Sometime after my recent 5k run,I read an article from active.com. It was talking about beginner triathlon swim training, and I noticed that I don’t swim enough yards to get in those kind of training workouts.

I remembered with a start that there was a time when I wasn’t content with swimming a 1/2 mile. In those days, I was intent on adding 100 yards each week. With that in mind, I added to my workout this week.

I swam 25 free, 25 back, 25 breast, and repeated these three strokes for most of my set. I only broke it up on the 700th yard set with a 100 IM set. I was wearing my watch again, and timed the IM. 3.47.08 is nothing to write home about, but something to compare other sets to I guess.

I was swimming across the deep end again, so I made twice as many turns to get that yardage.

Just when I thought I was done with buoyancy, it came up again yesterday, surprisingly.

I made it to the pool in the early hour, and found myself alone in the deep end pretty early into my set. One of the two people who had been swimming in the deep end when I got there had left a pool buoy and a kickboard beside the pool when she left.
Having read Total Immersion, I won’t use a kickboard. But I don’t think I’d ever tried a buoy. Curious, I tried out the buoy in a freestyle length.

I covered the distance so much quicker, it was almost like wearing flippers.

It brought the buoyancy question back to mind. Oh yeah, I forgot, I don’t float well. I swim far enough below the surface that it takes real effort to freestyle. So that’s the problem! Not all that anxiety, psycho whatever I’ve been thinking it is. Simple. I remembered stuff like swimming while pregnant, and how that was like having a built in flotation device.

So I thought about how I could reproduce this effect without the buoy. Like, swimming while sticking out my butt? I tried it, and found it hard to manage at first, but once I calmed down, I found I was able to cover the distance in fewer strokes, but, more importantly, it wasn’t as exhausting.

This will take some practicing to get used to it, but what a relief! As a bonus, this will work that core.

Wow, I haven’t posted here in almost a month. Shame on me. I know you’ve been on pins and needles to find out about my last swim session.

That would have been on the 5th. I still didn’t make it to the early morning session, but that was because of scheduling, not because of daylight savings.

I usually don’t like the late morning swim time. You have to pay for parking. ahem. And it’s usually so crowded. But this time, it was perfect. I had a lane to myself, and I felt as if I swam faster than usual. Rather than panicking about how short a period I had for swimming, I put my head down and tried to get as many yards as possible in the allotted time. It worked out well. I managed to get in the half mile I’d wanted to in time!

If all things go according to plan, I should make it back to the pool next week. And I should post on the same day!

I know you’re on pins and needles about it.

It’s been a month since I’ve been to the pool. I don’t remember why I missed it the last time. Probably something to do with tennis. I mean, I had a planned tennis date that night, and decided to do just one workout that day. Or maybe something else schedule related.

But this week, I missed swimming because of the clock. I woke up at 7:20, which should have been 6:20. . .

If open swim is over at 7:45, there’s really no point in trying to get there if you wake up at 7:20, right? Here’s hoping I get used to daylight savings over the upcoming fortnight.

When I woke up too early today, I thought that my strategy for swimming was failing me. The whole beating the crowd deal neither avoided the crowd, nor gave me enough time to swim my whole set.

So I considered getting to the pool at its opening. Then I sat around until my usual time to leave. I’m nothing if not a creature of habit.

Then I noticed the snow. It had snowed around 6 inches the night before, and I wondered if I would be able to leave my block.

But it was bearable, and I found myself at the pool around 7 AM. The ladies in the shower, who had already exited the pool, had their usual warning–”It’s crowded!” One of them had even head bumped into another swimmer.

I walked away, bewildered over this question of when to get to the pool. I noticed that the pool was set up for a meet, so the lane lines were in the deep end this time, and the shallow end was roped off for people to swim horizontally across it. I scanned the lanes looking for an opening. I found one lane that only had one person in it. There was also an orange pylon on the bulkhead at the end of the lane. I nodded to the lifeguard and pointed to the lane, asking if it was ok if I swam in it. He nodded back, and I was relieved.
In the end, I managed to swim my 900 yards, 350 in freestyle, 350 back, and 300 breast , just before the end of lap swim. When I exited the pool, I was the penultimate swimmer, (as usual),and it was 4 minutes before the session was over.

I think I’ve found my time.

Last week was a swim week, and I went at a time that I thought I’d have less traffic in the pool. Wrong. The lanes were all doubled up, and the deep end was almost packed. I jumped in the deep end near the stairs–probably the least desirable spot in the pool, and swam back and forth.

Swimming across the deep end has its up side. You get across quicker, for one, but since it’s only half as far as the lanes, it seems like a lot of effort for the same yardage.

I had swum about 200 yards, which was back and forth 16 times, before I noticed the lanes emptying out. So I jumped ship and got my own lane.

Again, I was the second to the last swimmer to exit the pool–50 yards short of my half mile goal.

Maybe I should get to the pool earlier next time.