Too Strong (and Too Much Information)

1200yd Base and Sprint Swim

If you were anywhere around my family these past few days, you would likely assume that this post would have everything to do with the Princess and her "little problem." Specifically, her newfound love of peeing anywhere but in the potty despite having been toilet trained some four or five months ago.

Nonetheless, with a challenging swim set on the menu for Tuesday, I decided to trust her and the Pea to the gym daycare for a bit and take to the pool. I made sure to have her use the potty, which she did, and also brought spare clothes -- I was set!

Upon entering the pool area, I realized it was not only her being prone to accidents that would rush me on Tuesday, it was the fact that I was suddenly out of sunscreen! Suddenly, what was supposed to be a 1650 yard set, complete with 800 yards of base swim and five 50 yard sprint intervals was going to be those and only a 100 yard warm up and cool down. At 10am in March, the sun was already too strong in San Diego and a vicious sunburn was going to result if I went even a few moments too long. As it is, I am writing this with a bit too much pink on my shoulders and back, thankful that I got out when I did.

I did complete the base swim, however, although I experienced a bizarre physical phenomenon of feeling "too strong," or, more accurately, "too bound by muscle." To be sure, I had swum more yards in the last week than I had prior, and this set was one in which I intended, and did, really push myself, but it felt as if my shoulder muscles were not allowing me to extend. I brought this up with my chiropractor on Wednesday and he confirmed the problem was too many "internal pushing exercises" and not enough of the reverse, pulling style motions. It's true, over the course of these first few weeks, my ability to lay my arms flat with palms up was being challenged. I noticed this especially on my loooong (14+ hours) plane flights, when I couldn't just lay my arms on my side to sleep -- the result is that my arms are rotating inward due to the overuse of the muscles used for internal rotation. There are, apparently, a couple of muscles in the shoulder (primarily) used for external rotation which are inherently underused and my swim sets, without proper correction, was making it even worse. The prescription? A week of doing the backstroke as my primary swim stroke AND a good regimen of external rotation exercises using resistance tubing. I was used to that from rehabbing my rotator cuff in college, so I had the stuff I needed and am happy to oblige.

Needless to say, the "short-arming" didn't help my times any, but as I finished the base set and headed to the sprints, it became less about form (unfortunately) and more about aerobic capacity and lactic threshold. I did complete the five sets, but recovered with deep, gulping breaths after each. It feels good to really push yourself, but not so good to feel how much work is left to come -- but that's why I'm out there!

The coup de grace for the day? As I literally swam my last few strokes, the child care helper was there and asked if I had extra clothes for the Princess. Assuming she had gone potty in her pants again, I sighed and asked for more details -- no "pee," it turns out... no way. She had instead dropped trow and... well, you know. Ahh, parenting combined with an Ironman -- brilliant stuff... ;-)