Citius, altius, fortius

"Citius, altius, fortius...swifter, higher, stronger." ~ Olympic Motto

Every few weeks, our coaches have us complete markers in our swim and bike so we can see whether or not we're improving.

For Week 9, I'm happy to have shown some slight improvement:

• 15-minute swim marker, I swam 750 yards (50 yards further than Week 2)
  
• Three Bears/San Pablo Dam bike marker time 1:45 (5 minutes faster than Week 4).
  

I've also began doing visualization exercises this week. I hated my Lake Del Valle open water swim and didn't swim well. I spent the week prior to the swim, worrying a lot about it. And afterwards, I questioned my ability to swim in the Russian River, which I heard was not so nice to swim in as well. A timely inspirational article came out in the Contra Costa Times this week of open water marathon swimmer Dido Clark, who got over her fear of swimming in dark, murky water by swimming in the Hudson River filled with floating rats, dead bodies and garbage. If she was able to get over her fear, I can too. My next open water swim is on January 25 in the San Francisco Bay. Each night, before I go to sleep, I've been visualizing myself swimming in the Bay with confidence.

This past week, I did my swim drills with my eyes closed so I wouldn't be able to see the straight line in the bottom of the pool and pretend that I was swimming in the open water. Funny thing is I noticed a difference in my stroke count. With eyes open, it takes me 22-23 strokes to swim 25 yards. With eyes closed, I swam the 25 yards in 19-20 strokes. I'll try doing this again this week.