Tuesday swim

I have been feeling slightly out of sorts and over-eaten and under-exercised all week, including far less run mileage than I had hoped, so it was good to go to a real TNYA swim practice this evening. It was the first time I've made it to a practice at John Jay - I swam in the slow lane, thinking I had better err on the side of caution.

It was kind of nice for a change to be the clearly strongest swimmer, and able to hold intervals with lots of rest - good for the swimming morale. But next time I go there I will slot in near the back of the next lane over!

I was having reminiscences of the first time I went to that pool. It was almost two years ago, in early January 2007, and it was not for swimming but for the late and much lamented Doug Stern's deep-water running class - I was recovering from a stress fracture, and had swum probably once in the previous fifteen years (and been so traumatized that one time by a lifeguard brusquely telling me to move to the slow lane that I never went back!), but as soon as I met Doug I realized that he was the swimming teacher I most wanted to have! It was a strange and sad time - my friend Helen had just been killed, I could hardly think about anything else, and in fact Doug would be dead by June of that year too, of a very fast-moving and lethal cancer. But swimming is all good...

Let me see if I can reconstruct all the details of practice. I love swimming for 90 minutes instead of 60! I have been starved of swimming this week, I have not swum since last Tuesday, it was very good to get back in the pool.

(Everyone was absurdly making holiday-related excuses for why they were swimming slowly, getting out early, etc.! It was almost deserted by 9 o'clock!)

Warmup: 200 free, 150 kick, 200 IM, 150 pull (should have been 200 of each, but lane congestion and an eye on the clock meant I trimmed some bits off)

4 x 50 kick on 1:30
6 x 50 stroke on 1:15 (I did 3 fly, 3 back)
6 x 50 free on 1:15

3 x 150 free on 3:45

3 x (100 free as 75 fast, 25 easy on 2:30; 150 free as 100 fast, 50 easy on 4:00)

2 x (3 x 25 stroke hard on :40, 50 stroke easy on 1:30). I did fly - I got a bit of stroke coaching, too...

50 easy back, 50 easy free

3000 yards total - very good! I had a lot of rest, too.

I would prefer to be swimming 3000-yard workouts, not 2100-2400, but there is not quite time in the hour - it wouldn't be bad if I stayed in the pool after practice on a Tuesday or Thursday evening and just did some easy freestyle drill to build up the yardage. Lane swim starts directly after practice...