I took the day before and the day after Thanksgiving off from work. Plus I had Thanksgiving itself off. It was nice to be able to go the the swimming pool in the middle of the day. Well, mostly nice.
My goal was to swim one mile using only freestyle. What I have been doing was swimming one length freestyle, one length backstroke. My backstroke is slower than my freestyle. The longest I had swam usning only freestyle was about 15 minutes and 15 laps. So my goal was to swim one whole mile using all freestyle.
So I headed to the pool in the afternoon. It was pretty crowded with people swimming laps and kids. I managed to grab a lane, and start swimming. The crowd started thinning out. I was in the second from the end. Then some guy and his kids jumped in and parked themselves at the deep end of the pool in my lane. The end lane was empty, but they decided my lane was where they wanted to be. I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t the butt munch see I was using the lane to swim laps? The pool had a more empty lanes at this time. So I moved to another lane and continued my laps. Pretty soon one of the kids with the guy started to swim laps…not in the lanes, but ACROSS THE LANES! What kind of moron is this guy? Yeah, this was open swim, but geez, have some courtesy.
Then another lady was having her daughter swimming across the lanes at the shallow end. I came close to swimming over her.
Finally I managed to finish my 35 laps (one mile) in 44 minutes. I was forced to catch my breath between laps at the end of the pool. But 44 minutes was still faster than the 45-46 minutes I have been usually taking when swimming easy. I am going to try to work on swimming freestyle more regularly.
I had the day off from work. I thought if I went to the swimming pool in the middle of the day, it would not be very busy. But the pool was packed when I got there. There was one empty lane, so I headed for it. Just before I got, some little 9 year old got there and was about ready to jump in. Grrrr. Fortunatly his mom grabbed him and lead him to another lane. So I grabbed the lane. My plan was to swim long and easy, half freestyle, half backstroke. I swam, and people came and went. The lifeguards changed shifts, and I saw each a couple times. As more lanes freed up, I moved to an end lane. For some reason, there were lots of little kids there. Annoyingly, some of them wanted to play in the lap pool instead of the kiddie pool. So they were swimming around with their foam noodles. And some of the little kids were swimming in and out of my lane. I didn’t mind this while I was at the other end of the pool. But I did yell at a couple of little kids to get out of my lane, and they did. I didn’t particularly want to hit them as I was swimming backstroke.
I swam a total of 85 laps in 1:53 which is about 2.4 mile of the distance of the swim in an Ironman triathlon. This is the longest farthest I have swam. But not I know I can do it.
My shoulders are a little sore and tired, but overall, I feel good. I wolfed a Subway footlong sub afterwards.
Sunday:
I did 2 hours of karate class.
Monday:
I planned on going swimming. But due to the holiday schedule, the open/lap swim session was cut shorter than normal. Then as I started driving to the pool, the snow was coming down, and the roads were getting messy. I just decided it wasn’t worth it. I turned around and went home and spun on my bike for about 45 minutes.
Tuesday:
I planned to run intervals, but I got home from work a little later than usual. I normally squeeze my run in between work and karate classes. So instead of running, I vegged for a few, then headed to karate classes. I planned to run when I got home from karate classes, but was tired, and it was little late, so I skipped it.
Wednesday:
I had the day off from work. So I headed to the pool in the afternoon and did a long easy 2.4 mile swim. That was my longest farthest swim to date.
http://www.fitness4sports.com/swimming-24-miles-ironman-distance.html
Thursday:
I ran 6 miles: 2 @ 10:00 pace, 2 @ 6:57 pace, 2 @ 10:00 pace.
Friday:
In the morning I spun on my bike for about an hour. In afternoon, I swam one mile using only freestyle. This was the longest/farthest I have swun using solely freestyle stroke.
Saturday:
I ran 6 miles. I planned to run 10, but started having some knee pain in my left knee.
Sunday:
I spun on my bike for about 45 minute easy. Then I did 2 hours of karate classes, including 30 minutes of hard exercise (I led it).
Monday:
I swam 1.2 miles easy. Half freestyle, half backstroke.
Tuesday:
I was sick as a dog and spent most of the day in bed. I was unable to even eat anything except a small 4 ounce cup of pudding.
Wednesday:
Started feeling better, and was able to eat. In the evening felt pretty back to normal and did light spinning on my bike for a little over an hour.
Thursday:
Didn’t have much time, so only ran 3 miles: 2 miles @ 10:00 pace, and 1 mile @ 6:56 pace.
Friday:
After work, I headed to the pool and swam a mile. I wish I had had more time to swim longer. Then I went and did a couple hour long karate classes.
Saturday:
I ran 10 miles. It was not an easy run!
I signed up for the Tupper Lake Tinman. It’s a half ironman distance race (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, 13.1 mile run). I was originally looking at doing the Musselman half ironman distance race. It is much closer to me. But it is on the same weekend as the Wakely Dam Ultra. I am not sure if I am going to do Wakely. I have done it the last two years, and it is a fun race. If I do run it this year, I will likely take it very easy as I can’t afford to get hurt that close to the Louisville Ironman. Maybe take lots of pictures, and basically have fun.
I will be using the Tupper Lake Tinman as a practice for the full Ironman. I think the bike ride is hillier than the Musselman. According to Bikely.com, it has about 2300 feet of climbing. Which is less than many of the rides I do around home.
It will give me a chance to use my wetsuit. And I can practice transitions. It will be interesting as I haven’t done a race this long without an mp3 player. Heck, I even swim my laps with an mp3 player.
I hope I can get an open water swim in before this race. I am sure I will get a chance since the race isn’t until June. Maybe I will go out to one of the open water swims organized by the masters swim group in the area.