I'm an overweight 52 year old man who has made a somewhat miraculous return to swimming. I've been swimming 4 to 6 times a week for about 12 weeks now. My workouts began with 9 x 50's the first week and have progressed to about 1800 yards in about 50 minutes (typically 2x450's, 200 kick with fins, 5x100's free, pull or paddles, and 4x 50's). I had a swim buddy but he finally decided that he just hated getting in the pool so he quit on me. So I found a small group of Masters swimmers at my club who swim early morning at 5:15 AM and I joined them this week because I find it very difficult to stay motivated swimming solo.
When I showed up this morning no one was there, so I jumped in and started swimming. I had ZERO MOJO, didn't want to be there, the voice in my head was screaming quit, quit already. I felt tired and lazy and barely managed to finish a sloppy 1500 yards. I've felt this way in the pool before and I think it's how my buddy felt and why he quit. Does anyone have suggestions as to how to fight this feeling some days and how to stay motivated and determined everyday you go to swim? I mean it's 5:00 AM and you're already there, why not just bust it out and finish your workout. Thanks for listening to my personal appeal for help.
And if you do have to swim alone have a workout written out or at least in your mind before you get in. Otherwise you'll have a tendency to just kind of drift along and probably cut your workout short due to boredom.
I can attest to this! That's probably my biggest issue swimming alone. It's so much easier to just let a coach worry about the workout. OTOH, if you have special needs (I've been slowly rehabbing my right shoulder), a coached workout might not work well for you.
I have the same warm-up each day (200SKP). I break this up a bit from time-to-time, but try to use everything so I can "see what hurts" that day. How I feel (esp. my shoulder) will often dictate what I decide to do next.
I then typically choose from a small set of drills or sets I'm familiar with. Since I have nothing written down, I try to make whatever I do occur in some multiple of 200 to make it easy to keep track of the total distance (today it was 4x100bk then 4x100fr). A long workout for me these days is 2400yds, so today's 1500 wasn't at all unusual. (It was bracketed by the start and end of a one-hour bike commute.)
And if you do have to swim alone have a workout written out or at least in your mind before you get in. Otherwise you'll have a tendency to just kind of drift along and probably cut your workout short due to boredom.
I can attest to this! That's probably my biggest issue swimming alone. It's so much easier to just let a coach worry about the workout. OTOH, if you have special needs (I've been slowly rehabbing my right shoulder), a coached workout might not work well for you.
I have the same warm-up each day (200SKP). I break this up a bit from time-to-time, but try to use everything so I can "see what hurts" that day. How I feel (esp. my shoulder) will often dictate what I decide to do next.
I then typically choose from a small set of drills or sets I'm familiar with. Since I have nothing written down, I try to make whatever I do occur in some multiple of 200 to make it easy to keep track of the total distance (today it was 4x100bk then 4x100fr). A long workout for me these days is 2400yds, so today's 1500 wasn't at all unusual. (It was bracketed by the start and end of a one-hour bike commute.)
