inconsistent, but oh well

Today's swim was going fine until I started feeling a little twinge-y. Not too much, but nothing I wanted to push. So I stopped at about 2,600 yards - still not slacking. And a quick check on a scale at work suggests I've made up for the time off in Virginia.

That commonwealth, in my opinion, has one of the top 5 flags in the union, and probably the best motto: Sic Semper Tyrannis, which incidentally is what some say John Wilkes Booth shouted after shooting Abraham Lincoln.

Another easy-schmeezy swim

I know I'm not a particularly fast swimmer, so it is a pleasant surprise when I notice I'm lapping people who are doing the same thing as me (continuous crawl, as opposed to kickboard or some other relaxing pastime). I'm not in competition, but it eats at me to swim hard and find myself only keeping up with people who are lazing along.

I suppose that is just incentive.

Anyway, Thursday's swim was about 3,000 yards. I think the water temperature has risen a little, but maybe I'm just getting used to it. The first 25 yards is always a shock, but I warm up quickly, thank god.

Business as usual

Another day, another 3,000 yards. Maybe more, but of course I can't count properly while swimming. I have heard of goggles with an indicator of some kind, maybe a heads-up display to tell how many laps you've gone.

That seems unnecessary, but on the other hand, I routinely lose count. Oh well.

They don't call it crawl for nothing

After a week-plus off for travel - in which I got in a grand total of one swim - I returned to the pool yesterday afternoon for a medium-OK swim. I think it was about 2,500 yards and my shoulder and arm felt fine. I have all these grand performance plans, but I think maybe just being in the pool for a reasonably hard, hour-plus swim five days a week is a pretty good goal in itself.

At least, that's what I told myself as I crept along...

The long and short of it

Wednesday and today, I rushed to the pool for a post-deadline swim.

On Wednesday, the lifeguards had to flag me down at the end of the swim time because I was still rushing along, trying to make distance (3,000 yards, but I fell short by about 250).

Today, I didn't have that problem. After about 2,000 yards, I was out of gas and left early to have some lunch.

Today was also the first day I noticed the music the lifeguards have been blaring. I always notice, of course, but today I could hear the music while I was swimming. Unfortunately, it wasn't very good music!

Benchmark

On Sunday: Two miles in 75 minutes.

Of course, that's approximate, because I may have gone farther than 3,550 yards (but that was my count) and I may have been under 75 minutes (but no glasses + timers makes the precise time a mystery).

So, where to find 15 minutes to shave off?

On the sunny side, my shoulder felt fine for almost the whole workout, with only a couple of minor twinges. In the never-ending quest for the secret to warding off injury, my latest guess is that the damage is done when my form decays (aka when I get tired and forget to stay parallel with the pool bottom and keep my stroke in line), so I have been cracking down on that...

Also, I haven't had to rely much on decongestants, although I did take one last night. That's only two times since I switched pools!

Cool as a cucumber

Another merry 3,000-plus yards in the cool waters of the Paul Harvey Pool (yegods, is that name coincidence?).

I did notice a small bit of trouble brewing: My suit is wearing a little thin in places. A threadbare jacket is one thing, a threadbare Speedo another entirely. :)

3,000-plus

All of the open swim times at the alma mater's pool are at least 90 minutes, which means I can tackle the two miles in an hour goal in a better way than before, by swimming two miles a day and trying to increase my speed to get down to an hour. Maybe I'll have to be more official and try a mix of speed and distance workouts, but I'm still pretty casual about all this. As long as I can get to 10 miles a week - without injury, god damn it - I think I'll be happy.

I suspect that to keep eating what I like and maintain the weight I want, I'll have to slowly raise the mileage or the speed to burn more calories. But those worries are a ways off...

Step one in the new goal-reaching scheme is to swim two miles at a time, so I stepped up to a little over 3,000 yards Sunday. Sixty laps in 60 minutes is not too tough, but I'm not quite there. I raised the warmup to 750 yards, then at least 2,250, then a short cooldown. I think that with the break and the likely extra laps, I probably was around 50 yards a minute, but who knows? And I suppose, who cares? It was a very good swim, in pleasantly chilly water.

Thursday swim

Very similar to Wednesday, although I got in a little later and ran out of time, but I still did about 2,750 or 2,800 yards. I'm relieved to find that I have been able to get back to where I was last fall and beyond without incurring any great physical cost.

That sentence was ridiculous. I meant to say:

Thank god I can go farther than I did 10 months ago without getting hurt.

My shoulder feels a little sketchy at times, but the swims haven't made it worse, and the nearly two weeks off didn't make it better, either. Que curioso.