Yesterday, I woke up at around 5am or so, thanks to my cat. He has a bit of an irregular sleeping schedule and at around 5am every morning, he’ll get quite rambunctious. On Wednesday, it was no exception, and I was wide awake listening to him play with all of his toys, all at the same time. I had this weird desire to get back in to the pool. After getting my new training swimsuit over the weekend, and having been away from the pool for a week and a half, I was really missing it.
As usual, I dragged while getting ready for the pool. In all, it took me an hour and a half to even get to the gym. I packed slowly. I moved slowly. I wanted to swim but the hardest part of it was actually getting to the gym. The second hardest thing about getting to the gym is forgetting a bunch of stuff at home and foregoing things like deodorant at work. (Not cool!)
By the time I made it into the pool, it was 6:55am. Not late, not early. I had plenty of time to stay as long as I wanted, especially since I only planned to swim. I set my intention before I started swimming: I would get the distance in, no matter what stroke I used. I would rest as much as I needed, but not overdo it. I wouldn’t compare myself to others. I would also finish when I was done, not when the clock hit a certain time. Most importantly, the mileage wouldn’t really matter, as long as I stayed longer than usual.
I started off with a backstroke, and after my first lap, another woman jumped into my lane. Turned out she was much, much faster than I was! That was fine. It was awesome watching her zoom up and down the pool. In the lane next to me was the older woman who I’ve been running into lately. The slowish guy was also in the pool as well. It was kind of cool to be able to spot regulars, but nonetheless I tried to focus on myself for the time being.
I would practice a few things:
1) backstroke, all the way down the pool and back, without rest
2) backstroke one length of the pool, freestyle one length back
3) backstroke half a length of the pool and switch to freestyle (for when I have to alternate during open water swims)
4) freestyle one lap at a time (with plenty of rest in between if needed)
It’d be really nice to find a swim instructor, or a personal trainer for swimming. It might be time to pony up the cost of one. I stayed in the pool for an hour and fifteen minutes and felt great! I wasn’t winded but I felt like I got a good workout. Later in the day, though, I found that my left shoulder was a bit tender. It felt a bit overextended. Maybe it was upping my distance drastically. It was probably also poor technique. Either way, I felt great about the workout and look forward to getting into the pool even more.
Amara in Training 