Readying for Wildflower 2009

Well February is upon us now, and I've got only 3 months of chicago season to get ready for my fastest open water 1.2 mile swim in my history of competition.

I don't consider it to be a simple task to do this, especially considering the 25 yard pool problem.... it basically sucks ass. That's pretty much all I have available to me on the near north side of Chicago in the winter. I'm going to get up to distance in the short pool first, then I might explore signing up at a longer pool thats a bit of a drive away, on the near west side, for the remainder of the time. I think I'd like to get up to about 70% of the distance in the short pool by mid march, then consider less frequent long swims at the UIC 50 yard pool during march and april.

I did the math on this ridiculous feat a long time ago. I would have to end-to-end 84.48 times, or do 42.24 here-to-there-and-back "laps". I was often confused about these pools being 20 yards or 20 meters or 25 yards or 25 meters. After some reserach I have come to accept that the meters thing is out, because that's clearly the Europe thing, but is my pool 20 or 25 yards? Off to the Wiki I went.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_standard_swimming_pool_length_for_lap_swimming

I also skimmed this:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Pool-Length-Differences-in-Triathlon-Swimming&id=1653540

I'm like 90% sure that the pool I'm swimming at is 25 yards.

For those of you highly intelligent avid readers of my blog, you may know that I still have not competed in a 1.2 mile swim. I was raring to go for the steelhead triathlon in 2008, when it was cancelled due to bad weather. I had trained in the Chicago lakefront, in the heat of summer, and so my target time at that point was 45 minutes, and I feel I have to at least meet that time.

I will only be training for the swim because I'm going to be on a relay team. I wanted to let you know about my relay team members, Chris Newton and Robert Wallsgrove, two of my amigos out in L.A. who raced Wildflower with me last year. Chris is going to spin the bike up 56 miles of grueling hills and Robert is going to run the hardest 13.1 he's ever run.

Being the "front man" for the team though, so I have to refocus a bit this time. Not that it was ever a good idea to risk foot cramps, but this time I not only have to swim fast, I have to make sure that I dont stop and get a DNF, because that would really kill the team. I have to spend as much time on the safety aspect of making sure I can finish, while at the same time finishing as fast as possible. It's not just my race anymore.

Our team name.... NewtWallyRooch. Look out for us at Wildflower 2009.