on the two other disciplines so for whatever it’s worth thought I would get that out and share a little bit and maybe I’ll take on some thoughts about biking and running
