Neti-Pot?????

Some of you who watch Cougar Town will remember the neti-pot episode.  Maybe you don't watch the show, neither do I, but maybe you read Allison's blog post about the neti-pot?  My wife is using the neti so much that she now refers to it as Ned.  So when I hear I have a date with Ned I don't even blink.

Why is this coming up?  Well today I had a 3000y swim session planned.  I went to the gym and looked into the pool and it was empty.  Great sight considering the start of the new year.  I changed quickly and headed to the pool.  Looking through my sandwich bag at my training session I noticed that the last 5x100 were to be done with breathing every 3 strokes.  I am a breathe to one side on each stroke kind of guy so this was going to be a test.

Well, what is life if we don't continually test ourselves right?  I took that in stride and decided to add in flip turns.  Flip turns and I are like oil and water....we don't go well together.  I have had the theory that I won't be flipping in the open water so why learn right.  Well, Allison posted about that same thing just recently and Patrick and Kovas chimed in with rational reasons as to why we should do flip turns.
(BTW - Patrick has a site called Endurance Athletes Project that you need to go to after you finish reading this.  Or go to the Facebook page.)

Anyway with that in mind I decided I was going to do flip-turns today.  I did my 300y warm-up and wasn't ready so I didn't do one.  I had a 300y swim that was 150y RT/LT and 150 swim and I decided that here is when I was going to do my first.  My first, as they say, will never be forgotten.  I went over and saw the sky, the floor, the top of the water, the lane marker, the rush of water up my nose and my hand on the bottom of the pool.  If that wasn't enough I felt the pain in my foot from smacking the wall.  Epic failure.  It was at that point that I chose to not fail again.  I decided that I wasn't going to do it in the shorter end if I had touched the bottom of the deeper end.  Safety here.

I flipped, and I flopped but I did not fall down.  I flipped again and again and again.  Sometimes great, sometimes not so great.  I was swallowing water, I was having water flush up my nose but I was not going to quit.  There is no can't in my vocabulary.

It was now time for the 5x100 with breathing every 3 strokes.  I went through it in my mind during my 1 minute rest interval.  I was nervous about the breathing because I would have my face buried for longer than normal but again I was not going to not try.  If I couldn't do it then so be it but it would not be from a lack of effort.

Here we go:  breathe, 3 strokes, breathe, 3 strokes, breathe......here comes the wall.....flip turn and back...breathe, 3 strokes, breathe and on this went for the 500 yards.

What a huge success and with each stroke I gained more and more confidence.  With each flip I got stronger and stronger in my mind that I could do it.

SUCCESS

That was until I was getting changed to go to the gym for a strength and core session.  As I was changing.....here came the pool.  Flooding out of my nose at a pace that the Colorado River would be jealous of.  It was just flowing like a river.

I did not keep me down though because for crying out loud I flip turned and breathed every three strokes.