So since at least two people on this board are interested in my adventures in joining my University's team I thought I'd create a thread (much like ande's swimming blog) to detail all of it. Yeah.
Since the season doesn't actually start regular practice for another week and a half, this is mainly an intro post - and I'll update it with what happens when I go meet the other girls on the team and such! Stay tuned! It'll be better than any general hospital or passions!
Today I actually swam for the first time (since my freshman swim test last year) in the University pool. It was huge. And cold. Over the summer I got used to swimming in health club pools with water hovering around 80-85. Not exactly the most comfortable water at times, but at least nice and warm. The Ratner pool here is...freezing by those standards. I'm guessing the water temp is 75 at the warmest. Gives new meaning to the term "warm up".
I was really nervous when I first got in - the girls and guys returning members were having informal practices and I was sort of afraid they'd notice me. Although, I don't think they did. Or maybe they did and I just didn't hear what they said about me. Haha.
I also swam a 600 for the first time in a long time. I mostly stuck to 400s and below in my summer workouts (yeah, I know, I'm a little bit of a wimp). Unfortunately, that couldn't last. The coach suggested when I met her that I get in the water and swim 6-800 straight every day this week as part of my workout. It kind of hurt. Actually, it was one of the odder experiences of my life. For the first 200 or so my chest was tight from my asthma and I was freaking out about the distance (I was also really cold). Then all of a sudden I started to get really into it and just kept on going. I probably could have done 1000 if I wanted to.
The workout was cut short - only about 2300yds - because I promised my friends I'd come home and cook dinner for them tonight. And that's where I leave it tonight.
Background: For those who didn't see my posts on the board throughout the year, I'm a soph. in college who has been going through the prepartion to join my school's team. I attend the University of Chicago (a div 3 school) and was a competitive swimmer for seven years before high school. Burnout put me out of the water for almost 5 years, however, and I'm only recently getting back into it.
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Well, was busy yesterday and didn't get a chance to update. Since then I've had two practices (yesterday afternoon's, and this morning's)...
Something funny happened to me yesterday...after I got out of the pool (finished a little early, as usual, because of my injury) I was in the varsity locker room. Well....I didn't something kind of silly. See the varsity locker room is set up in an interesting way. It's an area off of the main women's locker room. The door to the varsity room is just an unlabeled door with a place to swipe your ID and a keypad to punch in a code. Feels very James Bond like.
Anyway......within that area is the varsity locker room which is a smaller locker room with three other rooms of lockers. One of them is the swimmer lockers, the others rotate between the sports...right now they're for soccer, volleyball, tennis. Anyway...the door to the swimmer locker area also has an ID swipe place (I guess to keep those soccer players from stealing our goggles! Haha...). So I was getting dressed, and I left our little locker area to use the mirros in the varsity locker room. Aaaaaand......I locked myself out. So I was the only one and I had to hang around the locker room for a good ten minutes until the rest of the team had gotten out of the pool. Kinda silly.
Today's practice was uneventful, ended up getting out after a hard set because we had had a long pull set previously, and it seems that the combination of long pull sets + sprinty sets kind of kills my back faster than other stuff.
The only other thing of note is an update from my coach regarding this Saturday's meet. I won't be swimming. She decided she didn't want to swim me until I was able to get in more start and turn work (which I haven't yet been able to do). I know she's just looking out for my health, and she wants me to be able to perform well when I do swim, but I still feel kinda crummy about it...
I'll post the workouts from Tuesday/Today a little later, as I have to hurry to get to class right now!
Well, was busy yesterday and didn't get a chance to update. Since then I've had two practices (yesterday afternoon's, and this morning's)...
Something funny happened to me yesterday...after I got out of the pool (finished a little early, as usual, because of my injury) I was in the varsity locker room. Well....I didn't something kind of silly. See the varsity locker room is set up in an interesting way. It's an area off of the main women's locker room. The door to the varsity room is just an unlabeled door with a place to swipe your ID and a keypad to punch in a code. Feels very James Bond like.
Anyway......within that area is the varsity locker room which is a smaller locker room with three other rooms of lockers. One of them is the swimmer lockers, the others rotate between the sports...right now they're for soccer, volleyball, tennis. Anyway...the door to the swimmer locker area also has an ID swipe place (I guess to keep those soccer players from stealing our goggles! Haha...). So I was getting dressed, and I left our little locker area to use the mirros in the varsity locker room. Aaaaaand......I locked myself out. So I was the only one and I had to hang around the locker room for a good ten minutes until the rest of the team had gotten out of the pool. Kinda silly.
Today's practice was uneventful, ended up getting out after a hard set because we had had a long pull set previously, and it seems that the combination of long pull sets + sprinty sets kind of kills my back faster than other stuff.
The only other thing of note is an update from my coach regarding this Saturday's meet. I won't be swimming. She decided she didn't want to swim me until I was able to get in more start and turn work (which I haven't yet been able to do). I know she's just looking out for my health, and she wants me to be able to perform well when I do swim, but I still feel kinda crummy about it...
I'll post the workouts from Tuesday/Today a little later, as I have to hurry to get to class right now!
