Ben Collins

I woke up way too early today so I could swim in the Belvedere Lagoon with a bunch of working stiffs that have to catch a 7:20 ferry to San Francisco. I made fun of a few people for swimming  poorly, which I regret. Normally when I’m mean about swimming I follow it up with a few tips, but this time it just didn’t happen. I lost track of who was who and when I finished my own efforts everyone was done. Oops. Sorry Christine, when I said you looked like breakfast links swimming in boiling water I meant it in the nicest way possible.

Shortly after that I showed up to a give Kelly a swim lesson (it’s funny to meet all the people that comment on my blog) at the Marin JCC. I somehow confused 7:30 with 8:30, so I was an hour late starting the lesson. Oops. Sorry Kelly. I’ll spend extra time on the videos I took of you swimming.

Next, I went back to Loren’s house (I drove to the JCC), and grabbed my bike to ride into San Francisco. The weather here has been awesome, which means there are about 5400 tourists riding bikes with red baskets in front. None of them ride straight. One side of the Golden Gate is closed as well, so pedestrians and cyclists are all on the same walkway. This meant crossing the bridge took nearly 15 minutes, and nearly cost 5400 people their lives. Oops. Sorry tourists. I’ll yell “excuse me” louder next time.

I got a massage at Presidio Sports & Medicine, which was awesome. Because they only treat athletes they know exactly what to do with me. And it hurts. If you go, ask for Julie. She will make you beg for the end of 60 minutes, and leave you craving your next visit.

Easy spin back to Tiburon in which I nearly got killed by a car that pulled out and stopped in the center of the road while I was descending into Sausalito at about 40mph.  I stopped at Lucinda’s Burritos for the second day in a row. I thought this was the best burrito place in Marin, but after devouring my shrimp burrito I came home to find a log the size of my forearm wrapped in tinfoil in the fridge. It was a burrito being saved for Greta from Burritoville (I’m so glad I was full or Greta would have had reason to stab me in my sleep). She ate part of it for dinner (it’s big enough for three Ben sized dinners), and I snagged a bite - awesome. I’m totally riding there tomorrow.

This puts me at about 2pm. I made a couple phone calls and bought tickets to go home for a couple weeks (I leave Tuesday, and come back to Tiburon on the 1st). Then I headed back to the Marin Jewish Community Center to take advantage of the full day pass I got from Kelly. I aqua jogged (though I forgot to reread Greg’s aqua jog technique post beforehand), and did a nice relaxing 75 minute yoga class. So good.

By the time I got home I was in such a good mood that I babysat for a bit, cooked dinner and cleaned dishes and loved every second of it. Good things have started happening. This is the beginning of a streak of good luck. I can feel it.

Breath in energy, breath out everything toxic. Repeat. Today was such a good day.

Sunday morning I awoke to the smell of fresh oatmeal. My host family, the Rosens, were up before me, and Anna (a wonderful cook) had boiled up a fresh batch of my prerace meal. After getting used to cold oatmeal before races, this was awesome, and it set my mood for the day. It would be my first Accenture Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon! I was excited.

At the race site I set up my transition area, then discovered I had 40 minutes before I needed to be on a bus to the ferry dock, and it was still more than two hours before the event. A warmup didn’t make a lot of sense, so I just watched everyone else and soaked in the scenery.

The next two hours went by quickly. I sat on the boat talking to James Cotter and Dave Messenheimer. Before we knew it I was back exactly where I had swam a couple days before, only this time I was armed with a new Blue Seventy Helix wetsuit, and the company of about 75 other professional triathletes.

I dove off the side of the boat, and found the water nice and cool. It felt good. Lengthened my stroke I found myself in the front of the group far more quickly than expected. I used the landmarks for spotting and tried to go straight. Before I knew it I was at the marina with the first pack. I was 6th across the timing mat, but probably 4th to the beach. It turns out cold water can make your legs cramp when you stand up!

The 1/2 mile transition run was enough to warm up my legs, but as Matt Chrabot and a few other people cruised by me I realized I was losing most of the advantage I had gained in the swim.

Onto the bike, I wasn’t sure how hard to push the hills. The run was looming in my mind as an unknown, and my pacing strategy was to stay on the conservative side. I finished the bike leg wishing I had laid it on a little harder. Still, I had fun. The descents are fairly safe on this course, though the corners look sketchy. The biggest problem I ran into was that the people in front of me would brake hard for corners when they didn’t need to. It was hard to get around other cyclists. I was unsure if I had picked the right bike by bringing my Beyond Fabrications Blink TT, but I ended up spending quite a bit of time in the aero bars, and had no problems with cornering. The STI levers would have been helpful, but I don’t think the TT bike really hindered me.

I started the run expecting it to take longer than normal to find my rhythm. Hills require a slow cadence, which makes it harder to transition to a high run cadence. I barely made it to the half mile marker, however, before I realized that some of the pain in this transition was non-muscular. Earlier in the week I had bruised my heel. I’m not sure how. It may have been a botched flip turn, or a misplaced foot on a fast downhill. Despite the cushy sole of the K-Swiss Ultra Natural Run shoes, by the time I started running down the dirt path in Crissy field I had shooting pain in my heel, and started thinking I should probably not push my luck. About the time I decided to drop out, I looked up and saw the Golden Gate Bridge ahead. It was beautiful. A perfect sunny day for the race. “I’ll just run to the first hill and see if it gets better” I told myself. The first hill was at mile two. My foot didn’t hurt less, but I was running slow to keep it from hurting more. “I’ll just see what if feels like going up this staircase” I egged myself on. It didn’t hurt going uphill (on my toes), so I kept going. Pretty soon I was at the top of Lincoln Rd, just after mile 3. Running uphill didn’t hurt, so I gradually started going faster. Then it flattened out and started going down. Fast. It hurt, so I started walking right as Kevin Collington caught me. He flew down the hill while I shuffled. I stopped at the Clif Bar tent, thinking damage control was the best option. I had seen the beautiful part of the course, and it wasn’t worth delaying my recovery. Unfortunately, the other half of my brain kept talking, “why are you such a wimp? You’re not even going to finish?” and the first voice chimed back, “you know you are pretty close to half way, and they’re not going to drive you back.”

Then I remembered the sand ladder and got back onto the road, shuffling down the steep path. On the beach I stayed in control, so when I hit the sand ladder I was ready to haul.

I crossed the timing mat and charged up the sandy incline. I passed three people going up. Climbing kept me off my heel, so it didn’t hurt at all. This was the only time in the entire race I really   let loose, and it felt great! My time up the clif bar sand ladder, 1 minute 38 seconds, was the fastest of the day by 13 seconds. Andy Potts was the 3rd fastest with a 1:52. After that I ran hard to the summit, finally feeling like I was racing, then quickly had to start my shuffle again as I descended back to Crissy field. I managed to have a great experience, but I’m looking forward to racing at my potential. It’s really frustrating to know I could have gone faster.

Andy Potts and Leanda Cave repeated their victories. That’s pretty impressive.

They may be the best at escaping prison, but I’m proclaiming myself the Super Clif Bar Sand Ladder King!

My friend Bob took me out near Alcatraz on his boat Friday afternoon so I could see some dolphins, some seals, sailboats, tourists piling on and off ferries, and the start of the Escape From Alcatraz swim course. I had decided that I would go sans wetsuit because I wanted to suffer. I figured if I could get in and swim without the neoprene, then the swim would be cake during the race.

Problem is, my swim suit was wet before I left, so I hung it up to dry next to my bag. When I left in a hurry, the bag came, but the suit stayed behind. So there I am, 400m away from the dock at Alcatraz Island with Bob, his wife, son and friend, and no swim suit.  Bob had a solution, “Well, nobody is going to say anything if you just go without a suit.”

I wrapped a towel around myself and stripped, climbed on the side of the boat then dove in, wearing nothing but goggles.

Bob is an experienced open water swimmer who has never used a wetsuit, so he prepared me for swimming in 55 degree water by talking me through it ahead of time. “When you jump in, your body is going to tighten up. Just relax, get your breath, then start easy. The discomfort will go away in a couple minutes.”

He was right. As I dove in my entire naked body seized from the cold. I came to the surface and took two strokes, turning my head to breath. The breath went in, but I couldn’t exhale. My diaphragm refused to release. I slowed my stroke rate and focused on forcing air out. It started to work, and I was able to take a few shallow breaths. Two more strokes, and I could breath a little deeper. Then I thought of the fact that I was within eyesight of Alcatraz, a national monument, skinny dipping in cold water. Why did I think this was good race prep? The humor of the moment took over the discomfort, and soon I was swimming with a smile. Before I knew it my 10 minute allotment was up, and Bob insisted I get back in the boat before I got too cold.

I learned where to sight, and was able to see the markers from the water. For sure I was ready for a fast swim come Sunday.

I updated my web sight software last night. Now it looks good in IE and Firefox (the pretty white background only worked in IE before). At least, I think its all working better. If you happen to come across a page that looks wrong, or a link that doesn’t work, please let me no (sew I can make it write) buy sending me a massage from the contact form. My theory with site design is the same as with righting in general: thee more people that reed it, the less you knead to double check yourself. Blog subscribers are like thousands of ades all working together to edit my gaffs (too much?). And since they’re are 15% moore readers now than too months ago, shouldn’t that mean my posts are 15% more perfect?

Well, not according to my mother, who recently sent me an email with about 10 different homonym misuses. “Merry” Poppins, “Plain” of motion, kicking my “feat”, etc. (I just finished reading Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, and now I have the urge to use “etc.” and “and so on”. And to start sentences with “and” or “so”.) Come on people! As much as I would like to claim that these blunders were all purposeful acts of wit, they are obviously mistakes that the thousands of weekly ‘editors’ should pick up! Right?

OK, maybe I need to reread my posts before I hit ‘publish’, but there’s always a hurry to go eat, stretch, train, sleep, write a second sarcastic post in one day…

And so on.

I don’t like secrets, so I feel like I should air my laundry. That way come Sunday everyone knows exactly what to expect. What mean is, here’s my race plan:

Swim 1.5miles from a boat in the bay to a Marina in San Francisco. I’m going to do this as quickly and efficiently as possible, and I’m going to love every minute of freezing my head off in non-shark infested water (no sharks, right?)

Run #1: I’ll grab shoes at the water exit. After all, the K-Swiss Ultra Natural Run is pretty easy to put on in a hurry.

Bike: 18 miles of fun. Drink and eat some, enjoy myself because it hurts, but not as much as

Run #2 (the real one): 2 miles flat, four miles of up, down, sand, ladders, trails, trees, awesome views, water and 2 last miles of flatness.

Then I finish. That’s pretty much all there is to it: Have fun, go fast, follow the signs that say turn… I know some other guys have more elaborate race plans, but I find if I plan I just feel bad about not sticking to the plan. It’s not warfare, it’s a race, and it’s fun.

I have three good friends that were born 24 days before me on June 3rd 1983. Tyler, JT, and Tracy. Every year I call all three (and I probably only remember it because there’s three o them). I didn’t think I would see any of them this year because I’m in San Francisco. Much to my surprise, when I called Tracy she asked, “When are you coming to San Francisco to see me?”. I was stunned, “why would I come to San Francisco when you live in New York?”

Apparently I’m a bad friend. Tracy and I haven’t seen each other since my last Job interview in New York, which was September of 2005. We talk on our birthdays, and when something really bad happens, but since neither of have been dumped recently, I didn’t know that she had moved to San Francisco with her boyfriend last August. I’ve probably spent 8 or ten weeks here since August, and Tuesday night was the first time I’ve gone into the city to visit a friend. (I’m also a bad friend because I chose a picture where I look good, knowing that Tracy doesn’t read this site and may never find out that I posted a picture of her with her eyes closed wearing a pink Chinese hat.)

It worked out well. I went to China Town with Tracy’s whole family (they flew in from Jersey to see her), then stayed in the city so that I could swim at the Olympic Club Wednesday morning, and ride the Alcatraz bike course. This is only the second time I’ve ridden the course, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to have fun racing it on Sunday.

I’m having issues trying to get the files from my Garmin Forerunner 305 to show on my site. I’ve posted maps before, but I want to put up the cool graphs from the Garmin Training Center. Once I figure out how to format the graph and post it, I can put up a chart of my race in Seoul, which shows why ITU races really aren’t “easier” than non-drafting races. The speeds are all over the place, and the course is far more technical. I would call it different. Not harder, not necessarily easier, just different.

"Uncle Ben! I just had a gasser!!"

This is about the most coherent thing Piper ever says to me. And she says it every time she toots. And she toots more than a USC frat house. So I hear that line a lot. Sometimes, however, when she says "Uncle Ben, I just had a gasser!" What she really means is that it’s time to change a dirty diaper. I try my best to make sure somebody else is around when this happens.

Loren asks me to baby sit for him nearly every day I’m here. It’s almost never a problem, but I’m beginning to wonder what he does when I’m not around. At least he has a nanny during the day. What do other families do?

I was feeling bad that I haven’t taken any pictures since I got to California, and also that my post yesterday completely digressed from what I intended to talk about. So here is a picture of what I made myself for lunch today. (I was proud enough to get my camera out for this).

It’s spinach with fresh strawberry, and chicken (cooked with diced onion, lemon, garlic, fennel seeds and sage). Yes, that’s a princess plate. And yes, I could have taken a better pic, but then I wouldn’t have the Bay in the background, which is my segue.

Sunday I’ll be swimming in these waters. Apparently I should be more worried about the cold water than the sharks that are going to be biting me, but since I’ve been swimming in 48 degree lake water already this year, it’s the sharks that I’m scared of.

I’ve never done this race, so in order to prepare myself I’ve ridden the course, and yesterday I ran the 8 miles. It’s tough. Flat for two miles, then you go up, then down, then run on sand, then climb a sand ladder, then go up then go down, then run flat for two more miles. I like things that are hard for everyone, so this should be a lot of fun.

I mentioned the sand ladder. It’s not really made of sand. It’s made of rope and logs, but it’s laying in the sand. I was excited to see this ladder for the first time, but when I finally got my first glimpse it was jaded by an older man standing at the base of the steps - completely naked! He had no hat, no pants, no shirt, no shoes, and I could not see any such items laying around. He did have a small dog - some kind of terrier or Chihuahua, that he was watching (and so was I because it was a distraction). I’m not sure where he left his clothes, but it was nowhere in site. As I started my way up the sand ladder I thought to myself, "I wonder if this is a nude beach?" Luckily, the burn in my legs overtook that sudden primordial urge to streak across Marshal Beach.

I’ve been in California (specifically Tiburon, north of San Francisco) since Wednesday night. I’m staying with Loren Pokorny and his three women, Greta (the actual head of the house), Sada and Piper (who, despite being born into a post 9/11 world, still find a way to terrorize Loren daily).

For the last month Loren has written about a muffin recipe he got from Desiree Ficker so many times I’ve nearly stopped reading his blog (actually when the sun came out in Seattle I fell behind reading friend’s blogs and haven’t caught up - I’m not sorry about this, Sun in Seattle is as rare as a LMAO blog entry, and I believe Seattlites should get an extra three sick days a year for each of those days.)

I’ve digressed. The "memorial muffins" were great, pumpkiny, and moist, and chewy on the top. Good enough to mention in one blog post, maybe two - once the 24 muffins are gone and I can give a final score for who ate the most muffins. Right now the score is Loren 7.5, Ben 5. It’s been about 36 hours since he made them.

I was able to swim in the Belvedere-Tiburon Lagoon on Friday morning. It’s this shallow little lake that gets filled from ocean water and stays 15-20 degrees warmer than the Bay. We swim a little over a mile at 5:45, which is way too early. Loren asked me to watch his stroke while he flailed after the rest of the group, and I realized he swims entirely with his arms, and uses no core strength at all. It’s as though his underdeveloped arms (if Piper told one of her classmates her daddy could beat up their daddy, she would be flat out lying) are trying to drag a flimsy bag through the water. To make matters worse, all he thinks about are his arms, so they follow no natural plane of motion. His hand exits the water, bends in a way that reminds me of the robot scene in Eurotrip, then enters directly in front of his face and pushes water forward. There is no grace or balance. The improvements he made after our last lesson have been lost to hours of solitary swimming.

It seems like I’m really ripping on Loren (to some extent I am), but this is merely a cruel way of introducing a broader epidemic and a look into some possible solutions to subpar swimming abilities among 99% of triathletes.

There seems to be a lack of knowledge with regards to swim technique. People who try learning to swim at age 30 have no good resource for becoming fast. The American Red Cross has a well planned out schedule of classes to teach young children to swim, but many of the classes don’t apply to adults, and aren’t designed to make people into competitive swimmers. Masters Swimming programs around the country are coached in apathy. Masters coaches, even those few that know how to coach good technique, generally believe that masters swimmers are a bunch of complainers that are there for a workout and don’t care about anything else - so we give them the hardest set they can handle in the time allowed, some do it, others sit on the all or do their own version, and everyone seems content.

Let’s compare this to Tennis. Adults that want to play tennis, even recreationally, will get weekly tennis lesson. There are people at every tennis club in the nation that are highly trained tennis instructors, and their specialty is teaching adults. Why is there not the same demand in swimming? I can understand that recreational swimmers may not care about being fast, but much like tennis, swimming well is a lot more fun that dragging yourself through the water. (I would also argue that swimming takes more technique)

I haven’t yet developed the "Ben Collins’ method to swim instruction", or a good solution (yet), but for everyone reading I have some advice.

First, go find a competent swim instructor, pay for lessons (these are usually less than a massage, but more than a bottle of decent wine -$40-$70 for an hour, depending on where you live). Try to get some drills you can work on on your own. Not every drill is right for every swimmer, so having a coach / instructor that knows why you do a drill is important (ask why, they should be able to answer).

Second, when you go to a masters workout, ask the coach to look at your stroke. If it’s a good / competent coach, they should be excited that somebody there actually cares. I almost always ask my coach to watch me swim ("are my hips staying in line?" "am I crossing over?" "does something look wrong?" - something almost always does).

Third, technique alone will not make you fast. There are a lot of muscles that go into swimming (after cross-country skiing, swimming is the most full body sport) and they need to be trained. Use stretch cords on land to build the proper muscles. It’s much easier to follow the right path with your arms on land than in the water where you’re trying to balance.

Fourth, SHUT UP & SWIM. There’s no use in paying for a swim instructor, a pool membership, and the time to gain strength if you never get around to putting in the yards. Coaches have always told me it takes 10,000 strokes for a change to feel natural. At 15 strokes per length that’s 750 lengths of the pool, or 18750 yards, or nearly eleven miles. For college swimmers that’s a day and a half they have to think about entering farther out or pressing with their chest. For most triathletes that could be half a month. If you want to improve, keep your head wet.

Meanwhile, there is hope for Loren, and the rest of the late bloomers in the swimming world - I’m going to find a better way to make you faster.