Thoughts on my First Swim Meet

Today is a big day for a few reasons.

1. It is my first day back to structured training. I am hopping back into regular workouts from my coach (you can read a bit about why I am with this particular coach here).
2. It is Cyber Monday. This is the day where I try to clear off what is remaining of my Christmas shopping list. If you are an athlete looking for big deals or trying to cover off that runner on your list, check out CEP for 20% off everything (I love their compression socks), Goodness Me! for free shipping and loads of great deals on healthy food, New Balance Canada is offering a $20 gift card and free shipping on orders over $100, and Solo Energy Bar has a BOGO deal.  

I hope you had an awesome weekend! On Saturday, I tried something completely new and entirely humbling for me – a swim meet. Sometimes, it is hard to remember what it felt like to be brand new at something. I have been running pretty seriously for 5 years and even mountain biking is starting to fall into place for me. But swimming – that is an entirely different story.

I nervously signed up and truthfully wasn’t even sure of an accurate time to share for the swim waves but I chose a pretty conservative number and showed up.

They had an incredible amount of talent athletes both competing and volunteering. There were Olympians Andrew Yorke and Jason Wilson assisting with timing,  2-time XTerra national champ Karsten Madsen ushering swimmers towards the pool and 3-time national champ Joanna Brown collecting our money.

I was immediately surprised at what an awesome, low-pressure environment it was. I had chosen the 50 and 100 events, despite the fact that I am much more an endurance athlete. I was there to learn the process and not get lapped.

The first order of business was quickly learning to dive in without losing my goggles. It took a few tries but keeping them under my cap helped. The nice thing about the short events is that they are over before you know it. Unfortunately, I am in no way a sprinter and I was far from impressive in either event, but it made me excited to learn more and keep improving at this new sport.

The meet was put on by RTC Guelph and they are hoping to put on more events in 2017. I will certainly be back because it will be a great benchmark to use to mark my progress in the water.

It certainly was a weekend of being surrounded by Olympians. On Sunday, a few of my friends and I checked out the Running Room’s Annual Marquis de Sade half marathon. What makes this half marathon so unique is it encompasses many of the hills of Bloor West and High Park. It’s a sadistic route of 21.1km with hills & stairs. I did it in 2015 and this year, I came back for more!

We were in the last 5 KM of the run when suddenly, we heard voices behind us and Lanni Marchant and a group of runners joined us. It was a neat ending to the run and the hills hurt every bit as much as I remembered.

It was a great weekend of pushing outside of my comfort zone. Now if you excuse me, I am off to start training for 2017!

How was your weekend?

What was the last new thing you tried competing in?