Swimming is not fighting...!?!

I used to have the nick name: „best swimming stone on earth“!

I was a really bad swimmer and took about 16 minute to finish 1000m which sounds o.k. but I was totally dead after that. My arms were shattered and I felt totally exhausted. Even worse: I never had the feeling I was really swimming… it just felt shit (ooops, sorry for that word, but that’s the way it was).

...am I fast enough? Uaaaaahhhh....!?!



My problem had been that all the swim coaches had always tried to teach me how to swim as if there was a formula on how to do so. I was controlling and checking myself to see if I was doing everything “right” more than I was actually swimming. Every 100m I swam was like making a construction drawing of the technic I was supposed to swim.



Don't think... just glide...



After my crash 2008 (see the blog) I started swimming from scratch and because I couldn’t swim very hard I had to try and swim “soft” without doing too many extra movements. I discovered that I moved through the water very smoothly and without fighting the water. So I just started stroking easily and feeling comfortable WITHOUT LOOKING AT ANY WATCH OR CLOCK!!!! After and after I felt that I was developing a very nice way to glide through the water. So all I did was to keep the strokes going by putting more strength and stroke rate into my swim. I got more and more endurance in it and got faster and faster. But I wasn’t evaluating my swim style any more. I was just relying on that if you once get the body gliding you just need to keep the impulse going.   



...and keep the impuls going...!!!



Today I swam the last 1000m of my 4000m swim test in 14:30. It felt really good and I DID NOT NEED TO MAKE A TECHNIKAL DRAWING ANYMORE….!!!

Now my nick name is “FoliFlipper” (as some might know…..)

Feel the water and don’t fight it / don’t always evaluate every stroke you do because you will forget the actual swimming…..!



Blubb, blubb…..

It’s only pain… but it is pain…..

Two weeks ago I woke up and tried to get out of bed. I noticed that my back was hurting but nothing special. During the day I couldn’t turn my head to the left. It became worse and worse. I went to the gym to do some stretching. It became better and two days later the muscles were relaxed…..

But: after and after I got pain in my left shoulder, my left elbow and my pointing finger of my left hand… that is definitely now muscle pain! By now I have severe pain and am not training.

It seems that I have a vertebra dislocated and a nerve trapped. That’s why I have the pain spreading to places I am not injured. So it’s pain killers (which I really don’t like taking) and the doc just gave me an injection to get through the day.

What a mess…

Apart from that my preparation for IM Frankfurt are very good and I am in front of my planned schedule. I think that’s why I am still so at ease even though I can’t train at the moment.

I am very well motivated and even did something I surprised myself and a few others with: I biked 4 hours in pouring rain and only three degrees temperature. When I arrived home I couldn’t get out of my clothes because my hands were so cold that they didn’t close anymore. I can say so much: I got helped out of my clothes and was ordered straight into a hot bath tub…. (smile). After about one hour I could feel my feet again and could speak in fluent sentences (my cheeks where literally frozen to ice). Training sometimes only consists of devotion to your sport and has nothing to do with sensibility…

Now you know why I love competing Ironman: there you get free drinks on the bike; you get free food and drinks on the run and have a few thousand people shouting at you to keep you going…. what a joy!!!

Next time I will be back with good news and soon with my new GIANT TT Bike... uaaaahhhhh!!!!!!