BY: Chris Wright How much would a football fan pay to join a workout with NFL stars under a legendary coach? Quite a lot, I suspect, if the amount a guy I know paid to participate in a hockey fantasy camp is anything to go by; he couldn’t write the check fast enough to be able to hit the ice with Wayne Gretzky and a bunch of other former Stanley Cup winners. Now, dumb ques- tion: how many of those enthusiasts would show up if this sort of thing was offered for free, but at six in the morning? In the intersecting worlds of open water swimming and triathlon, this is exactly what has been happening on the beach in Santa Monica. On any given Wednesday—with apologies to Oliver Stone—a casual stroller out to soak in the quiet magnifi- cence of dawn at the edge of the Pacific might have been dis- tracted by the sight of 200 or more souls squirming into wetsuits and hitting the water below lifeguard Tower 26, all before the sun appeared over the mountains. And if that casual stroller just happened to know something about triathlon, she might have been startled not just by the sheer numbers in attendance, but also by the caliber of some of the athletes in the throng: Magali Tisseyre, Linsey Corbin, Kate Major—add in prize money, and it could be a womens’ pro race. No different among the men: you might find swimmers such as Australian national open water champions Trent and Codie Grimsey, or this year’s Wildflower overall champion Jesse Thomas. Sub-4 minute miler and London Olympic triathlon hope- ful Chris Foster shows up, alongside the rest of us regular Joes and Janes. Why? Very simple: they want to swim faster. And if you want to swim faster, you go to Gerry Rodrigues. Remarkably, it is this legendary swim coach who plans and runs these Wednesday ses- sions, free of charge. In Southern California, Gerry Rodrigues—in his late 40s and still capable of swimming 16-minute miles in open water—is to swimming what John Wooden is to basketball. Simply put, Rodrigues has done it all: from being born and raised in the Caribbean and swimming for Trinidad’s national team, he has won too many open water events to list and is a multiple world masters open water swimming champion. He has launched swimming clubs and masters programs. He has owned and published swimming magazines and websites. He has coached Olympians and numerous national and world champions—including some fella by name of Mark Spitz, with the UCLA Masters swim team, who can apparently swim quite well. So, it is fair to say that Gerry Rodrigues is a truly extraor- dinary coach, and the fact that one can participate in these sessions simply by showing up is a rare opportunity, one that is not to be missed. But, you don’t have to take my word for it; listen to the professionals instead. Pro triathlete (and for- mer nationally-ranked steeplechaser) Jesse Thomas traveled from Oregon to work with Rodrigues, and says that Rodrigues took two to three minutes off his swim time in four months. Linsey Corbin remarked to me from her home in Montana that she wished she could teleport herself to Los Angeles on Wednesday mornings just for these sessions, so valuable did she find those she attended. Multiple 70.3 winner Magali Tisseyre of Canada has been there every time I’ve shown up, and Chris Foster’s swim improvement to the point of being a contender for the US Olympic Triathlon team is a matter of pub- lic record. In truth, you don’t even have to listen to those triathlon pros, you can listen to their coaches Matt Dixon and Siri Lindley respectively, both of whom are frequently in atten- dance at Rodrigues’ sessions. When the most successful coaches of the most successful pros recommend that those pros come out and swim with Gerry on Wednesday mornings, what does that tell you about the value of those sessions? The sessions are not for complete beginners, however. As a rough guide, they involve a ten minute easy warm-up, and then a series of circuits of varying intensity over the next hour and a half, closely simulating the conditions of triathlon racing—the beach sprint, getting through the surf, swimming in very close proximity to others, sighting off and turning around ocean buoys, dealing with currents, even practicing the rapid stripping off of wetsuits. As many will attest, a few weeks of this leaves you—to use Rodrigues’ term—race ready, more so than pool workouts alone could ever do. My own experience is perhaps worth briefly recounting—not because I belong among the pros, you understand, but precisely because I do not. With no swimming background to speak of, this is the weak link in my triathlon armory. I had grown accus- tomed to swimming more than 30 minutes for the Olympic triathlon distance of 1500 meters, and had simply resigned myself to handing a five-minute advantage to those with whom I can bike and run. In a handful of sessions over the summer—not individualized coaching, but simply as part of that mass of rub- bery humanity—I somehow absorbed enough technique and race craft to carve a good four minutes off my swim. That improve- ment has allowed me to begin achieving consistent top ten fin- ishes in my age group, with an occasional age-group podium thrown in at smaller races; progress. Modest? Of course, but progress, nonetheless. I hope to keep improving by joining one of Rodrigues’ much smaller, formal Tower 26 pool sessions when- ever time permits over the fall and winter. The beauty of daybreak at the beach is something special; from the soft pastels of the eastern sky to the precise flight of pelicans over what is often the flat calm of the ocean, I see something new and notable every time I go. That a training ses- sion of this quality is available in such an environment seems like a fold in the fabric of the universe, something just a little too good to be true. But true it is—all you need is to be a basi- cally competent swimmer. Is there a catch? Coaches of this caliber can be eccentric and explosive. If you want the best, you have to put up with a Bob Knight attitude—right? Absolutely wrong. Gerry Rodrigues is soft-spoken, self-deprecating and unassuming. Kind and friendly, he’s also an authority on the wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy...so when four minutes come off your swim time, you know how to express your gratitude.