This Old Battleship

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Yesterday I conquered fear of the unknown and went for a little lap swimming. I did my research, www.BeginnerTriathlete.com so that I would know the distance I should be able to cover and what rest breaks I should take to not get totally exhausted - and it worked! I could have swam more after the 30 minutes, but decided to work the plan in place like a good girl (I hope my Doctor reads this!)

I swam what sorta looked like this:



I did a little warm up of a few laps, then swam 50 yards continuously with nice little breaks in between. Swimming is very different than running. There was a great deal of rhythm required in my stroke to make it efficient. I concentrated on making my body straight (horizontally) in the water, and disturbing the surface of the water as little as possible. I ended up with 800yds.

I wanted to do the front crawl like I've seen others do - but I had forgotten my ear plugs. When I was a kid, I had an inner ear infection from getting water in my ears. I was very sick, and my ear drum burst. After that, I was the kid with the ear plugs at the pool. Turning my head to breathe seems like prime time for water entry.

Plus, I'm afraid of rotary breathing.

I decided to practice that on land - in the comfort of my own home - to try to get the rhythm. It's pretty scary in the water...I tried.

Tomorrow I'm going for a little bike ride. 5:30am, one and a half hours on the bike, wish I could run instead. Next Tuesday, I will be able to do 4 miles, and then the bike for another 45 minutes. Will I miss the bike time?? Do I think I might grow up to be a tri-athlete? Just how crazy can I get before anyone really notices? Do these sweatpants make my butt look big?

Stay tuned.

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 21, 2011 at 10:12 PM

    I'm proud of you! You are doing great! Rotary breathing can be scary, and I notice that I am a lot less adventurous in the water than I was when I was 10, lol. :) But how much time did we spend in the pool back then? I'm sure as you swim more you'll become a little braver. :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. CrisFebruary 22, 2011 at 12:28 PM

    So so proud!

    ReplyDelete
  3. KeeleyMarch 2, 2011 at 3:53 PM

    You are so dang brave to do the whole swimming thing. I used to be such a water baby but have taken it in - not in *dislike* exactly, but *aversion* - as I've grown older.

    My daughter became a triathlete after reading "Slow Fat Triathlete". It really inspired her. If my daughter - who is the last person I would have thought would do a tri - can do it and love it, anyone can.
    Though she's a freak and says swimming is the easy part. Like as IF!!!! =D
    No. Your butt never looks big.

    ReplyDelete

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