At a Pool Party, No One Ever Gets Out To Pee.

My shoulder is still kind of hurting. Apparently. I went for a swim last Monday and had a nice enjoyable swim. Since that went well, I went back on Wednesday, but did not have the same results. About 15 meters in, my shoulder started hurting. It wasn't so bad that I couldn't swim, but it was bad enough that I knew I shouldn't. Sooo, I swam a few more laps and practiced my flip turns.

I suck at flip turns. I've been swimming pretty consistently for about 3 years and hadn't really seen much point in learning to flip turn since I swim in open water in races and don't need to flip turn. However, flip turns make you faster when swimming laps. There was this little old lady at the pool awhile ago who was swimming slower than I thought possible, but with her flip turns, she was able to give me a run for my money! Unacceptable. You get a slight heartrate increase because it requires a little more energy, you have to hold your breath and you get all the speed from not having to stop, hold the wall, turn around, and push off. So, all in all, it's not a bad thing to learn. Sooo, I practiced my flip turns. I still suck at them, but I can make it work. I miss the wall enirely about half the time. Ha. Ooops?

I also worked on peeing in the pool while swimming. Yes, I know you are thinking about how disgusting that is. But let's be honest, at the last pool party you went to, where you consumed at least 6 beers, how many times did you get out to pee? Never? Then shut up. Triathlon is a disgusting sport. A really really disgusting sport. The elite athletes pee their pants while on the bike or while running because they can't afford to stop. I'm sure age groupers do this too, but I try not to think about it. If you ever see a biker with a wet tire line on the ground, back off...that dude is peeing his pants.

My problem is that I am just not okay with peeing my pants. I am also not okay with having to stop every 20 minutes to pee. Sooo, my plan is usually to pee as much as I can during the swim so that I can at least start at a reasonable level of bladder fullness by the time I get on the bike. Unfortunately, I can't pee while kicking. Since my shoulder was hurting and I couldn't really swim hard, I thought that practicing my Peeing While Swimming technique would be a good exercise. I determined that I can't pee while kicking, but if I just take a few strokes off of kicking, I can get started and then I'm good. I think I have my pee strategy down for the race in April. I'll pee through the whole swim (I'll get a bad time because I won't kick for half of it, but whatever), and then I should be able to make it through the 3 hours on the bike pee-free, I can stop at T2 and that should get me through till the end of the race. Assuming the weather is good and I stay on my nutrition plan.

Practice makes perfect!

I know you are pretending to be disgusted, but you know you have done it. You also know that everytime you do it you look down to see if that red dye was in the water that would show other people that you peed. Does this stuff actually exist? Or is it just what parents told us so they wouldn't have to chlorinate as regularly?

You probably pick your nose too.