Swim w/ all the right stuff

The most successful swim yet, possibly the first real swim!

SWIM

10/25/2013

• DURATION:33m
• DISTANCE:900.00 yards
• PACE:03m 42s /100 yards
• TIME:8:15 AM

This morning I went for my Friday swim with all the equipment I've been lacking: I had my SportCount lap-counting ring and a stopwatch, in addition to a swim cap and a towel (forgot last time!) and my impromptu tri suit: bike shorts and jogbra.

I went to the Hayward Plunge, set my water-resistant stopwatch and jumped in with my new ring lap counter. I set up 4 Greek prepositions to work on, and went at it. Awesome!

I've found that perhaps my strongest stoke is back crawl. I've never liked or been good at the regular crawl; don't really like putting my head in and out of the water all the time. Even in my youth I used to do very well at back crawl, so I decided to work with that. I swam back crawl out as fast as I could, and then swam back breast stroke or lazy back stroke on the way back, just to catch my breath.

The lap counter ring was marvelous! Best part: I could go back and forth without touching the sides, which I think is critical for training for the open water swim. I kept worrying that I wasn't going to remember it, but I always did. It's just the ticket for keeping track, fun and easy. When I first got it I regretted not getting the ring that has a Combo function of laps and time, but honestly, timing at the poolside is fine. I replaced the battery in an old MIO stopwatch that I got for Miriam a hundred years ago: it's water resistant, and I don't care if it stops working (do NOT want to bring the iPhone to the poolside!).

Still felt WINDED; air is my restriction. That is, I could swim faster if I could breath better. But finished strong and felt exhilarated! I'm just loving this!

The tired feeling after is marvelous and unique: different from a hard ride or hard run. I suppose because it's so complete, so thorough in the using of muscle groups and cardio-vascular too.

Then there's the part about being cold, before and after. It's one of the harder things for me since I do NOT tolerate cold well; but I also think that doing this is going to ramp up my metabolism somehow. Is that "Bro-Science?"