I'm Still Here

[lunacow]

Hello, friends. Yes, it's true, I haven't posted here on LiveJournal in a very long time, and while my entries were never exactly regular, I certainly didn't intend to go this long without writing. I still like LiveJournal, I look at it almost every day, and I read everything my friends post here. I'm glad that so many of you are still posting,

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

I took a swim class in college that (in my dim memory) was all about learning to do efficiently all the strokes I had learned in all those years of childhood swim lessons, and then swimming lots and lots of laps. I don't think I've retained much of the technique, though I remember bits and pieces -- but I think at the time it did result in a big improvement in my speed & endurance. But, er, this was nearly 20 years ago, so I can't report with much confidence... Still, yay swimming! (I tried to go to the public hours at my local elementary school pool this summer, since I am on grad student/work at home hours, and managed to get in a few swims, but lap swimming is still really boring.)

[lunacow]

The Y does offer adult swim classes for different levels, and I keep thinking I should take one, but so far I haven't made the effort to investigate.

It is really boring, it's true. When I do any other form of exercise, and any other boring task such as housework or driving, I listen to podcasts on my iPod, so swimming is the only time I have to put up with the boringness on its own. I know there are MP3 players designed for use in the water, but I'm not likely to get one. I sort of have this feeling that it's good for me to have this time to let my mind wander. In fact most of what I think about is along the lines of "How many more minutes until I'm done?", but as my endurance increases, I have been getting a bit of decent enough thinking in.

[iphy]

I can vouch that as your endurance and skill increases at a very boring exercise, it can result in spending time thinking about stuff instead of clock-watching or clock-wondering, perhaps, in your case.

[lunacow]

During my swim today I spent noticeably more time having real thoughts and less waiting to be done, compared to only a week ago. It's cool to keep making substantial progress!

[livii]

30 min of continuous crawl? Go you!!! That's totally awesome.

Nice to see you here, even if I follow your other blog too!

[lunacow]

I'm not swimming completely nonstop, since I do pause after many laps to catch my breath, but I'm needing shorter and shorter pauses. When I started, I was doing two laps of breaststroke between every lap of the crawl, and the exertion levels were similar to walking versus running. Like I did with running, I worked up to being able to go longer and longer stretches of crawl, and the progress was satisfyingly quick.

[vito_excalibur]

Good form can help with making sure you get enough oxygen, I think.

[lunacow]

I feel like I'm getting better at the all-important breathing thing, but I'm sure there are still improvements I could be making. I should look into the adult swim classes that the Y offers, but I've been lazy about that so far.

[mamagotcha]

Woohoo, glad to see you here on LJ! I pop in on the writing blog now and again, but I missed the whole award thing... congratulations!

Looking forward to seeing what's been on your needles.

I don't post much here, either, but I do read almost daily.

Gotta log off and go shovel some more fucking snow. ;)

[lunacow]

You post a lot more than I do, and I always like hearing about what's going on in your life!