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| At the Yorkshire GB Training grounds |
Once I had told people I would be representing Team GB at the IISA World Championships it began to feel quite daunting. On the back of it though, I was blown away by the wonderful, endless tide of good advice and recommendations I received from so many experienced ice swimmers, as well as swimmers that prefer less cold conditions to swim in. One such piece of advice which really struck me was the importance of simulating race conditions - albeit minus the mountainous backdrop, opponents, adreneline or the crowd. Why? Because it would highlight any issues (I was expecting this list to turn out to be quite lengthy), identify weaknesses, and hopefully quash my nerves and give me the best chance of actually enjoying the swim.
Pete Pfitzinger wrote; 'if you do not prepare your body for the demands of racing, then you cannot expect it to be ready to handle those demands. Therefore, the more specific you can make your training to the terrain, pace, environmental conditions the more effective your race preparations will be.'
Seemed like pretty sound advice to me, however before any simulated race conditions happened, I was reminded of my first issue, which was the impossibility of avoiding some kind of trip hazard or other that I seemed to always find on my way to the waters edge, such as: my own toe, small pebble, grain of sand, nothing at all, things that prevented any kind of normal water entry. I made a mental note that I ought to spend at least some part of each training session practicing a seamless water entry, or at least find a way of stylishly cock it up, if only, so the whole event did not come to a grinding halt whilst they waited for the medical team to patch up my stubbed toe/chipped nail varnish.
And so Day 1 of training, and after standing (outdoor) poolside for many several minutes, lets call it 'visualising my swim,' rather than what Leon refered to as classic 'faffing around', I disrobed and was ready to get in. The water temperature was 8.5 degrees, and a long way away from the expected temperatures in France, but I had to start somewhere. A seamless (and careful) water entry happened, and after my initial disbelief, I was sorely tempted to immediately get straight back out and enjoy what felt like a very triumphant moment, however, this was short lived, when I realised that muttering a few sweary words as I got in immediately brough to my attention issue 2. My swim friend, Claire, informed me she was 100% sure that despite me claiming it was a natural part of my cold shock response, there was a very good chance that I might be at best disqualified, or worse, arrested for cursing in a public place.
Because it was day 1, we collectively decided that it would be a great idea to start with a benchmake swim, and then regularly again after that to assess our progress. Off we set, and I very quickly remembered that I was not a natural sprinter, and so swimming faster than, well slow really, I was very much out of my comfort zone. It was one thing getting into a cold lake for a dip, it's a completely different thing when it comes to getting in the water, and immediately setting off, at speed and racing. It took a good minute for my breathing to settle, during which time my stroke was compromised by some pretty eratic breathing (part of the cold shock response), leading to my head being out of the water for pretty much around half of my actual swim time.
That couple of minutes in the water felt like an hour. It was cold, uncomfortable, and highlighted some pretty important points which we discussed afterwards over post - swim biscuits - mine as the case was, as everyone else claimed to have 'forgotten' theirs at the exact same moment they saw the Betty's chocolate shortbreads I was attempting to pass off as 'just a plain old digestive' when quizzed. Unfortunately, despite my very best efforts to eat them undetected, Jonty had a nose for a decent chocolate biscuit and I felt obligated to share as he had already offered around his Hula Hoops, despite me not liking them...
I needed to not lose sight of the fact that every training session was going towards the planning and preparartion of my swim, and needed to remain aware that not every session was going to feel easy, with this one being no exception. With this in mind, a couple of things the session highlighted included;
1) I needed to research an appropriate warm up (in short, ask some folks that know their onions).
* I immediately messaged 2 people whose opinions I value. Firstly, Kate Steel. Ice swimming royalty, someone the ice swimming hall of fame described as 'one of the toughest and most skilled ice swimmers in the world,' 3rd person to complete the Ice Sevens, and 10 (yes, this is not a typing error, 10!) ice miles under her belt, an absolute legend and all round good egg. She told me that with regards to a warm up, she may swing her arms a bit, but did not stretch as muscles contract when you get cold, and Leon Fryer, also an ice miler, STA open water rescue tutor, who created their endorsed CPD to assist other coaches and safety teams in the safe recovery and winter swimming, which is focussed on ice miles. Also, genunely lovely person who has piloted all of my endurance swims, and trust *implictely (*not with unsupervied cake - where one may call it stealing, the other calls it fair game...), and coach at Swimyourswim, also suggested some gentle stretches, nothing vigorous, and definitly not running around waving my arms 'like a testosterone fuelled gibbon.' Noted.
2) I had underestimated how long it would take for my body to settle into what I would consider my normal stroke which, in part (along with the cold), was likely to be responsible for my decrease in pace.
* In short, my head elevation caused my hips and legs to sink, which increases my body’s contact area with the water (it's the angle between hip and shoulder in relation to the water surface) which then increases the drag (look up Toussaint & Hollander, 1994 and Zamparo et al., 2009)). Something that I was sure would improve the more I became used to the cold.
Despite the aforementioned, I am a firm believer that one of the key components to my success includes looking at the negatives, for example, wrong body position, the cold and how it's affecting my performance, the unsuccessful biscuit camouflage incident etc, and work out how to adjust them before race day (not the biscuit incident - I have prioratised, and have already taken measures to ensure there is no repeat incident - My adjustment is to, going forwards, leave them in my locked car, so consider that covered).
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See you soon for the next installment.
