Today was the first time in my life that I swam a mile. I started swimming when I got back from block leave, but didn't have a set swim workout until last week when I came across the site Zero to 1650 in Six Weeks. Swimming a mile has always sounded like an incredibly far distance to me, especially since I was averaging a little under 1000 yds with plenty of (long) breaks and variations in strokes. I looked at the Zero to 1650 plan and it seemed almost possible, so last Wednesday I decided to start it.
Since I'd already been swimming for a couple weeks I advanced myself to week three of the program, but unfortunately failed to realize that the repeat is in addition to the first swim, so instead of 1350 yds I only swam 1150 yds, but swam more consecutive laps than I had in many years. Then, on Friday I was a bit tired and decided to skip my noon swim. On Monday I moved on to week four of the program and this time counted the repeats correctly, thus completing 1500 yds with a few breathing breaks. The program has you repeat the same workout three times before moving on to the next week, so my plan today was to repeat Monday's workout.
I started swimming the first 600 yds and after 100 yds I realized I felt pretty decent, most likely because I had a dentist appointment this morning and so did not participate in PT. After a few more laps I had talked myself in to skipping ahead to the very last day of the program and going for the full mile without stopping and utilizing only the freestyle swimming stroke. I was more focused on completing the mile then on speed so I found a slow and steady breathing rhythm that I was able to keep up the entire time. I ended up completing 1650 yds in around 47 minutes, but then swam an extra 100 yds for good measure and finished in 50 minutes. The whole time I using the same motivation techniques by counting down the yards like I used to do with the meters while on the erg or during a race. In fact, in my mind I even saw the computer screen on the erg but instead of having the distance of a 2k or a 6k, it was my swimming distance.
After work today I was driving home and saw that the sun had not yet set, so I decided that I'd try pushing myself a bit more today, and also try and relieve some stress and frustration, by going for a run and timing myself on a 3.86 mile loop. Since I had already swam further than ever before in my life I was not sure if my time would be as good as I'd like, but I ended up with a PR of 33:28, or 8:41 min/mile. Of course, it was only the second time I've done that specific loop, but my first time I averaged 8:53.9 min/mile. That probably sounds fairly slow to most people, but for me with that distance it is a decent pace. One thing I do have to learn how to do is pace myself. I start out fairly fast for the first mile, then slow down to a slower pace that I maintain for most of the run, but pick it up again at the very end. I'd probably do a lot better if I started out slower and picked up the pace later on.
No comments:
Post a Comment