I don't know how Olympians swim that many laps

When I went swimming on Thursday (which, by the way, was only my second day of exercise for the week), I felt pretty good doing laps. I did about 25 total, broken into 15 and then two smaller sets. A number of my laps came at a good speed. In fact, for about three or four laps I felt challenged by a boy swimming next to me who appeared to be about 10. I was not about to let that kid swim faster than I could, so I swam pretty quickly.

When I went swimming again today, the laps did not come as easily. I felt slow and sluggish almost the entire time. I started off with 15 again, then did a few smaller sets, eventually ending up with 30. I also jogged in the water a few times, probably for about 20 minutes total. And I did some lunges, squats, push-ups, and dips while in the water. I definitely had a good workout, but I was just not "feeling it." I pushed myself to swim fast a few times, but it was a struggle. I could barely do two fast laps in a row.

I am blaming this on the four to five pounds I have gained the past three weeks, which is related to my poor eating, which probably hinders me even more. Hopefully I can get on the right track soon...

15 >> 45

The Race for Pace is just 11 days away. In the past four months, I have run about six times. In the past 30 days, I have managed about three runs. Sure, I have run up and down the steps a few times. I have also been swimming two or three times a week, but as for running at least two miles, on the road, well, that is just not going well.

As I was swimming today, I decided that if I don't run at least two times between now and next Saturday, I should probably skip the race. If I run three times, then I should be able to make it through, though undoubtedly with a time much higher than last year's (27:01).

On a positive note, today, I spent two hours at the pool. The title above refers to my workout there. I swam 15 laps, then I jogged around the pool for 15 minutes. I did that two more times, for a total of 45 laps and 45 minutes of jogging (it took me about 55 minutes to swim the 45 laps).

When I was barely into my second lap, I felt tired and unconvinced that I would accomplish much today. Not wanting to waste this alone time, I decided to break things up and alternate between swimming and running. Well, when you have the resistance of water fighting your arms especially, it is nothing close to running. But I am hopeful that makes the workout even better.

All in all, it was great exercise. It was probably not my fastest, but that I managed to get in the jogging and swimming along with some water exercises such as walking lunges, squats, and push ups, in a two-hour workout, I say bravo to me! (And let's just pretend that when I came home, I did not eat a brat, some cookies, a banana with PB, some tortilla chips and salsa, and a few gingersnaps.)

Hopefully, I will be able to write a post on Thursday or Friday, saying that I manged to get a run in on Thursday.

Stay tuned.

That was pretty productive.

This morning after I dropped the kid off at school, I decided to go swimming. As I have probably mentioned before, the laps I do at the pool are between time spent playing with the kid at the pool. Typically I swim about 10 laps before taking a break to splash around. Some days, I may only manage six or eight before I am summoned to "play with me."

This morning, I decided I would swim at least 30 laps before calling it a morning. My last two times at the pool, I swam 20 and 25 laps respectively, so I figured I, being alone, should be able to surpass that.

I ended up swimming 45 laps, so yeah me! Most laps were at a medium speed, and some were even slow. I ended up doing only about a half dozen fast laps. As I have stated on this blog before, I could probably swim way more laps than what I normally do, so long as I go slowly; I have a lot of endurance.

When I finished lap #45, in about 55 minutes, I decided to run around the pool for 15 minutes. Before I started my swim, I considered going running this afternoon. But once I hit 40 laps, I figured it might be best to skip the run. Jogging back and forth the length of the pool is so much easier than pounding the pavement, and it still counts!

Since I was feeling pretty good, I spent the last under-10 minutes doing some walking lunges, split squats, regular squats, and push ups. All in all, it was a good workout.

But if I expect to run in the Race for Pace, which is two and a half weeks away, I better get myself motivated to run soon.