Wednesday swimming

Well, I got myself back in better balance and frame of mind today, I have had a very good day - I'm slightly behind schedule on novel work, but within small number of days of finishing, anyway, and I'm now done with the hard part of the school week - can mentally devote full attention to the novel barring a couple small-scale obligations (including 18-mile run this weekend!).

GREAT SWIMMING THIS EVENING.

Sort of have two whole separate things to write about, since I decided to swim the early workout at John Jay from 6:15-7:45pm before the 7:45 swim clinic.

The clinic was excellent. Video freestyle clinic - the fellow ingeniously filmed us underwater by carrying the camera while swimming on his back with fins, and then they shot a 100 for each us from on deck (there were only three of us, it was high-quality in terms of individual attention and explanations). We did some drills in the pool, and then watched all the swim footage and had detailed feedback and discussion on it - it was very, very good.

(As far as the swimming goes - 150 for camera purposes - then, let's say, what was it - 2 x 50 finger-drag, 2 x 50 kick on back - side - front - back [i.e. rotating through the full 360], 2 x 25 "fist" and then swim; there were at least a couple other 50s in there, but I am not thinking of 'em now. Call it 600.)

The workout before that was excellent.

It was interesting - it was the first time where I've really been in that situation of having to swim in a lane that was on intervals that were genuinely too fast for me & that meant I had to make sensible judgments about what to leave out so as not to inconvenience others & unduly punish myself!

Under other circumstances, it might have been stressful, but in fact everyone in the lane was very pleasant, and there was one other swimmer about my speed who I swim with regularly - we were looking at each other ruefully and acknowledging the fact that really we need a lane 4.5, but that given the slow speed of what was going on in actual lane 5, and that there only are five lanes, we were stuck with the fairly fast guys in lane 4!

So I had to skip a lot of 50s, but it was educational and it was a much better and more stimulating swim than I had at the first John Jay workout I went to a few weeks ago, when I slotted myself in the slow lane and then slightly regretted it. I will swim in this lane again if I need to - though I am happy that at Columbia there is a lane better suited to my pace!

I do not think it is a good idea to let oneself off the hook, in terms of standards, with the kind of thinking that says "Oh, of course I cannot swim very fast, only people who have done it forever can do that" - it limits one's vision of what is possible. We all should aim for the highest possible standard in whatever we do, with no preconceptions about limits! But in an honest rather than self-critical way, I have learned a huge amount in these last couple years - I think that (hmmm, really I do want to swim faster, though!) I should feel pretty proud that I can keep up with a workout like this one, these are fast and fit swimmers with many skills, and it is no shame to be a bit slower than they are! I would have to be a genius of swimming to be swimming a lot better than I currently am - I am thinking that probably by this time next year I should be able to swim this workout on these intervals, and that it is in any case already quite an accomplishment.

(It is very unusual for me to feel a sense of accomplishment, this is good!)

It was a "broken 200s" workout - in honor of it being the 200th birthdays of Darwin and Lincoln! Funny - I like our usual workouts, too, but it's fun to get one from a different coach, and the 90-minute workout is better than the 60-minute in terms of what you can accomplish in the slower lanes. I didn't swim as many yards as it might sometimes be, though, just because of the pace and spacing issues.

Warmup (truncated): 200 free, 100 IM (300)

First set (fun!): 50s freestyle, starting on 1:05, and descending a second each time - drop out when you can't make the interval. I suppose I got down to :56 and then figured that ten was about it for me! (500)

Main set, which I skipped bits of but which I will record in full for its funny and appealing nature (basically, I did 150s of free instead of 200s, skipping a 'different' fifty based on not crossing paths with the fastest folks - there were seven of us in the lane, so if there are five seconds between each swimmer, it is not a shameful thing to find that one has to slightly speed up for the last bit of one's 150 because the first swimmer is coming in at the end of his 200...):

(Not sure I have the order of the IM bits quite right, but it was along these lines.)

200 free on 3:45

8 x 25 stroke in IM order on :30

200 free on 3:45

4 x 50 stroke in IM order on 1:00

200 free on 3:45

2 x 100 IM on 2:00

200 free on 3:45

200 IM on 4:00

200 free on 3:45

2 x 100 IM continuous on 2:00 (I only did 2 x 50 fly-back, it was a question of self-slotting rather than tiredness - simpler just to cut some stuff and keep the fifty that I prefer and that comes at the front of the set!)

200 free on 3:45 (this I did not do because I had to go and pee before the clinic started!)

Total yardage for this bit would have been 2200, but I think I can say I did 1700?

So: workout total 2500, plus clinic yards is 3100 total.

The really demented thing (when I signed up for it, I thought I would be done with the novel by now, and this is the fellow who did the excellent butterfly clinic - I felt I had to do another one with him ASAP, especially on what is my weakest stroke - I toyed with the idea of canceling, but I REALLY want to do it & also if I started canceling exercise when I got really busy, I would be canceling it EVERY WEEK OF THE SCHOOL YEAR, so that is no good...) is that I have to be back at John Jay at 6:45 tomorrow am for the breaststroke clinic with Stefan Bill! That is exactly eight hours from now...

I love swimming!!!