Me and the butterfly stroke

OK, an update on swimming with the triathlon club at Melbourne Uni. My arms ache as I write this.

First of all, the swims are all at 6:30am - 8:00am, Monday-Wednesday-Friday. You can all imagine what this feels like. At first I thought it would be impossible, but, it actually isn't that bad. Of course, I haven't made 3 workouts in a single week yet.

So, from what I can tell, Monday is IM day (or at least not full on freestyle), Wednesday is the big distance freestyle day and Friday is drill day. The good (or maybe bad) thing about being the "new guy" is that you don't have the luxury of complaining to the coach to give you an easier workout, or to not give so much kicking, etc.

To give you an example, last Monday's workout was {8x100 free, 8x100 kick, 8xIM, 6x200 free} .... can you imagine the flack that Kevin/Frances/Irene would get for such a workout? Last Wednesday was epic for me, but it seems like it was just another week here. It was 500 free, 500 non-free as warmup, 3x{800 free, 4x25 hard}, 6x100 cruise [4300] ... this morning was 800 free, 800 non-free as warmup (bloody hell, this was warmup!), 6x400 free, 100 cool down [4100]. I hope this all makes me a better swimmer.

Do keep in mind the stark contrast to U of T. I must remember to photograph this pool. Rumour has it, it was the pool used for the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, but somehow I just don't believe it. We're all crammed into 3 or 4 lanes of a 25 metre pool (think ~20 people in a 4m longer Benson with skinnier lanes) and we actually use lane ropes (this morning, there were 7 people in the lane beside me -- thankfully they were a touch faster than me, so we only had 4 in our lane). Oh do I miss the 50m pool.

So, when you're skulking around Tuesday night after Kevin's High Park workout, or wherever you might be, just think that Lynn and I will be dragging our sore arms into work after a solid Melbourne Uni tri club workout. And, when you're relaxing late on a Sunday afternoon in North America, just be contented that Mark and Lynn are probably about to attempt the butterfly. It's not pretty, but they are loving it!