Polar Bears Swim Really Fast

A show on Animal Planet last Thursday shared that a polar bear can swim 6 miles/hour. I'm not sure I believe that but if it's true it would be a very dumb idea to jump in the water to escape a polar bear. Completing an Ironman swim of 2.4 miles in under an hour is an amazing feat alone, so imagine racing a polar bear in one of those things! Of course, I think I could take him on the bike.

It's easy to get caught up in all this "trying to get mo' betta, mo' fasta" stuff in triathlon. I remember once about 10 years ago - way before I had the triathlon bug - we went for a vacation at my cousin's cottage at Warm Lake up in Canada. I watched every morning as my cousin's wife would jump in the lake and easily swim to the other side and back as her morning exercise. It was, perhaps, a half mile wide but at the time completely vexing to me that she could do it so effortlessly (she swam in college).

So one day I jumped in and gave it a try. I doggie paddled and side stroked, gasped and treaded water. It was a dumb thing to do, and as I looked back at the cottage from the middle of the lake I saw my wife, Angie, and my dad on the dock yelling something inaudible at me as they wrestled with putting the canoe in the water. They meant to come and "save" me. I could see my dad was livid. He knew full well I had no swimming skills and had no business attempting this stunt. But I made it. Barely.

I've put a lot of work into becoming a stronger swimmer over the years, and I'm still nowhere near a front of the packer but it's getting way better.


The last couple weeks I put in some fun time trials in the pool. It started when I got caught up in a www.slowtwitch.com thread where folks were trying 500 yard time trials and posting their times just for shits and giggles. So I gave it a shot. I was pleased to turn in a 6:39 for this time of the year. That's a 1:19/100 yards.

A buddy of mine who can swim really really good (we'll call him Frank) mulled this over and suggested I should be able to swim a 100 all out in 1:10. I thought he was crazy. So i gave that a shot. I did it in 1:07! Again, quite pleased.

The man we'll call Frank challenged me again yesterday to try a 400 tt followed by a 200 tt. So I gave that a shot. I did the 400 in 5:08 (1:17/100), took 5 minutes active recovery, then did the 200 in 2:25 (1:12.5/100).

I don't know what all this means for this time of year but it's a good start. Maybe the man called Frank will make some sort of sense out of it and turn me into a front of the packer some day. Wishful thinking at the very least.

Anyway, training as a whole is going very well so far. January was a 40+ hour training month and the weight is coming down. Now, just over 170 lb and excited to see what I can make of February. The gumption is a'flowin' through these veins! Thanks for reading!