Lane Bashing

The start of an Ironman is rough. If you've ever seen the Clif Bar commercial where the dude in the canoe hits a swimmer with his paddles, that just about approximates it. Since I don't know anyone in San Francisco with a canoe, lane bashing is the next best thing. We did this before Ironman in 2004, and during the actual race I found myself thinking "Is this it? We've had practices worse than this!"

I want that to be the case again at Placid -- though I've heard Placid, because it's a two-loop swim, is a lot more violent (ugh) -- so I emailed Wayne last week to ask him if we could do some lane bashing at practice today.

What is lane bashing? See the photo. Two swimmers stand in the lane (last time we did 4 across, so this was a nice improvement!) and swim, while everyone else on the team stands along the sides and hits you. It is sort of violent (Kamal in particular has a fondness for pushing people under the water), and it is scary, but it helps you realize how it feels to be jostled and how to swim without panicking. The pic actually looks a little more tame than it actually is.

Before the bashing, we swam about 4,000 yards. Woo. Tired. Fortunately my lane-mates (Jessica, Stu, and Steve) had all done the Vineman ride on Saturday as well (and due to a missed turn, Jessica actually rode 120 miles), so we all agreed to swim a little slower than normal. Not hard to do.

After getting out of the pool, we headed out to run for an hour -- BRIDGET, we ran right by your house!! -- in Larkspur, and out onto a beautiful trail. I ran with Kamal and Coach Wayne, which was great, as I had a little coach time all to myself, and they both gave me some great tips on Placid's course. I feel a lot better about the bike course now. We ran back to the pool, and changed into our suits one more time (although sort of gross to put a wet swimsuit back on, it actually felt great), and water-ran for an hour.

Done! Before noon!!!!! Wooooooooo. So friggin' happy.
LET THE TAPER BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!