Little Miss Runner Pants

waking up at 4:19.. in the MORNING... to swim?

it's unnatural.
it goes against nature.
it is wrong.

and i would enjoy not having to do it again in the near future.

me and morning don't mesh well. i tend to frown and moan a lot, and the only words in my 4am vocabulary are generally... hmpf. and guh.

however that being said, the rate at which i perk up heading to the pool is a millenia faster than that of when i'm heading to the office.

go figure.

anyway. swimming.

i met my coach at 5am, bright eyed and bushy tailed and was, in all honesty, looking forward to the pool time.

i don't want to boast but... i've been told.... i'm a pretty good swimmer.

i have a nice.... stroke. good form with a casual, quiet brilliance in the water.

so this swimming thing? well.

piece of cake.

i got in the pool, swimming cap... goggles... chit chat with the coach and... i'm off. swimming down and back for KK (coach) so he can take a good look at my technique.

maybe even teach him a thing or two!!

i returned to his end of the pool, ready for his shock and awe at my fish-like abilities... and was greeted with....

1.) you bend your legs when you kick
well... duh.
2.) your butt sinks as a result of this
my butt sinks? how is that even possible?

3.) you swim flat
unaware there was another way to swim
4.) and last but not least... you have an erratic stroke.
boo that. i'm a fish.
5.) however, your arms look pretty relaxed. so thats a good thing.
ha! told ya!

as i stood there listening to everything i needed to work on, i was a little overwhelmed.

rotate my body. pause on my stroke. kick from the hip. keep my legs straight. glide thru the water.

right.

got it.

so i take a big gulp of air, plunge into the water and attempt to swim in a manner that just seemed downright foolish. i felt like i was over-exaggerated, splashing water everywhere with my legs and in the middle of it all...

i just started to laugh.

under. water.

apparently in all that i had to concentrate on, i forgot about the breathing part, and... i basically had some sort of strange rotating hip kicking seizure in the water and had to stop half-lap and collect myself.

this was going to be harder than i'd imagined.

at the end of every length of pool, i'd stop... look at KK with hopeful eyes that asked "did i get it?!" he'd shake his head, laugh, and say... "yeah. that was.... better."

liar.

apparently for me... the kicking thing was going to be a problem. rotating my body was kind fun, cuz it felt ridiculous.. pausing on the stroke helped me breathe a bit... but the kicking?!

no. my head could just not wrap around the task at hand. my swimming went something like..

kickickickick kick from hip! rotate body! kick..... kick.... am i even doing this right? this is retarded!! kickickickick am i bending my legs? are they... is this gliding?... rooooooooootate, pause, turn head, breathe, roooooootate, stroke, pause.. crap i'm totally bending my legs... i can't do all this at the same time. GAH!

repeated over and over again for over half an hour. each length of the pool feeling as though i conquered something.. anything... finding out that in fact... nope. i still suck.

at this point i thought for sure we'd been in the water for at least an hour... i looked at the clock and realized we were barely pushing 15 minutes.

oh dear god.

by the end of our session, however, i was master of the floating butt. no more sinking derriere. my stroke was improved... meaning he could tell i understood what i needed to work on...

and my kick. well, to quote my coach.... "you seem to have landed in some happy medium between my way and your way"...

go figure.

all in all... i had no idea there was so much to think about while swimming. if i had to take a guess, my body rather enjoys its natural erratic behavior.. reigning in all my limbs to work together as one fluid machine?

not easy.

but at least i now know what to work on, right?! and lets face it... swimming? running? all i need now is to forge a working relationship with Ugly Boy Bike and i'm fast on my way to becoming... A. maria... dolphin-like-pedaling-queen-runner-triple-athlete-extraordinaire---girl---person!!!!

HA!.....how 'bout them apples, eh?!!!