So I've been struggling with my swimming.
As with running, I can swim forever as long as you don't ask me to go fast. Unfortunately, they have these pesky little cut-off times in triathlons. The NJ Triathlon swim is 1.5 K (which I JUST looked up and found out equals 1640 yards), and you have to finish it in 1 hour and 15 min.
Easy peasy eh?
So I've been trudging to the pool twice a week, and swimming sets of 100s (I go to one of two pools: one is 25 meters, one is 25 yards. These details matter, people, trust me).
And I've been timing myself. And it's been looking like this:
2:56 (per 100 meters)
3:02
3:02
2:52
and blah blah like that. For a bazillion meters. I can't get faster. I'm toooo slow. Wah wah wah.
And these two tri chicks have been trying, like for-evah, to 'splain swimming to me. To no avail.
But last night My Life Changed. And all because a D.C. Tri nutrition clinic I dragged myself to didn't happen. The nutritionist got stuck in traffic, so we all hung around waiting and I started chatting with a woman who is a Swimmer. Capital S.
Of course I instantly started up my auto-whining and whinging to her and she starting explaining this and that including the concept of "descending." And you know what "descending" means? It means "go faster with each rep." Which normal running people know as the concept of "negative splits."
Finally L. asked me if I had a piece of paper (of course not, let's be real), so another friend donated her Victoria's Secret receipt (you can't make this stuff up, I promise) and on the back of it, L. came up with a workout for this morning's swim.
"But I can't possibly remember all that!," I wailed.
"What you do is you take this here receipt, you WET it, and you SLAP it on a kickboard which you then leave at the end of your lane."
Well hell's bells.
To make a long story longer, and this might not mean anything to non-swimmers (it barely means anything to me except I THINK I'm catching on!), I did this, 1400 yards, my first time EVER this morning (after waking up an hour early by mistake because I screwed up my clock when I set it last night so instead of getting up at 5:30 I got up at 4:30. And wondered if the sun had finally burnt itself out because there was no sunrise. Sigh.) Onward!
200 warm up
4 x 100
2:48
2:38
2:24
2:24
4x75
1:59
2:11 (??)
1:44
1:40
4x50
1:20
1:18
1:08
1:04
4x25
40
36
31
31
100 technique
2:35
100 easy
3:12
I. Did. It.
In 38 minutes! 1400 yards. And I did it descending, too!
I might not have learned how to eat correctly last night but I learned a more important lesson: I ROCK!
Amanda Beard can bite me.
16 comments:
I'm confused. Eating--don't you mean James Beard? Who is Amanda Beard?
Oh you are so funny!
I'm still imagining you sitting at the door to the pool for an hour wondering who didn't get his or her lazy ass out of bed in time to open up!
Great job on those splits.
You are my swim hero.
Way to go!
Oh, Obsessed One, how are you getting these times? Wall clock, wrist watch, stop watch? You fascinate me!
Girl, you're going to have no problem meeting that cutoff time! Even with the open water wrench, you have like a half hour buffer! An hour and 15 minutes is 5 min/100 m average pace. You could float that!
YOU DO SO TOTALLY ROCK.
See...swim workouts aren't that bad afterall, are they?
I can see I'll have to find somebody else to run with over the Fourth. You're oh so "different" from what I remember of you last.
Way to go Jeanne!
Great job!! And I guarantee you are not the world's slowest swimmer, I am!!!
Happy Mother's Day, Jeanne.
Thanks for explaining who Amanda Beard is. I never got down to the small print at the bottom of the picture.
When I first started swimming, I used Google calculator to convert yards to miles. However, I later found out that a "swimming mile" is not the same as a regular mile - it's shorter. I don't know if that's the same with kilometers, but maybe check it out?
this is the first swim workout that makes sense to me. thanks for posting it. I'll have to try it because i suck at swim.
That pretty good!
Amanda Beard can bite me anytime she wants to.
Awesome job on the swim! I just swam 1400 last night and for the first time it felt really good. Isn't that the best? (oh, new visitor here).
Great to hear you found something that works for you - and you really know how to tell a story - I love reading your posts. Swimming is definitely my weakest link - out of all my weak links!
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