swimming
Swam a mile this morning. [ETA: Okay, not technically a mile, since a mile is 1,760 yards and I swam 1650; but 1650 yards, the longest swimming event, is also called "a mile swim."] Not sure how that stacks up against previous mornings, since today was the first time I attempted to keep track. I was mostly swimming sets today, rather than doing stroke drills, which is how I was able to keep track at all.
warmup:
200 FIM (fake IM, which is what I'm amusing myself by calling an IM with freestyle or something else substituted for butterfly)
sets:
10x50 freestyle pull, 1:10 interval
4x50 breaststroke pull, 1:20 interval
200 breaststoke kick (no interval)
4x100 FIM drill set, 2:30 interval (with flutter kick instead of butterfly)
cooldown:
50 each backstroke, breaststoke, freestyle
This is a perfectly reasonable workout, especially since I actually worked, at least for parts of it. But I compiled it in my head during cooldown and it just felt so... short. And the intervals are all over a minute.
So I'm posting about it here in an effort to get some perspective on it: to look at it alongside everything else I post and remind myself that swimming is no longer The One Thing I Do Well, that I no longer spend three to four hours a day in the pool, that I am not looking to make it to finals in the Regionals meet, that it is not after all such a big fucking deal that I can no longer swim my best events.
It's now over fourteen years since I could swim like it was the only thing I had going for me, like my life depended on it, like there was nothing else. I can't go back to that. I don't even want to go back to that. But I do miss it, a little - not the hopelessness, but the focus.
There are still moments. I timed the drill sets to my second wind and forced myself to sprint the last length of each one, largely because my vanity insisted that I attempt to get in under 2:00, which I did. By the third and fourth iterations I had achieved that heaving, gasping, I-can't-believe-how-much-I-hate-this unreflective state that's the sign of a good workout for me. Paradoxically, I find that condition rather comforting, precisely because it still feels familiar: this is what it should be like to be in the water.
And now I'm home, alternating between typing, eating a bowl of granola, and petting the very large very warm cat who's settled in on my lap. Feeling, with gratitude and relief, that my life is better than I could have expected or hoped for.
warmup:
200 FIM (fake IM, which is what I'm amusing myself by calling an IM with freestyle or something else substituted for butterfly)
sets:
10x50 freestyle pull, 1:10 interval
4x50 breaststroke pull, 1:20 interval
200 breaststoke kick (no interval)
4x100 FIM drill set, 2:30 interval (with flutter kick instead of butterfly)
cooldown:
50 each backstroke, breaststoke, freestyle
This is a perfectly reasonable workout, especially since I actually worked, at least for parts of it. But I compiled it in my head during cooldown and it just felt so... short. And the intervals are all over a minute.
So I'm posting about it here in an effort to get some perspective on it: to look at it alongside everything else I post and remind myself that swimming is no longer The One Thing I Do Well, that I no longer spend three to four hours a day in the pool, that I am not looking to make it to finals in the Regionals meet, that it is not after all such a big fucking deal that I can no longer swim my best events.
It's now over fourteen years since I could swim like it was the only thing I had going for me, like my life depended on it, like there was nothing else. I can't go back to that. I don't even want to go back to that. But I do miss it, a little - not the hopelessness, but the focus.
There are still moments. I timed the drill sets to my second wind and forced myself to sprint the last length of each one, largely because my vanity insisted that I attempt to get in under 2:00, which I did. By the third and fourth iterations I had achieved that heaving, gasping, I-can't-believe-how-much-I-hate-this unreflective state that's the sign of a good workout for me. Paradoxically, I find that condition rather comforting, precisely because it still feels familiar: this is what it should be like to be in the water.
And now I'm home, alternating between typing, eating a bowl of granola, and petting the very large very warm cat who's settled in on my lap. Feeling, with gratitude and relief, that my life is better than I could have expected or hoped for.