http://www.nycgovparks.org/facilities/recreationcenters

It’s especially great this time of year because most recreation centers have an Adult Swimming Lap program. It’s from 7 AM to 8:30 AM in the morning, and 7 PM to 8:30 PM in the evening. You must be 18 years and older. Surprisingly, not many people know about it.

Luckily for me, Astoria Park is a few blocks away and it’s especially great because it’s set up as a long course. Every lap is 55 yards long and is a better training ground to practice long-distance open water swimming.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5-Qtwv1BdI

Wearing your wetsuit and waiting in line for your age group to be called is the worst part. It’s like going skydiving and waiting until it reaches elevation knowing it’s a matter of time before you take the plunge. It’s nerve racking and your heart rate is already in aerobic zone without moving an inch. Eventually, you take the plunge.

The swim is a human washing machine, swim for survival, no holds bar, every man for himself fight across open waters. In short, it’s chaos. Psychiatrists are standing by as panic and anxiety attacks are imminent before a race.

You get punched, kicked, scratched, stampeded on. They know you’re human but they don’t care. Goggles are only meant to shun water away from your eyes and not as a tool to see in open waters. It’s pitch black.

You’re supposed to remain calm otherwise you’d most likely hyperventilate. Once you’re oxygen deprived, technique starts to falter and your survival instincts kick-in which are counter intuitive to survival. Seconds will feel like minutes and minutes will feel like hours. Your brain will tell you to kick and swim harder. Your brain will tell you not to put your head in the water and your brain will tell you it’s not natural to be horizontal. You must fight primitive instincts and rely on your experience from training. Stopping is all you’re thinking about but you know it’s a last resort as it’s both a psychological blow and unsafe to do so if you’re in the middle of the pack. Swallowing ocean/lake water will make swallowing chlorine a treat. Your only goal is to try to recover as the thought of drowning is very much real. The only crazy thing about this situation is that you willingly volunteered yourself to be part of it. You can’t wait until it’s over until you reach shallow waters, embrace how good it feels to step on firm ground, and immediately think “I can’t wait to do this again.” It’s viciously cyclical, rinse and repeat.

How do I know? I don’t. I ran through the experiences in my mind.

Ready as ever.

I signed up to the Swim Level I – Efficient Techniques at Jack Rabbit Sports

Not only will I learn to be more efficient, I’ll be learning triathlon-specific skills such as mass starts and sighting.

They gave me a $35 discount since I’m signed up to one of their triathlon training programs so the total came out to $165. About $16.50 per class (10 classes). Good deal, but I hope it’s not one of those “you get what you pay for” scenarios.

As you can see, I’m doing everything I can to get my swim in order. I can get by cycling and running but I can’t wing swimming.

So I bought the 2010 Orca Equip:

2010 Orca Men's Equip

Trying on a wetsuit is harder than I thought but after 10-15 minutes of finagling it really does feel like a second layer of skin. It feels tight but not restricted.

I went with the full sleeve because I’ll be doing most of my open water training in the Berkshires where the water will be cold and can use the additional buoyancy.

Swim training has been great. I’m steadily improving and can now do 5-6 laps non-stop. My rests are shorter before I resume my next set and generally swim 36 laps in 30 minutes. My goal is to be able to swim 64 laps non-stop in 30 minutes within 4 months.

A tall order? Yes. Impossible? Never.

FAIL!

I completed my intermediate course and in short, I failed. I didn’t graduate to the advanced course and in all honesty — it doesn’t bother me. Areas on why I failed were due to “poor breast stroke, side stroke, and back stroke.”

I don’t disagree with them but my goal wasn’t to learn every swimming stroke. My goal was to perfect the freestyle stroke and learning a few survival techniques when things go awry during a swim leg of a triathlon.

In the end, I’m glad the class is over and will continue to focus on increasing swim endurance and being more efficient in the water. I have exactly 4 months until my triathlon and it’s time to get serious. I have been putting in the time (3-4 times a week) but I think I have to draw up an official regimented training plan with weekly goals to work towards.

So I asked the instructor to take a look at my freestyle stroke and give me tips. The tips and comments he provided:

• It doesn’t look bad, but you look too stiff
• Reach as far out as you can
• Your legs are too low, keep them higher

That’s all I learned. I ended up doing various drills (breast stroke kick, 4 laps of back stroke, 4 laps of free style)

An uneventful day indeed.

We then covered the breast stroke arm movement and tried to combine everything together. The instructor had us memorize the proper sequence

Pull – pull water in to your body

Breathe – Lift your head and breathe

Kick – Kick your feet simultaneously while you…

Glide – glide, then repeat

This is easier said than done. I’m a bit disappointed that we moved so fast without anyone in the class perfecting the kick first. It seems like the classes are set up to a strict schedule i.e must learn everything about breast stroke even if you don’t get it

This is where group vs individual private lessons come into play. In a private lesson,  a good instructor would never graduate you to the next level until you *get it*. In fact, the first thing I need to learn is how to be more efficient and streamlined while swimming freestyle.

I’ll continue taking these group lessons as an introductory to the wide range of strokes in swimming but not something to replace my day-to-day training. Which means I need to dedicate more hours in the pool.

Moving on, we learned two basic skills that should be part of any swimmer’s arsenal. We learned how to dive from the edge of the pool (first sitting, kneeling, then standing) and learned the proper way to kick during a breast stroke. (I hope my site doesn’t turn up as a porn site in search engine results. I said breast stroke, not stroking a breast)

HOW TO DIVE

1. Get in streamlined position.
2. Chin down facing water. Tilt your body way forward and use one leg to thrust into water.
3. Make sure your head is lower than your leg to avoid a BELLY FLOP.

Watching a young kid belly flop isn’t funny. Watching a teenager belly flop is kind of funny. Watching a fat person belly flop is funny. Watching an older fat person belly flop is hilarious.

There’s a nice older Korean lady in my group. I’d say she’s around 50 years old and she reminds me of my mother. On her attempt to dive she belly flopped so hard, half the pool stopped to see if she was OK! She got out of the pool laughing hysterically and said in broken english, “ohhh so hod!!”  *

* hod = hard

In light of the Olympics, I gave her a 10.0 on form, height, and landing — it was flawless.

HOW NOT TO DIVE

How Not To Dive

Perfect Belly Flop Dive

Flushing Aquatic Center. Source: nyc gov parks

I had my first swim class at the Flushing Aquatics Center. Here’s what was covered:

1. Use a kickboard to do kicking drills. Kicking is extremely important as its what keeps you on a horizontal plane.
2. After doing a lap, don’t stop at the end. Instead, glide with one hand touching the edge of the pool and quickly rotate your body to kick off and be in the streamlined position.
3. Don’t take deep breaths. Take normal breaths and always blow out (don’t hold your breath under water).

I had to take a swim test to get placed in the appropriate grade – beginner, intermediate, or advanced. It was a nostalgic experience in that the last time I took a grade placement test was when I was in the fourth grade. My mother enrolled me in Korean school and they asked me to translate and communicate in Korean. I did so bad I got placed in the beginner’s class which consisted of 5-7 year olds that were half my age and size. I was referred to as the “big kid” (imagine that?). Until…

A BKG (Big Korean Girl) showed up. As an aside, I never knew why she asked me for a dollar. It’s obvious she eats well so she wasn’t poor but what can she possibly buy for a buck?

Big Korean Girl - YA GOTTA DOLLA??!?!

It then dawned on me she wanted to hit up the Korean McDonald’s dollar menu. For my korean-speaking triathletes, I meant to say “Mac Do nal Duh uh”

Korean Mac Do nal Duh uh

For my chinese triathletes, I meant to say “Ma Do No”. And for my japanese triathletes, I meant to say “Ma Gro Na Ri Do”.

Sorry to go off topic. Back to swim test results…

He made me do two laps of freestyle without stopping. Done.
He made me do two laps of backstroke without stopping. Done.
He made me tread water for 30 seconds. Done.
He asked me to do butterfly, breast stroke, side kick — I never even attempted this. FAILED.

Intermediate classes start next week!