Trying out the snorkel.

I find it fun to share the 'not so attractive' side of triathlon.  Swimming is pretty unattractive, With the swim cap and goggles but a snorkel brings it to another level.

Adam's swim club members were required to buy a snorkel.  The point being, that you can then focus on your kick and your arm stroke, without taking your face out of the water for a breath.  Adam's coach claimed that the snorkel helped him tremendously (he's a professional ironman triathlete.)  He said that he wasn't 'catching' properly with his left arm and he only realized this with the snorkel.  Adam wanted me to try it out but warned me that it was hard to get used to.  I thought to myself, "what could be so hard? I've swam in the ocean with a snorkel looking for fish and corral several times, without any trouble."

Well, it was tricky after all.  My first lengths I only kicked, so I could get used to the breathing but I kept having to stop and take it out to get a breath.  I also kept getting water up my nose.  It was hard to keep the water blocked from coming into my nose and only breath into my mouth.  I started to figure it out after a few lengths and decided that, even though it's an ugly tool, it's definitely a helpful one.  I found it especially helpful for working on my kick.  I've been focusing lately on trying to have looser ankles (think fins or fish).  With the snorkel it was awesome because I could stay underwater in the correct body position and just think about kicking better.  I could hear my coach's voice in my head, "from the hip, soften the knee, soften the ankles."  It's coming little by little.  I must say, I love this off season work.  I get to patiently take time to improve in the details, without worrying about increasing time/pace so much.

Oh and by the way, I have decided to run a marathon.  Ok, I did it.  I put it out there.  That means I have to actually follow through on it.  I'm just going to run it on my own timing, not in an actual race.  I want to do it in December and there aren't any local marathons on a Saturday in December, so I figured I don't need the structure of a race this time around.
I ran for 2 hours today and it was ok.  As good as 2 hours on a treadmill can be I guess.  I'm building my time up to about 2.5 hours and then I'm just going to go for it.  If I'm being honest, the reason I want to do a marathon is to prove to myself that I can do it (IM Cozumel doesn't really count) and ALSO to get my body used to the idea of running that long because someday I would love the give the full Ironman another shot.