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July 04, 2006

Return to the Pool

Yesterday was my return to the pool. I haven't been swimming in months - it's been so long that I have absolutely no idea when the last time I went swimming actually was, but according to my log it was on February 22. Definitely a long, long time. The first few laps were awful, and I had a moment of panic when I thought I'd lost all of the swimming fitness I'd developed over the winter. Then I realized that I'd apparently forgotten all of the technique I'd learned in those months, and I had defaulted to my old, inefficient, sloppy way of swimming.

I stopped and thought carefully about what I was doing. First, I starting holding my breath until just before I took more air in, rather than blowing it all out right away. Then, I slowed down. Then, I focused on my body position and rolling back and forth like I'd spent so many laps doing back in February. The less I worried about getting from one end of the pool to the other, the faster I got there. The less I thought about swimming as a means of locomotion and the more I thought about it as a simple series of body positions, the easier it got.

I only had a half hour, but I managed to get in a full 900 meters. I tried "sprinting" a couple of laps - seeing if I could go all out and keep my better form and habits at the same time. Surprisingly, I think I did OK.

Today had an easy 5-7 miles on the schedule. I set out, and my first thought was, "Damn, my legs are dead! I must have run that 5K hard if it took this much out of them." It didn't take me long to realize that while the 5K was probably a little hard on them, it was more likely the combination of the 5K on Sunday and the 16 miles I put in on the bike on Saturday. I wasn't sure how I felt about going the whole 7 miles, but I decided to wait and see how I felt at the 2.5 mile mark. If my legs were still feeling sluggish, I'd turn around and call it a day at 5. If not, I'd go further.

I wound up feeling just fine at 2.5, and at 3, and didn't turn around until the 3.5 mile mark - I was feeling OK, and going for the full 7. Unfortunately, around the 5.5 mile mark, I started feeling it in my butt and was wishing I'd turned around earlier than I did. Instead, I had to settle for taking it easy and a promise to do lots of stretching when I got back home. There will probably be some more stretching before I turn in for the evening, and hopefully there won't be too much lingering soreness by the time speedwork rolls around tomorrow night.

Posted by Dawn at July 4, 2006 07:26 PM

Comments

Posted by: RunningJayhawk at July 4, 2006 10:09 PM

Posted by: Juls at July 6, 2006 10:28 PM