Conquering my demons

Today in triathlon swim class we did timed 100s as our main workout. Coach Michael (who is a USAT tri coach) made us swim 5 x 100s and timed each one to get an average of our times. He said, said, "OK, Angela take off your fins." Today I really appreciated how far I have come. Two months ago, my swimming ability was such that I could probably save myself if I fell out of a boat - and if we were really close to shore. Lastly, I have spent many moments over these past 2 months fighting these demons that have fed me nothing but anxiety, doubt and fear.

So there I was, in lane 1 (because I was the slowest swimmer) thinking "Boy am I going to be so slow without my fins."

1 x 100: First 100 I didn't know I was suppose to time myself, I thought that Coach Michael would be doing that, but I thought that clock said 2:17 minutes. From the look of his face, I don't think he believed me.

2 x 100: This time, Cody a ProClub trainer I was sharing my lane with helped with my time and this one took 2:27 minutes. Cody was doing his 100s at 1:30 minutes - why am I sharing a lane with this guy? In fact, I think half the class can do 90 second 100s. I heard Michael Phelps can do a 100 meter in 49 seconds.

3 x 100: My third 100 took 2:19 minutes. Coach Michael timed it himself, he raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "Hey, that's a good time."

4 x 100: My forth 100 took 2:21 minutes

5 x 100: My last 100 took 2:18 minutes. Coach Michael, was kinda excited said "Good!"

I was really happy after that workout. I was working hard, really high in my heart rate threshold but still managed to hold my ground. There's still time to improve, and now I see that I can only get better at this. I will try to get faster, otherwise I might be easy pickings for a trout with a bad attitude :)