1st Mar 2009, Sunday, My 1st Yellow Fish Sea Swim Training

I have decided to join Yellow Fish after the trial on 20th Feb. I have always wanted to improve front crawl, but without proper coaching and doing appropriate swim drill, I will never improve in it. More so since I am planning to attempt a full Ironman in the very near future, then good and efficient swimming skill is a must.

The package that I signed was 10 pool swims +2 sea swims and today was one of these 2 sea swims. It was held near to the Jetty/F2, same place as the S'pore Biathlon. The swim started at 8am but I was 10min late because I mixed up the meeting point and parked at the wrong car park. If I had not met George (met him at the Jan Pengarang 100km ride), I would have disappointingly missed today sea swim.

When I got to the beach, Coach had already divided the trainees into 3 groups, (grp 3 being the slowest), started briefing them on the training. There were approx 30 to 40 trainees and I was glad to see a lot of familiar faces, most of them I met in the Pengarang 100km ride in Jan 09. I also met Scott Patterson Lucille’s colleague in MS and a seasoned Triathlete.

The swim route was a square letter P marked by five buoys. The training started with a relax warm-up swim. Grp 1 and 2 did 1 loop swim and as for me in grp 3, 3 of us, we were told to swim from shore straight ahead to the second buoy and back, and the distance was approx. 200m.

The complete “P”route was approx. 500m and was swam in clockwise direction. Grp 3 was always made to swim half the distance of grp 1 and 2 which I later got to understand that Coach Lim wanted to ensure grp 3 would end up with the grp 1 amd 2 roughly the same time in each set of swim. After the warm-up swim, we went on with the 2nd set; grp 1 and 2 swam 2 loops and grp 3 swam 1 loop (approx. 500m). We swam a total of 4 sets in different distance around the loop P in different formation:-

Group 3's sets were as follows, and group 1 and 2 double the distance.
1st set Warm up -200m (approx timing- 7min)
2nd set -500m (approx timing – 16min)
3rd set -700m ( 1-1/2 loop) (approx timing – 23min)
4th set -500m clockwise (approx 15min)

4th set was supposed to be part of the YF mini biathlon, that was approx 900m swim ( 2 loops) plus a 6 km run. We were made to swim counter clockwise in 4th set because Coach wanted us to familiarize next week S'pore Biathlon route.

By the time we finished the sea swim it was approx. 9.40am. Wow, this is the first time I swam front crawl for more than an hours in the sea despite swimming slowly as instructed by coach so as to focus on the correct strokes rather than speed. During the 1st and 2nd set swim, I noticed that I would always swim off course, and I shared this problem with George who advised me to check course after every 4th stroke. I took his advice and practiced in the 3rd and 4th set and somehow got use to it.

Every time I began my set I would stood for quite awhile on the shore to adjust my goggle to be 100% sure water wouldn't get into my goggle so that I would not need to re-adjust it again because I did not like the feeling of stepping on the soft, swampy and dirty sea bed due to low tide; and I would hear the coach calling me with his loudspeaker:-"Henry, start swimming, or every one will be waiting for you”. From this, one could guessed how slow was I...!

After the 4th set, I proceeded to my 6 km run. As usual in the first 2 km of the run, I would always feel my legs were heavy. We started to run toward the Lagoon, past the chalets and U turn at the second toilet on our right after the chalets. I maintained at 10km/hr or slightly more checked by my foot pod. I completed the 6km run at 33 min, which I think the total distance was less than 6km. At U turn I did 17 min and my return run was faster and thus I estimated 5.5km.
After the training I chatted with Lynn Ng and Lee Wung Yew (both met at the Pengarang ride )whom I did not know they were actually related, till I saw their loving picture in the Sunday Time’s sport section during my lunch, reporting their passion in this the endurance sport and their attempt in the Busselton IM end of the year, and also then did I know that Wung Yew was our national shooter participated in last year Beijing Olympic. No wonder he looked so familiar to me.

I enjoyed today training very much, though I found it tough because this was my first long sea swim since my Port Dickson Triathlon in July last year. It was also a very good preparation for the next week Biathlon. I also felt great that it was my first long front crawl swim in the sea. I have never felt ready to use it in any sea swim despite having trained on it these couple of months. I am impressed with Coach Lim who is very committed in his training and I could feel a sense of spirit in him wanting to see his trainees improve.

I look forward to coming to the 2nd sea swim on 15th Mar, but I will be back from Korea and Vietnam Business trip on the day before so I hope I will not be too tired to enjoy the training again. This 15th Mar sea swim will also help preparing me for the Aviva on 22nd Mar.

More photo of the day event could be viewed at
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/yellowwfish/SeaSwimRunMarch012009#
.