The Splat Cooking Blog

I took the plunge, literally, on Sunday and turned up for an Open Water Swim seminar. After the fiasco at the swim section of the Hampton Triathlon I really needed to do this, even if it was only to get my head straight.

Dorney Lake at Eton was the venue, triathlons were going on at the same time and we all rather nervously took at seat for the seminar bit first. Bill Black, coach to triathlete stars, spent the first 45 mins going through technique and giving out valuable bits of advice for the various big events coming up – Blenheim which I’m doing in 3 weeks was especially good. Didn’t realise until Sunday that once you finished the swim there is a 400m uphill run to transition, Bill said to take your wetsuit off straight after the swim and run with it to T1 otherwise the suit will have dried off so much it would be difficult to take off once you’re up at T1. Bill also let slip that one of the coaches had been replaced by Andrea Whitcombe – a tri goddess, wow, the whole lake swim thing seems more exciting!

Wetsuits on, walk to the lake, cloud comes over, wind gets up, sun vanishes, it’s probably around 13 degrees – hmmmm, not fun. BUT, I managed to get myself into Andrea’s team, it’s a difficult choice as Nicola Millichip, swim goddess, has the other team. I could have kicked the lady next to me when she asked Andrea what her name was – obviously no idea that she’s talking to a god (!!!!!)

Into the water, it’s cold, not as cold as the North Sea in August, but cold, wetsuit is fantastic but the bits sticking out are freezing – hands, legs and the worst bit is putting my face into the water, boy it’s cold.

I actually quite enjoyed the first 20 minutes, then the feeling went in my hands and feet and breathing was really hard when the water is so cold it takes your breath away. A lot of people had problems with not seeing the bottom of the lake, pond weed, not knowing what was around your legs (the odd shark), after diving and surfing this bit wasn’t the problem, breathing out underwater was so my stroke went totally to pot.

I’m more than a little worried about swimming 750m but I’m hoping that when I’m moving it won’t be as bad and hopefully it will be warm and sunny, plus I’ve been coached by the famous Andrea Whitcombe so I’ve got to get it right. Thanks Andrea.

I was really looking forward to this tri, first one of the season, been putting loads of swim practice in so I was feeling much more comfortable with the swim element this time than in the past year.

Well, it all went horribly wrong. Not sure if I just got too cold waiting on the side. It’s an open air pool and although the water is heated it was around 5 degrees on the poolside and got really, really cold so when I eventually got into the pool it felt like bathwater. Started off thinking I was going at my normal pace and only managed half a length and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel my arms and legs and felt terrible. Reverted to breast stroke for a while and had to wait at one end to let about 5 people past before I could carry on. In the end my swim time was really horrible especially when I can do 400m in the pool in 8.5 mins.

Was worried at one point that I wouldn’t be up to doing the rest of the race but once I got out and on the bike it was fine. Knocked 5 mins off my bike time and my run time was acceptable seeing as I’ve still got a grade 1 tear in my ankle and haven’t been doing much running recently because of it.

Overall knocked 2 mins off my time, but wanted to knock off 6 mins! Some people are never happy!!!!!

I felt so bad about my swim that I was really nervous getting back in the pool 2 days later. But last night finally got it together and I’m back feeling much happier, fortunately, as I’ve got open water swim training this weekend to prep for the big Blenheim Triathlon in 4 weeks.

Just waiting for my wetsuit to be delivered and threatening the children with being an embarassing parent and swimming in the mill pond to try it out.

Thames Turbo who run the tris at Hampton Pool were brilliant, they always are, but I emailed Heather the race director about the swim problems and she was wonderfully supportive so i’ll be back in August and hopefully bringing a load of mates with me too.

I thought that running a marathon was hard, I was wrong, it’s dead easy compared with triathlon training. I know a lot of it is down to the face that I only started learning how to do front crawl a few weeks ago. The more people I speak to the more I realise that this is an age thing. All my mates of the same age learnt to do breaststroke and weren’t taught crawl at school, it was referred to as freestyle then and not really bothered with and hardly anyone learnt how to breathe properly either. i was always really good a backstroke because that way I didn’t have to get my face under the water.

Anyway, after two lessons from my mate Kate I managed to overcome my fear of getting water around my nose. It was really hard, first lesson standing in her pool in waist deep water and Kate telling me to put my face under water and blow bubbles out of my nose – I instantly reverted to being 5 years old and wanting my Mum. This was daft, I scuba dive, I’ve gone down to 42m and I’m an Advanced Open Water Diver but I’m still scared of getting water up my nose – how pathetic is that?

I’ve always watched the people in the swimming pool ploughing up and down doing front crawl with envy, wishing I could do that, well, after a number of weeks practice and with the help of a Pool Buoy – not boy – I would have preferred the help of a 6′4″ blonde adonis but what I got was a funny, wiggly float, not quite the same! I CAN DO IT – I can do front crawl, and breathe through my nose and mouth, not using a nose clip an even better I can do it without drowning.

I have managed 400m in 10 minutes, which I think is slow but it’s a heck of a lot better than 6 weeks ago.

The other ‘interesting’ thing is the transition from cycling to running. Ooooh that feels really odd. the only way I can describe it is imagine you are running and when your feet hit the ground they feel like they are hitting the ground about a foot underneath the ground, really wierd. Two and half weeks to go – hmmmmm – what time do I want to do it in? I don’t care, I just want to do it and survive, preferably not come in last too.

Yesterday I did the traditional first 10k of the season, in Prestwood. This is a lovely route if you love hills, starts off going down a little, then up a little then down, down, down a long way followed by up, up, up a long way, to the 5k mark. Well, after all the hill training, it paid off, steamed up the big hill no problem and got round the whole thing in 53:04, was a little disappointed as I really want to do a 10k in sub 50mins but when I checked my time for last year I realised that I’d knocked off almost 5 and a half minutes off it – 58:26 last year – whahey, bit chuffed with myself now.

The next challenge is a triathlon, should be no problem after running the marathon, 400m swim, 20k bike ride and 5k run – apart from I have never learnt to do front crawl. I was taught breast stroke and reverted to back crawl of which I was school champion and am still quite fast. The thing is, I hate getting my nose under water which makes breathing in front crawl a little difficult, I can do it with a nose clip on but still have a problem breathing properly.
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