I went swimming today!  This is the first weekday in two weeks that I have made it to the pool, so that is good news.

I am not still rehabilitating a bike body, but I didn’t swim a mile today.  I succumbed to early pregnancy fatigue and just swam 900 yards, or a half mile today.

I feel like a total wimp for cutting my yardage, but I decided to give myself some grace.  This fatigue won’t be here forever.  I timed my one IM, which I intentionally swam slowly.  It was 3:00.16.  I haven’t swum it this slow in forever, and that time almost had me try to swim it fast a second time, but I didn’t.

I am looking forward to the passing of the fatigue period.  Then I can complain about round ligament pain, I’m sure.  Ah, the joys of pregnancy!

I couldn’t believe it when I read that our county parks would have a free day on June 24th.  I decided that was worth checking out.  We live about half an hour away from Lake Michigan, which is a very frigid experience even on hot days.  But when I want to get to a beach a little quicker, I head to the county park, 10 minutes away.

When we drove up to the gate, the guy at the toll booth said, “That’ll be $10.”  I blinked.  I squinted at him.  I said, “Seriously?” And he said, “No!  You’d be surprised how many people know it’s free, but still ask me if I’m joking. . .”  Yeah, very funny.  It’s because we can’t believe it’s free today.

It was a perfect day for the beach, too.  90 degrees in the shade, the tiny lake was perfectly refreshing.

My youngest son, who usually freezes in pools loved the lake.  He ran in, splashing, pouring water, doing little keep-your-head-above-water tricks, and even entertaining the idea of pouring water on his head.  His next older sisters were swimming, doing handstands, and having a ball.  My 7 year old daughter noticed something that looked like a gymnastics bar, and she was content to play on that the rest of the day.

My older son had really not wanted to go at all.  But I thought maybe he should.  Get some fresh air, play in the water, you know, live a little.  He tried to catch some of the little fish swimming around.  I even saw him crack a smile as he traded splashes with his younger sister.

My oldest daughter managed to enjoy the water with a wig on.  Must protect the hair, you see!

And I held the baby.  The baby loves pools, but wasn’t sure what to make of the lake at first.  She didn’t want me to put her down, or really in the water.  It took her awhile to warm up to it.  Then we played ring around the rosy, and she was hooked.  She started splashing with one hand.  Then she noticed my feet out behind me, and she started kicking in the water.  That contented smile on her face was worth all the hustle and bustle it took to get there.

Not to mention the two hour nap(!) after we got home.

On Wednesday, I pretended like I was up to a 15.1 mile bike ride.  I almost convinced myself too!  I mean, I actually did the whole ride without any major breakdowns.

Then, on Thursday, I felt my butt.  And my hamstrings.  And the hot tub was calling my name. . .

But I didn’t go to the pool on Thursday.  Or Friday.  So I dragged myself to the pool on Saturday, not intending to swim a mile at all.  And I didn’t.   I had no idea how low bike butt extends!  I mean, I was all kinds of sore in the middle of my hamstrings.  Every kick hurt.  I felt slower than molasses, grateful for how empty the pool is on Saturday morning.

I set out to swim 500.  That is what I swam.  Then I headed to the hot tub. . . and stopped dead in my tracks.  Pregnant women aren’t supposed to use hot tubs!  How many times had I unsuspectingly used the hot tub?  Had I even gone since I’d found out I was pregnant?  I don’t think so, but I don’t remember.  That’s something to mention at the midwife.

On a completely unrelated note, I ran into a huge crowd outside the Y this morning.  People were scaling the steep hill beside the Y to begin a run.  I noticed all different shapes of people, but didn’t see one black face.  That was not the case when I ran the 5K with my daughter a month ago, but here at this event, I didn’t see anyone like me trying to participate.  It made me sad.  It made me sad to see all these other people embrace a life of fitness, but not my own people.   As I like to cry out to folks on this blog to ‘just give swimming a try!’  I’d like to give a shout out to a fit lifestyle.  Sign up for these races!  You can do it!  Swim!  Run!  Play tennis!  Ride bikes!  Try one of these lifetime sports–you can’t play basketball or football, or even soccer forever.  And your body was made to be in motion.  Forever.  So use it!

*stepping off soap box*

So last week I had a setback.  My baby was sick, so I stayed home with her on my usual swimming days.  She was feeling better on Saturday, so I went swimming then.  My oldest daughter had a 9 AM appointment, so I felt like starting at 7 AM it would be pushing it to get a mile done in time.  So I went into the workout thinking I would quit before a mile.  But after I finished that first 900, I decided to go for it.  I got home in time for her to make it to her appointment!

I remember learning to swim at the ripe old age of 12, and how I had thought it would mean I could finally do all the strokes.  Like the cool strokes.  Like butterfly.  But, alas–my advanced beginner class stopped at breast stroke.  They threw in a side stroke, which is not a competitive stroke, but no butterfly.  I was excited to see my children learn to swim butterfly (fly) while doing swim team.  My daughter especially took to it.  Not to say she liked swimming it or anything, but she was good at it.  My son had shown such promise in learning the kick, but couldn’t deliver with his arms.  I wish he’d continued swimming; he’d probably be much stronger in fly by now.

So what I learned about fly I learned from watching the kids in swim practice, and listening to their coaches.  The kick is a wiggling of your whole body, not really doing anything with your feet.  You do this undulating while your arms are in streamline, clasped at the wrist and arms over your ears.  Your head is underwater at this point.  To take a breath, you pull your arms back, pull your head up and then kind of dive your hands back in the water over your head, in the streamline again.  It feels kind of awkward at first, and definitely like a shoulder workout.  I can do about three kicks per breath at this point, sometimes four.

I don’t do any butterfly lengths by themselves.  I only do them as part of an Individual Medley (IM).  In the IM, you swim 25 fly, 25 back, 25 breast, and 25 free–in that order.  I feel like, even though I should be practicing to swim freestyle for long stretches of time, I am actually training to swim IMs.  I swim two actual IMs, but in other parts of my set, I swim the strokes in IM order, like breast, free, back, breast.  The effect is that I have an easier time swimming the IM faster, because I’m so used to the order of the strokes.

I feel like the ultimate swim geek being so into the IM.  I remember being giddy when my daughter got to compete in IMs.  Never mind that she hated every minute of it.  Her stroke was good enough to swim all four competitive strokes in one race!  That was great, especially considering how she had started off a scared little 5 year old who couldn’t bear to get her face wet.  My fearless son also got to compete in IMs, but his breast stroke wasn’t consistently legal, so sometimes I’d watch him win his race only to get disqualified later.

Anyway, watching them compete in IMs made me want to swim it so much I could taste it.  I was so excited to finally get in the pool and swim the 100 IM myself.  And then I found out how truly exhausting it is!  I would find myself panting and praying in the deep end before forcing myself to swim that final freestyle.  It is still hard for me, but I can usually make it down the final length before I’m breathless and panting.

Then I reward myself with a lap of elementary back stroke.  This is totally a cool down stroke for me.  My goal is to be breathing normally at the end of this lap.  Sometimes I am; sometimes I’m still catching my breath at the end of the 50.

I only timed one IM on Saturday.  I finished at 2:42.08, which was pretty consistent with what I’ve been swimming lately.  But it wiped me out so much that I didn’t want to push myself the second time I swam the IM.

Lately, I have been more tired than usual in the pool.  And I recently found out that I have a good reason for that.  I am pregnant again.  With number 8.  My last pregnancy was the first time I got to swim up until delivery, and it made such a big difference in labor and delivery!  So plan to keep swimming this time, too.

I went swimming this morning, and I felt like quitting for the whole first half mile.  Some things are becoming consistent; my first IM time, 2:40.59, being just a second or so slower than my last IM time Tuesday.  But I was so tired afterwards, that I didn’t push myself hard on my second IM, coming in at 2:46.63.

Imagine running while holding your breath and someone’s throwing water in your face.  Oh yeah, and you’re wearing body weights.  That’s kinda the sensation of a swim workout.  It just took so long for the adrenaline to kick in!

Then I looked up, and I’d swum 900 yards.  I was halfway done.  I could do this!  I put my head down and got it done.  I even managed a few flip turns for the first time since attaining the mile.

It felt like I’d been in the pool forever.  I didn’t look at my watch when I first entered the pool, but it was 5:48 AM when I reached the deep end after my first 25.  I finished at 7 AM.

Lessons from the freestyle:  This is such a coordination stroke.  You’re doing rhythmic breathing, you’re kicking, pulling your arms.  It all has to syncronize in order to work.

I did some drills today to get through it.  When it’s all said and done, I swim 550 yards of freestyle in my set.  I’d like those yards to be as effortless as possible.  The drill I did today was to roll all the way over on my side while breathing, and glide a little from that position, taking a long breath or two.  I tried kicking while on my side, and found myself more tired, even though I’d taken in more air.  So I tried to coordinate the kicking so I’d basically stop kicking while I was breathing.  This felt a little awkward, but it was less tiring.

I tried to pysche myself into being excited about swimming freestyle, rather than the usual dread.  by the time I swam my last freestyle length, I wasn’t exactly happy to be swimming it, but I did almost look forward to it.

I noticed that my backstroke was inconsistent today.  I count my strokes–that’s every time my arms move through the water.  I used to consistently get to the final flags after 18 strokes.  Lately, I’ve worked my way down to 16 strokes.  But today, I was all over the place–sometimes 16, sometimes 19.  It all pointed to fatigue.  I also swim 550 yards of backstroke in a set.

Usually, I feel fine aerobically swimming breast stroke.  It’s just easier to breathe and swim breast stroke than freestyle.  What usually happens is my knee gets a chink doing that frog kick for an extended period of time.  I’ve done 450 yards of breast stroke by the end of a set.  Today, that was pain free.  Score!

Next time I’ll talk about butterfly and elementary back stroke, and I’ll go into detail about the IM.

I did end up swimming again last week, but I didn’t write about it.  Then, I went swimming again today, so I’ll write about both experiences in this one post.

I noticed last week that I felt dog tired until I’d hit 1200 yards.  I don’t think that’s a magic number; that’s about when I get over the freestyle hump.  I’m still struggling to feel good swimming freestyle.  Baby steps.  I remember when I couldn’t consistently do streamline past the flags on my fresstyle lengths.  Streamline is when you put your hands together, one over the other, and hold them over your head.  You are squeezing your ears with your arms.  This is a racing start that has you shaped like a torpedo in the water.

Watching my kids practice for swim team, I knew that being able to hold their breath until they past the flags at the beginning of the lane was a huge leap.  It’s hard for little kids–shoot!  It’s hard for grown folks who don’t have swim training.  It has taken me a few years of working on my swimming to get consistent with this.  My next freestyle goal is to be able to keep going without stopping to catch my breath or change strokes!  After that I’ll try to flip turn to a freestyle position.  I’m scared to death to do that now, because of all the breath holding you already have to do with a freestyle.  Flip turns are just another exercise in holding your breath!

Anyway, when I swam last Friday, I swam my IM’s at 2:43.10 and 2:42.36.  I was feeling pretty good about myself for swimming my second one faster than my first one.  Then I looked over one lane, and I saw the guy over there swimming IM after IM after IM, never taking a break, or cooling down or anything!  And he was swimming 100 yards faster than I was swimming 50 yards.  Talk about taking yourself down a notch!

Today when I swam, I did my IM’s at:  2L38.20 and 2:39.34.  My old goggles fell off in the middle of the second IM, so I was pleased with that second time.

Last week, as I leisurely swam breast stroke straight down the single lane, I looked up to see a man barreling towards me swimming freestyle!  He had entered the pool without saying anything to me, and –whoa!  If I hadn’t looked up, that would have been a collision!  He was a swimming machine, kicking up tidal waves every time he passed me.

Today, I swam in the double lane.  We could have three people swimming there without feeling cramped.  I had half finished my mile when the old man next to me excitedly announced he’d swum 36 laps.  (That’s a mile!)  He had on flippers and told me that it had been a year since he’d swum that far.  He told me to never quit swimming, and then left to tell his wife what he’d done.

Tired, but encouraged, I finished my mile.   I hope to swim again on Thursday.