Swimming with Brendan Hansen

Well, technically, he was swimming and I was watching. Sunday, T3 had planned their Practiceman- a mini triathlon to work on transitions and fine tuning to warm up for the triathlon season. The only problem was the cold front that blew in Saturday morning, causing the cancellation of the Spokes and Spurs charity ride. So it was about 40 degrees, with winds 20-30 mph. That is just no good for triathlon.

Ceci, who had driven up from San Antonio for the weekend of training was determined to get something in, and I was game, so we drove up to Pflugerville for the Practiceman, already thinking about how we would not do the whole thing. There were more people there than we had originally expected, with a total of about 25 triathletes. After the bikes were blown over on the practice racks, we put those away and went to Starbucks to kill some time before Brendan Hansen showed up for the Open Water Swim Clinic at 10 am.

So back at Lake Pflugerville at 10, the Zoot wetsuit guy was out there to allow people to try out wetsuits. Brendan talked about techniques in the windblock of the bathrooms, though his advice was more suited for really fast people like himself, not the average T3er. Like start in the front, sprint at the start to shake people who want to draft off you (which should be done at the hip of the front swimmer, not behind), and finally sight separately from breathing, like an alligator. That last one might be more helpful to me, and I'm looking forward to trying them out.

And then 4 triathletes and Brendan got in the water for a total of about 4 minutes. It was that cold, even in wetsuits! And then they all got out and we all left. I was just fine not swimming with Brendan Hansen this time. He's going to be putting on another clinic in a couple of weeks, and I'll swim with him then!