In October 2012, after 10 months of training, and an unexpected weight gain (unfortunately it wasn’t muscle), I finally swam a very long open water race. Since I’d already experienced a big burn out about 2 months before the race I got trapped into a very lazy recovery. I didn’t have any plans for “what do you do next”, and I was just unmotivated to do anything.
I finally got my reboot in November 2012 when I ran into Heather. The pool was closing for lap swimming so that they could start swim team practice, but she invited me to join her group for the hour and she and the other swimmers made me feel very welcome. I was very glad I stayed. The practice was so difficult I could barely make the intervals. This was something I hadn’t experienced in quite a long time and it didn’t take me long to make the decision to start training with Doug (who I’d swam with for a few years), Heather and the crew they put together. I think it is funny how I find a very difficult workout so delicious. I’m not a triathlete, but I am a multi-sport athlete. I had been doing things a certain way for many years and also “training myself” in other areas but as I began to invest in the group all that changed.
The way they laid out the program really started to resonate with me immediately. It was a buffet of options and they helped guide me through adding discipline over time as I got back into the swing of things. It addressed all of my known needs and helped me identify other areas where I hadn’t thought I needed help with such as motivation and understanding a little more of the science behind what I was doing. As I said earlier, in the world of the online availability of most things I thought I could train myself. Their multi-faceted approach left very few things in my hands to decide, other than how hard I wanted to work. Left to my own devices I’d already proven to myself that I wouldn’t work very hard if I had to do the “thinking” part of constructing my own workouts and then actually “do” them. Realistically, how creative could I be with that? Their passion for fitness and helping others combined with the way they are able to communicate that through their work made the difference for me.