Getting Wet in Raleigh

I've been on the tour I'm working on this week for five years now.  Although the event has changed and evolved theres one thing thats been consistent.  The event never ends on time and always goes long.  Long in the case of this event means late.  So its pretty typical that I get out of work around midnight most nights.  However for whatever reason the live broadcasts have been ending delightfully early.  Friday we got out just after 9pm and last night I was in bed by 10:30 which rocked.  So this morning I leisurely got up at 6:30, turned the rig on and then headed to the hotel pool to get some laps in.

After the first out and back two things came to my attention.  Despite it looking like its almost 25 yards long I think in fact its only about 18 as the walls come awfully quick.  The other was that at first I thought the water tasted horribly wrong.  Then it occured to me that its actually a salt water pool which is why it doesn't taste like chlorine.  I've never actually swam in an indoor salt water pool.  Its actually quite nice.

So with those shocks out of the way I proceeded to get to work.  At first I wasn't sure what to expect.  Despite the fact that I swim an average of 4 miles a week I haven't been in a pool in forever!  I do all of my swimming in open water in a wetsuit.  So quite often when I get in a pool my legs sink and its a battle for good body position which exhausts and frustrates me.  Its the biggest thing I plan on working on in the offseason this year as I really must fix that.  Well I don't know if its all the swimming I've been doing lately, or the buoyancy of the salt water pool but my body position today sans wetsuit was the best its ever been.  I was really pleased.  It still needs work and I'm still using a bit too much energy in the kick but I felt really solid today in the pool which was awesome.  In a way its a shame the pool is so short as after a while that got kind of frustrating.  So today I just did some easy laps for a while and then I did some kick drills that I'd read about last night focusing on the "clinch your butt cheeks together like your trying to hold a quarter between them and kick from the hip" technique I'd read about on swim smooth yesterday.  This was actually working really well for me and I could really feel the difference in my body position.  So after doing that for a bit the walls coming rapidly got annoying.  So I switched gears a little.  I tried practicing some flip turns since I had the pool to myself.  Those went better than expected and I even managed a decent turn or two.  The biggest problem was that there was no T painted on the floor of the pool so timing them was not easy.  Man its a weird sensation when you flip and go to push off the wall and your feet never hit it!  Fortunately I didn't have the opposite problem of flipping and hitting my legs on the wall of the pool prematurely.  But that was good practice.  I still have a long ways to go before I master that one though.  So in the end today was just a nice leisurely pool session.  Hard to do much more than that in such a short pool.  It felt good though and makes me think maybe spending the winter in the pool won't be as hard as I sometimes think it will be.

Now its another day at the office for the epicly long live broadcast today.  I think were live for something like 4 hours today.  And then tomorrow we will take it all down and stuff it in five trucks and then fly home.  Tomorrow is going to be another off day for me as tuesday will be my one last big swim/bike/run brick workout on the course.  I plan on doing the entire swim and bike portions and either a 3 or 6 mile run.  I think six but I haven't decided yet.  Should be a great day.