Swimming just got harder.
I rode my bike over to the pool this morning only to find out that the pump broke yesterday and they don't know when it'll be fixed. Parts have to be ordered from the mainland and in the past when this has happened it's been months of waiting... So this news made my heart drop. :( Of course I'll find other places to swim but logistically it'll be harder. Nalani and I are truly spoiled having that pool so close (1 mile from my house and about 1/4 mile from Nalani's work) so normally swimming rarely involves driving a car. AND that pool is longcourse which I just LOVE. I think we will start getting up super early and driving over to a pool on a military base that is longcourse yards. I know. Who makes longcourse yards pools??
Anyway, that got me thinking about consistency and about how it's so much easier to be consistent when logistically you can fit training into your life. With a free (heated!) pool located 1 mile from my house, I really have no excuses not to swim, you know? So I'm consistent. And therefore I get better at swimming. Which makes me enjoy it more. Which makes me want to keep doing it. Nice upward spiral, huh? Vs the other situation that I think a lot of people face... It's logistically a pain in the ass to get to the pool, so they skip workouts a lot, which makes swimming harder and improvement hard to come by. Then it's hard to enjoy swimming b/c the workouts aren't fun b/c they're just not seeing improvement... that's an ugly downward spiral that I hope to avoid during these next few months of logistical-pain-in-the-assness I am about to face with this sport.
So it was a no go on the swim this morning... which just meant that I got started earlier on my bike ride... and of course as soon as I started riding it started raining. Perfect. Obviously it's Monday. I felt like I was being tested. But whatever. I passed the test! :) Each time I've gone out on my bike I've seen my avg pace get a little faster while my avg HR gets a little lower. So it's all heading in the right direction and that is motivating.
As it was raining on me this morning I thought about an interview I saw with Andy Schleck (Go Andy!!) the other day. The interviewer (Frankie Andreu?) asked him if he thought rain would be a factor in the uphill finish of the stage and Andy's response was classic. He just kind of shook his head (rolled his eyes?) and dismissed the question with a quick 'no'. The gist of it being, of course, that as professional cyclists they don't let things like rain get in the way of their riding. It's a non-factor in their minds. I liked that outlook and adopted it for myself this morning. Of course I also had visions in my head of all those professional guys crashing all over the place this last week so I would be a fool to say I didn't heed some extra caution on the wet roads... yikes.
9 comments:
I think you are SO right Michelle. It's their job to get the work done regardless of outside factors, so they just put their head down and do the work. Just like we do training in the heat. You know it's going to be hot but it doesn't matter because (excuse me for using this statement) it is what it is.
Thank you for recognizing how much easier it is when things like a pool are logistically in your favor. I used to live 30+min away from the closest pool and still managed to swim at least 3x a week, but it sucked balls. You know how easy it is to talk yourself out of doing something when it involves a ridiculous wake up time and a long drive?
Keep up the great job with your recovery so you can smash it in Kona!! :)
I hear you on a swimming pool pain. But you must admit that my pool situation is even worse:) But at least the feeling of bad-assness forces me to not skip workouts. We shall see whether it will be enough incentive next winter.
I hope that they fix the pool soon and that you will not fall out of your schedule/consistency.
I love the outlook that something as trivial as a rain can't get into your way. But I guess that every serious athlete is like that. Or should be...
AHHHHHHHH!!! Just this past Friday the pump at the pool that I swim at broke too!!!! Craziness. I had to drive an hour that day to swim instead of the 10 minutes to my "home" pool. Yuck. Then again on Saturday and today... I can definitely see your point. But it's not an excuse right? Committed people will get the job done regardless, and I know that's you! (I am now feeling lucky though that it will be more like 2-3 weeks of closure for me and not months like for you guys!)
Anyway - I am also laughing because I saw that interview with Andy Schleck also. As if rain would ever be an issue?!?! (meanwhile I HATE riding in the rain!!)
I hear you on that, the logistics are huge!! Cracking up at the interview part.
You are so right! If things fit nicely into my schedule, I am more likely to get them done. But, if it's a struggle to get somewhere, then that workout sometimes gets dropped. It definitely is a challenge for me to find the will to get things done, even if it isn't the most convenient thing!
It's not only about location sometimes, but limited availability; the pool only has lap swimming for 1.5 hours, exactly at the time you need to get your kid to school. But who's complaining?
Hope they get your pool fixed quick!
Am noticing that it rains a lot there, aren't you supposed to be in paradise? Or are you just paradise's next door neighbor and paradise being Kona! I just thought of you asking your hubby if you can fly to Kona to stay and train with some guy you met over the internet...good luck with that.
Aaaaaaand...I swam masters this morning and we kept commenting the pool was murky and our coach said it was normal. Tonight? We get an email that a pump is broken and the pool is closed until it is fixed. I could have told you from the amount of hair wrapping around my arms that something was broken, ick.
Ouch bummer, pools can be a pain....availability is lacking at the nicer pools here :(
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