Swim Clinic

Today I drove 40 minutes to DC Ranch Village health club to attend a swim clinic hosted by Tri for the Cure. I'm not registered for their race, but heard about the clinic through Triple Sports. Since the clinic was free, I figured it would be worth the drive. And it was! Sean, the swim coach who took the group who considered themselves beginners was great. He talked about body placement in the water to reduce drag, head placement and rotation, playing "catch-up" with your arms, and breathing. It was a really great clinic because after an out of the water explanation of everything, we got in the pool and practiced everything with corrections from the coaches that were there.

The only thing that sucked was the weather today... barely 60 degrees, and we were in an outdoor pool. It actually rained while we were swimming, thick clouds, and no sun at all. I was freezing cold but I'm glad to have had the practice. It wasn't my only rain-training this weekend... we got rained on during our group hill training yesterday in Paradise Valley. It started to rain at the end of the run, we still transitioned and took the bikes out but had to cut it short because none of us had rain gear on. It was just too cold.

One thing I did learn is that I never want to do a tri in a swimming pool. It snakes through the lanes and people get crowded together, not much room to pass, etc. It sucked. I'll take a lake over that any day.