(WTF wouldn't be appropriate to describe it)
Hadn't done any workout the whole of last week due to biz travel, and only managed to do a short run on Sunday morning, so I needed a quick session at the pool for a small workout and a refresher on what I had learnt during the 6km swim 2 weeks ago.
Was playing around with the new tempo trainer that I had bought.
It works by beeping at defined time intervals, so that I can synchronize my strokes to a fixed timing.
Another way to look at it is that it is sort of like a speed control device since my swim speed will be pretty much limited by how fast the tempo is set.
The pool was pretty crowded, so I had to do a bit of dodging while I swam, and slowly increase the speed of the tempo to test for my breaking point, so I stopped at the end of every lap to tune the tempo trainer.
During one of my laps I realized that there was a lot of splashing on my left, and a swimmer just frantically overtook me at a very high stroke rate.
Minding my own business, I just continued to the tempo that I had set and ignored the swimmer.
At one of my breaks when I stopped to adjust my tempo trainer, the same swimmer talked to me.
He was an old man, probably about 60 years old, telling me "Continue swimming and don't stop. Train your stamina! If you stop at the end of every lap your stamina will not improve"
I was like "WUT?"
And the old man went on to tell me that he trains a lot on his stamina, and does 30 laps continuously before ending with a butterfly lap as a gauge of his stamina, and how his strokes were slow and steady, and asked me if I'm training for any specific event, and said that I should swim non-stop to build on my stamina. And also told me to stick to my lane and not dodge other swimmers so that I can stake my claim on the lane. (Hello, I'm the late comer who is joining others that were already using the lane. It is just basic courtesy that I should dodge them if collision is imminent. If it was someone joining my lane, then its a different story)
At first I thought he was going to get technical, so I just told him that I'm on a tempo trainer (pointed to my tempo trainer) and am working on my Stroke per length then he immediately went "Huh? I don't understand"
Tried explaining the details to him but he couldn't understand anything.
Told him that I just did a 6km swim 2 weeks ago and I'm preparing for a 8km swim this weekend, and had clocked a few ironmans, so I have specific training goals.
Then he just went quiet.
I hate to come off as snobbish fart in telling him my endurance training stuff, but this was really too WUT?
I saw him barely overtake me on one of my laps with extremely high stroke rate and lots of water thrashing, while I'm following a strict cadence rate with minimal splashes. It was akin to overtaking me on his 100m sprint while I'm doing a 10km run.
If his technique was good, I'd have noticed it before he approached me.
Generally I don't offer unsolicited training advice to strangers unless they approach and ask me nicely.
But to offer unsolicited training advice when one does not even know his stuff well, is just plain rude.
Saw this youtube video a couple of days ago, and realize that I'm guilty of unknowingly spewing some of the crap stuff that triathletes say, especially those doing ironman and 70.3
To those whom are in the sport, the lingo seems normal.
But to those who have no idea what is Ironman/Triathlon, it definitely comes off as snobbish.
Gotta to watch my manners next time when I talk about the sport to non-Tri folks
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