John's Triathlon Journey Follow my journey to becoming a triathlete!

It was a challenge to complete the swim workout today.  Last night I had still not decided what kind of workout I would do in the pool, so on the drive in I decided to do 4 – 250 meter sets, 3 of them sprint sets with a 60 second rest in between.  When I started my 250 warm up I noticed that my legs and core were still a little tired from the workout last night.  I pushed through the warmup and readied myself for the 250 meter sprints.  The first 250 went great, but I just seemed to hit a wall on the next set.  After completing the 3rd set my buddy met me at the wall and introduced a couple of his friends that are training for upcoming competitions.  Great people and good info on some upcoming events, however, I now had cooled down and didn’t really want to finish my workout.  However, I dug deep and finished the last 250 meters at double pace, at least I salvaged a decent workout.  I’m going to take wednesday off with plans on doing a swim/run brick Thursday.

Last Christmas, as a gift from my mother in law, I received a “swim towel” made by Nike.  This is the “large” towel with physical dimensions of 17″ x 27″.  Think of it as a chamois for the body.  I’ve used it a couple of times now and find that it works really good at getting the bulk of the water off of your body before using your cotton towel.  What I like best is that I can actually wick water away from my swim trunks, thus stopping water from dripping down my legs and into my shoes as I walk to the dressing room (or car).  The towel wrings out easily and stores back in its container with relative ease.  The container keeps the towel from drying out and keeps the inside of your bag from getting soaked.

With all of that said, there are a few items that must be noted.  First, this is not a substitute for a shower towel, its just not the same and it actually looks a little weird walking out of the shower and into the locker room with a little blue chamois covering your private area.  Second, I’ve noticed that the towel has a certain smell to it when stored for a long period of time.  I’ve washed it in the sink which seemed to make it “smell neutral”.  Finally, just like a car chamois, the body towel will dry out and and turn into a sheet of cardboard.  Not a big deal because all you need to do is get it wet again and wring it back out.  So, is it a necessary piece of equipment?  No, but it is one of those nice to have’s and will let you save your real towel for the shower (and locker room).