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January 31, 2006

Progress

My gym offers a swim class that I've been going to semi-regularly for the past couple of months. It's not so much a class in the "how-to" sense as it is in the "organized workout" sense. While the workout is always different, the warm-up is always the same: 300m any stroke followed by 200m kick.

While I do technically know the breaststroke, sidestroke, and backstroke in addition to freestyle, I do the warm-up laps freestyle. That's what I'm trying to improve on, and so the more practice, the better. The first time I was at that class, the 300m took forever, and I wasn't sure I was going to make it through the rest of class after it. I was taking a break to catch my breath every 25m, and each length was interminable.

Slowly, that warm-up got easier. First the lengths started to seem shorter. Than I was able to string 2 or 3 lengths together at a time, and only rest every 50-75 meters. Before I knew it, I was only resting every 100 meters, and not for very long. The 300 meters all at once was still hard, but it was definitely getting easier.

Then, last night, something amazing happened. While swimming my warmup, I felt relaxed. It felt easy. And, before I knew it, I'd done the entire 300 meters without a more than a brief pause at the end of each length to turn around. On top of that, I felt warmed up, not worn out. It was like someone hit the "easy" button.

The rest of the class? Well, that was a slightly different story. But at least I can be happy about being at a point where the "warm-up" doesn't feel like the "work-out".

Posted by Dawn at January 31, 2006 02:07 PM