Back in the Pool

"The water is your friend...you don't have to fight with water, just share the same spirit as the water, and it will help you move." Alexandr Popov


After a restful week of basically either walking the dog, yoga, or nothing, it was time to get back to some real working out. I was suppose to go for a bike ride with some of my fellow Team in Training cyclists today, but the weather did not cooperate. So, I changed plans and headed for the pool instead.

Swimming is the least favorite of the three disciplines for me. I don't like to be cold and always am when I first get in the water, and it just involves so much more than the other two disciplines. I can't swim at my house, so it's a pain to drive to the gym. And in the past when I've done my swimming, I've just swam 2,000 meters and gone home. But I have realized that, just like in running or cycling, to swim faster, you have to swim more and you have to do drills and intervals.

Today when I swam, I swam a 300 meter warmup. Then I did drills for 700 meters. Then I did the fun stuff: 10 x 50m with 15s rest in between. I surprised myself and swam every one of those 50m between :55 and 1:00. Pretty consistent and pretty fast for me. Then I did a 500m continuous swim. Overall, my average pace was just over 2:00 per 100 meter. I use to be around 2:30, so I am seeing some improvement.

I know between now and next November I need to hit the pool at least twice a week. Later in my Ironman training plan, I'll be hitting the pool three times a week. And I also know I need to swim longer. I've never really swam longer than 2,000 meters at a time because the longest swim I've done in a race was the 1.2 miles of a Half Ironman. I know that I will be swimming around 4,000 meters or more in some of my training swims. I really do need to become friends with the water.