Back in the Saddle: Swimming 4/12/11

The bubble was removed from the pool this past weekend.  I also decided to tinker with my schedule a bit.  I enjoy my runs enough that I can make myself get out of bed on Mondays, so I'm moving my running schedule to Monday and Wednesday and I'll be swimming on Tuesday and Thursday then doing a long run on the weekends.  I think swimming twice a week should be enough for now.  I'm not training for anything specifically at this point, so I'm just going to try to maintain my current swimming ability.  When I get a bike I'll schedule my first triathlon and start working towards that.  For now, I'm good with just making sure I don't lose what I've gained in the pool. 

I didn't do a specific workout.  I just got in the pool and swam laps.  My first set was 300 yards at a pretty light intensity.  I was just trying to get into a rhythm and remember my breathing pattern.  A week off is apparently not long enough to forget how to swim.  I was breathing a little harder at the end of 300 than I had hoped, but I was glad to be able to do 300 without stopping after being off for a full week.  I could have kept going but I wanted to stop and get my breathing under control before going on.  After that I did a set of 150 yards at about the same intensity.  From there I decided to do 4X100 and 4X50 at increasing intensity.  I'm not sure what happened in my week off, but my pool efficiency increased.  I was regularly hitting 17 strokes per length of the pool and was doing my 50 yard sets in 50 seconds flat.  I actually felt stronger the longer I went, until the last 50.  I decided to go all out for 50 yards just to see what I could do.  It was actually slower than some of the earlier 50s - mainly because I think I got sloppy and my efficiency went way down.  I keep having to remind myself that I can't just muscle my way through the water.  It's more about finesse and efficiency than muscle.  I wasn't completely wiped out by the end of that last 50, but it would have taken some time to recover if I had wanted to continue. 

All in all, not a bad swim.  I did a little over 1000 yards and feel like I've made a ton of progress since I started swimming.