Hi everyone...
Tonight is my very first masters swim practice and I'm really quite nervous.
While I've been a competitive swimmer since the age of 5, swam on a US team, competed in both long course and short course US Nationals, and then went and swam in college.....I'm a nervous wreck about tonight's practice. Although I have more than enough swimming experience, I'm terrified that I won't fit in with the master's team.
I've been "out of the water" for 6 years now and I'm very out of shape and I've gained a considerable amount of weight. I can't believe that I've allowed myself to get like this, but it obviously didn't happen over night. So I've been doing cardio and weights at the gym to get myself back in shape but it doesn't seem to be working very well. I realized how much I miss swimming and that I'd like to get back into the sport and thats how I got interested in masters swimming. I'm excited to swim for me...not for the coaches, not for my parents. I'm looking forward to ENJOYING swimming, rather than dreading practices and having kick boards thrown at me if I have to stop during a set. I'm excited to meet people and have fun.....but I'm still so nervous to step foot onto the pool deck.
I guess I'm mostly embarassed. I know its silly to be like this, but I'm afraid everyone will be in good shape and I'll get run over during the practices. I'm wondering if maybe I should put off swimming for a little while until I can lose some more weight.
Can anyone please shed some light on their first masters practice and what you might have been feeling?
I really appreciate any help or advice that you can give me. Thank you!
Parents
Former Member
I think some of my comments in an earlier post were misconstrued so I'll clarify.
A 500 daily calorie deficit is a good goal. Food diaries can help you be honest with yourself especially if you are like me and cannot rely on your perceived hunger/level of fullness for appropriate calorie intake. I bought a food scale and some books to get up to speed on portion sizes to get going. If you don't have enough carbs your body will use protein for energy if the fat metabolism isn't rapid enough to fuel the type of work you're doing.
Sometimes it can be frustrating to be in the slow lane if it contains people with no swimming background and limited concept of lane etiquette. The good thing is that with your swim background you should graduate to a faster lane quickly. I would definitely recommend swimming with the Masters group even if you are off to the side doing a basic conditioning workout for a couple of weeks rather than trying to do the end-of-season race preparation workouts the rest of the group is doing.
It sounds like you are fairly young (as Masters go) so you can swim 4-6 days a week. Try to get some other exercise on the other days if you swim less than 6 days.
I think some of my comments in an earlier post were misconstrued so I'll clarify.
A 500 daily calorie deficit is a good goal. Food diaries can help you be honest with yourself especially if you are like me and cannot rely on your perceived hunger/level of fullness for appropriate calorie intake. I bought a food scale and some books to get up to speed on portion sizes to get going. If you don't have enough carbs your body will use protein for energy if the fat metabolism isn't rapid enough to fuel the type of work you're doing.
Sometimes it can be frustrating to be in the slow lane if it contains people with no swimming background and limited concept of lane etiquette. The good thing is that with your swim background you should graduate to a faster lane quickly. I would definitely recommend swimming with the Masters group even if you are off to the side doing a basic conditioning workout for a couple of weeks rather than trying to do the end-of-season race preparation workouts the rest of the group is doing.
It sounds like you are fairly young (as Masters go) so you can swim 4-6 days a week. Try to get some other exercise on the other days if you swim less than 6 days.
