Morning swim

I have come to learn to love swimming. Swim workouts are my most anticipated workouts during the week...except one part - the initial jump in the water.

It's absolutely amazing how close I come every day to aborting my entire swim because I dread the initial dip.

Once I get in however, it's great. There's just something to be said about the smoothness of the swim technique and the lack of impact compared to running or even the burn of cycling, I relate it to a long stretching routine (most of the time and when pull paddles aren't involve - but more on that at another time).

A few years ago, that was not quite the case. My first year of organized swimming was my junior year of high school and had I known what I was getting myself into, I would have stuck with something else. Not only did I get passed by freshman girls on nearly every drill and described by my girlfriend of the time as a turtle stuck on land when it came to my form, but I literally threw up every single one of the morning practices.

6 years out of high school, though, I found myself too overweight to run without pain, and looking to get myself back in shape. It so happened that our town was opening a new fitness center, billed as an aquatic center, and I began for some strange reason to actually want to swim again.

My story is no different than many other triathletes, but the lesson's worth repeating...

I began one day in October 2007 with little ability to make it down and back a 25 meter pool without stopping to rest while my heart exceeded its normal threshold maximum. But day after day, I worked on extending that range 1 length at a time, somedays only 1 meter at a time, and in a matter of 8 or 10 weeks I was able to work up to a full 15 minutes or so of continual swimming, albeit slow. It just goes to show that the small, daily efforts truly add up to a mountain over time and what was once a pipedream can in fact become reality,

And to prove that point, here's what I did today, a typical workout lately:
500 warmup
200 pull
100 kick
100 pull
4 x 25 alternate easy - fast
4 x 50 alternate easy - fast
4 x 100 alternate easy - fast
400 timed time trial (6:54)
100 pull
25 breaststroke

Oh, and not a single puking episode since February 2002 when I still wore a school colored snakeskin patterned speedo.

Finally...one last tip: GET A COACH, or someone who can watch you from outside the pool, or join a master's club. Just do anything you can do to involve someone besides yourself in your regular swimming. More on that at a later time,


Peanutt