This week included a milestone swim for me.
I was to swim a mile non-stop. In June of last year when I started this journey, I couldn't hardly swim 25 yards non-stop and my first swim workout was a total of 37.5 yards. Yes, that said 37 point 5 yards. Halfway up that second length I stood up to avoid a drowning in our club pool. I had "played in the water" for years and loved it, but I had NEVER swam more than one length of a pool and that had been about 30 years ago.
So while I have swam many many laps since and some long swims - 1250 yards or so - I hadn't swam, swum, swimmed (I never know which to use) 1760 yards non-stop. I told myself I was going to swim 36 50s, with a 0 rest interval. That seemed a little more achievable.
I started the workout with a 5 minute warmup - which for me is a 250. Then after a couple of minutes of telling my brain I would be okay, off I went. I did my best to relax and just extend and enjoy the water. Each 50 moved my water bottle or ear plug holder closer to finish. I must explain....I CANNOT keep count of my laps. If I try, I miss laps, forget the number, or convince myself I am really, really tired and must stop so I designed a very high tech, dual purpose, water proof, lap counter and hydration receptacle. I simply place a water bottle on a designated 2x2 tile on the deck and slide it over one tile per lap. Hey, it's not sophisticated but it works for me. Well, 36 tiles looked like a long way to move that bottle so I placed it at tile 18 and then placed the little plastic deal that holds ear plugs on the row of tiles below it...presto, the swim didn't look as long. I glanced at the pace clock and said, ok, swim 10 minutes straight and see how you feel, then it became 15, then 20, then 5 more, at 33 and change I was at 1500 which is the CapTexTri distance and I knew I would be able to roll another 300 with no problem. I finished the 1800 yards at 39:40...not the fastest by far but I made it....with fewer difficulties than I could have imagined.
There is NO way I would have dreamed of swimming a mile one year ago. I say that to reinforce that YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU DECIDE YOU ARE GOING TO DO!
See you at the finish line,
B
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1 comment:
That's awesome. I'm in a similar boat (no pun intended). Although I can swim a mile breaststroke (all four of my sprints were b/stroke!), I could never do more than one length front crawl. This year I got up to four lengths without stopping, and then I got some coaching and the last time I was in the pool I did ten lengths crawl for the first time in my life! Now I have to get to 1500m open water in a wetsuit by July 20th and I'll be fine...
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