Category: fitness

I swam a 2000 today.  That is by no means a normal swim, though I suspect by the end of the summer that it will be.  Right now, a good solid 1500 is my normal workout.  A 2000 takes me about 50 minutes and I don’t always have that much time.  No, I am not a fast swimmer by any stretch of the imagination!

So, that’s 20,000 yards since May 1.   I want to see if I can possibly get in another 5,000 by May 31, so that I can be properly on track to get to my goal on time without scrambling too much.  I have until Aug 31, so ideally I need to put in 25,000 yards a month.  That’s a good, steady pace.  Not insane, but there’s little room for slacking.

That’s a lot more yardage than I’ve ever swum in a month.

This is doing a good job of keeping me focused on working out.  You pretty much have to keep working at a pretty steady pace or you won’t make it.  Oh sure, there are already people who have racked up something like 35,000 yards.  They’re competitive swimmers and hats off to ’em.

I found out an aqua aerobics class only counts as 500 yards.   I think they’re getting the short end of the stick. Those classes are an hour long!  I’ll grant you probably don’t go quite as hard as I do, but… Well, if aqua aerobics is what you’re doing, either your fitness levels aren’t quite at the lap swimming range, your technique isn’t up to it, or you’ve got a disability where there’s Just No Way.  I wouldn’t begrudge an hour class counting as 2000 yards if it’s getting butts in the pool.  Doing what you can is important.  I mean, there’s a reason I’m a swimmer and not a runner!

I’m all mellow and relaxed and sleepy after my swim.  I may nap.  I may just veg.   But goodness me, it’s nice to have work done, have worked out and have a free afternoon.  I don’t get this often, but I sure like it.

I put in my 1500.  Only 86,000 yards to go!  The lifeguard was funny. “How many miles did you do today, young lady?”

Yeah, right…  If he’s more than ten years older than I am I’ll swim 2000 tomorrow.  I still wish I could have retorted, “One.”  The challenge clocks the yardage in 500 yard blocks, so it’s not like I can work up incrementally and get up to a mile slowly if I want the milage to count.  Even so, I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next couple of months, swimming a 2000 (which, for the purposes of clocking the challenge is the distance closest to a mile) is going to be my basic swim.

Today’s swim was okay.  I got into that zone where your body is working hard, but your mind just starts to float and drift.  I don’t get that for every workout, but when it happens, I really like it.  It mellows me out a lot.

Not many people have signed up for the fifty mile challenge this summer, and all the ones that did were the triathletes and the Masters swimmers.  I have to complete it now, just out of stubbon pride.  Besides, since I work at the gym and all, not following through would be embarrassing.  No, I’m not biting off more than I can chew with this.  6,000 a week is pretty doable, even on a busy week.

Speaking of busy, I have clients who need my services and wouldn’t want to leave them twitching.  Work time!

I just got back from my swim at the gym. They’re going to do the fifty mile challenge again.

Basically that means you swim 50 miles between May 1 and August 31.

Friends, allowing for summer vacations and the like, that’s about 6,000 yards a week!  Honestly?  I really should do it, as it would keep me active and motivated through the summer.  Thing is, I really don’t want to hit the pool but three days a week and I’m not yet back into form enough that a 2,000 yard (~80 lengths) swim is really reasonable.  Certainly it has never been a standard-length swim for me.    I only swam 1,000 this morning.  Yes, yes, I have until May 1 to get ready, and if I push it, I can probably get there.  I’m tempted to try to swim 2000 on Wednesday¹, just to see if I still can.

Honestly?  I’d like to do it just to say I did it, you know.  I suppose that’s rather the point — to encourage people to set goals just, well… ’cause!

Goodness knows it’ll help me with my goal of getting to bed on time.  That kind of swimming schedule will have me sleeping pretty hard.  Not a bad thing, all told.

But, it’s work time for Mama Noël, now.  Deadlines and proposals and projects, oh my!

¹Yes, yes, I’m supposed to work out every weekday, but as a swimmer, I really need to get some weight-bearing work in for bone strength.  If I were walking or running, I really wouldn’t sweat it, but at my age facing the concept of osteoporosis is no joke.  I have a date with the squat rack tomorrow.

Today was One of Those Days exercise-wise.

I’d worked quite late yesterday and hadn’t even the faintest intention of getting up at 5:00 to get in the water.  Wasn’t going to happen.  I’d packed my bag and laid out my suit, putting it on under sweats first thing this morning, with the intention of swimming at my usual after gym work time of 7:30.  That would give me a good hour in the pool if I wanted it before they kicked out the lap swimmers for aqua fitness.

I couldn’t find my keys.  Now, I had other keys to drive the car, or could even walk to the gym, but upon those keys were also the key I used to open the gym on days that I worked.  Losing those keys was going to get me in hot water.  So I went on a much more massive and intensive search than I ordinarily would.  Found ’em. You know how it’s important to put away your keys in the same place every time? Guess who broke that rule?  I finally found my keys.  I’d put them in a purse pocket I never use and only looked in because I was getting desperate.  <headshaking>

I almost blew off the workout, ’cause I was stressed, ticked off and feeling stupid.  But I was wearing my bathing suit and somehow I couldn’t force myself to take it off, change and put it away without having used it once it was on my body.  So I had some breakfast and a cup of coffee and got some work done before I went to the gym after the aqua fitness class.  Had a decent swim, but I don’t think swimming on a full stomach is my favorite way to work out.

If I had not put on that suit first thing, I probably would have blown off the workout.   So, clearly putting on a swim suit under my clothes if I want to ensure  I take the damn swim is probably a Useful Tool.

Ordering my life so that excuses not to do things that are goals seems absurd is probably a Useful Tool as well.  Goodness knows I’m pretty talented at coming up with excuses to be lazy when I’m lookin’.

I’ve resisted posting about working out lately until I was properly back in the swing of being active again. I’d noticed so many posts about how I have to get my butt in gear and likewise until I was tired of writing it. I decided I’d shut up mostly until my butt actually was back in gear where the working out was just feeling like a normal part of my daily routine.  I know I’ve gotten there when I pack my gym bag right before I go to bed, and realize I haven’t used my bathtub at home all week because I’ve been soaking in the hot tub at the gym and showering there.

I’m still wishing I could find some good waterproof earphones so I can listen to audiobooks or music as I swim.  Then again, I’ve always found that I had to tweak technique when I did that, so maybe it’s just as well to concentrate on what I’m doing when I’m working out.  Though it’d take a crowbar to get my iPod away from me when I am lifting.  Dream Theater’s Learning to Live at the squat rack is a holy, deeply spiritual experience¹.

Tomorrow, it’s lifting.  I’m still sore as hell from Tuesday’s session, but I really want to get in at least two full body workouts this week.  Next week, it’s gonna be three, and my muscles are just gonna have to stop whining.  Thank God swimming is a good recovery workout.

I’ll be glad when my strength comes back, too.

¹Not a joke. Music and physical activity is a direct contact with the Numinous.  I’m sure it’s why I love to dance so.

There is nothing so good for my self esteem as the gym locker room.  It’s nice to be somewhere where you realize that there’s no such thing as the “perfect” body  short of a studio shoot and some serious Photoshop work.  I’ve gained some weight and was feeling badly about myself.  I hadn’t been exercising, so my brain was getting sluggish, too.  However, half an hour in the pool swimmin’ laps is enough to put my mind right.  ‘Course it doesn’t do my body any harm, either.

But, the reminder that there’s no such thing as perfect is a good one and it helps keep me from getting down on myself.  The gym I go to is a community gym, so you get everyone from the competitive athletes to the old ladies who swim gently to stave off the walker just one more month.

I’m kind of in between.  I do my swim and it feels good, but I’m no competitor.    I like to keep active because I have a sedentary damn job and if I don’t move, my brain stops working properly.  Since my brain is my major asset, I really can’t afford to let that get sluggish.

One of the women in the gym today commented as I was blow-drying  my hair, “I don’t see how you can have hair like that and be a swimmer.”

Apparently, she’d never heard of the Conditioner Trick:

Wet your hair really well in the shower. Work a small amount of conditioner through your hair.  Don’t use too much or your head will be too slippery and your cap will fall off while you’re swimming.  My hair is pretty thick and down to my waist and I only use about the size of a silver dollar’s worth.  Put on your swim cap. If you’re working out hard enough to get red in the face, your head is hot enough that you’re getting a great deep conditioning treatment. Don’t put the conditioner on the dry hair as you want your hair to have absorbed the water without so many chemicals in it first. The conditioner will seal out the chemicals from the pool then.  After your swim, shower and wash your hair, but if you have to use a hair dryer¹, don’t dry your hair all the way.

Of course, this doesn’t stop me from looking really goofy when I put the swim cap on.  It’s  like those old Samurai topknots, getting my mane up into those little latex caps.   I guess if you’re a serious swimmer, you have to resign yourself to looking like a damn dork working out.

I need to find myself a weightlifting buddy in a couple of months, though.  I’m working back into working out more often and I want a little accountability, I think.   I want someone strong enough to spot me, though.

¹It’s 10F outside today. Yes, I’m going to mostly dry it before I go outside to go home!  I’ve actually neglected this before and had my hair freeze on me.  I doubt that’s very wise for one’s health.