Some beginner questions: What kind of cross-training do you do? 2. How to find goggle

I think the Speedo Vanquishers are the best goggles I've used. They don't leak, they're comfortable, and they last a long time. The silicone gasket won't pack out like goggles with foam do after a few months. Some people swear by Swedes. If they work well for you, go for it. I personally never liked them. YES! Speedo Vanquishers are my favorite. They never leak and don't make me look like a racoon!

As I'm new, thought I'd revive an old thread rather than starting one of my own. I was a serious swimmer from the time I was 7 through high school. I burned out badly in college, dumped swimming and took up mountain biking and beer drinking. I'm now getting back into swimming after 15 years, marriage, 2 kids and baldness. I run about 20 miles a week and swim maybe 8K yards a week. I alternate swimming and running workout six days a week. I typically do 5 mile runs at 30-45 sec slower per mile than my 10K pace, one long run on the weekends. I've been mixing in a few track workouts lately as I'm trying to work on speed for 5/10Ks. I've found that swimming has helped me get faster in running as I have better anaerobic strength. I only swim 2000-2500 when I swim, mostly intervals (500 warmup, 10X100 IM on 1:45 holding 1:18; 10X50 on :50 holding 35 with some kicking is typical). I remember back in highschool, 8-10K/workout was common for me, I can't even conceive of doing that these days... I'm avoiding triathalons because I don't have time to add a third sport. Also, Speedo Vanquishers are by far the best google I've ever used. They fit perfectly, are extremely comfortable, don't fall off and last forever. Where were they back when I was a kid? I remember fixing the nosepiece in my (uncomfortable) Swedes with dental floss..good times? Maybe but the goggles sucked.

I had to give up running because of arthritis in my knee. Right now I'm doing Taiji (t'ai chi), two group classes a week plus evenings at home. It's a good workout for the legs, and it seems to have improved my balance quite a bit. I feel like there's even some carryover to my swimming. I'll occasionally use a stationary bike at the Y, but that gets boring really fast.:yawn: I've been using Aquasphere Kaiman goggles for about two years now, and am very happy with them. I suppose something with smaller lenses would be better for competition, but I really enjoy the good field of view. I have a bit of a problem with leaks about every 3rd practice, but less than with anything else I've tried. The goggles run large, but there's a small adult/youth version available. I got mine from www.kiefer.com. Tom

Bubba - thanks for your nice reply. I did demure on the meet. I really did not feel ready - though a part of me thought: hmmm, this fellow has been coaching swimming for 52 years (yes, you read right) so if he thinks I'm ready, what do I know? But really, it has taken me quite a while to be comfortable and not tense in the pool. I learned to swim in open water - ponds, lakes, Long Island Sound. The whole process of getting accustomed to swimming in a pool looking down at the black line involved getting past a lingering claustrophobic feeling. Feel pretty good about my accomplishments so far: actual flip turns with some regularity, will swim a 100 without stopping, and today swam a mile :-) And like the lady you described, I got into this in part because my swim team kids are a good influence on Mom.

....and yes my coach is terrifying me by suggesting I swim at a meet. It is nice to have goals! But I am still one foot in front of the other, trying to get across the pool and back and remain alive.... Do the meet. Your teammates will love you to death and no one at the meet (worth their salt) will care if you are a “super swimmer” or not. If anything you will get a lot more respect than the other swimmers because everyone there knows it takes a lot more guts to go to a meet the first time around. For every person that shows up not bursting with confidence, there are a lot more people who don’t even bother to try. It takes guts, and the people who matter most know it. Once you go I think you will love it, I know I do and I almost never beat anybody. But those times that I do are oh so sweet! If you have a competitive edge to your personality swimming is a great way to get your ya-ya’s out ‘cause you are mostly competing against yourself (especially in heats for masters, which are typically grouped by time and not age). It is never too early to start collecting times, and you may only get one opportunity per year per course (SCY, LCM, SCM) to accumulate official times, so you may as well start now. Starting to collect times early will also give you a better point of reference for your improvement. I eventually got to the point where I selected events by which ones were the least popular, that way I’d score more points (which is one of the reasons your team will love you for showing up and racing). This strategy also gave me a lot of inspiration to learn butterfly, which I'm now very grateful for. I get my goggles from Kiefer too http://www.kiefer.com/ The products and quality are consistent, and I always know where to find them. I like all the Kiefer brand products I’ve tried and get the goggles with silicon gaskets that have good peripheral vision (for backstroke). Their prescription goggles are very reasonably priced and are nearly identical in style to my regular goggles, so it is pretty easy to switch between the two. I find a good fitting pair of goggles with silicon gaskets are the least offensive for leaving marks around my eyes. “Good fitting” is the key here... if they are too tight they are going to leave a mark no matter what. I bought a pair of barracudas once, I thought they sucked, what a total waste of money (but that’s just me). - - - As for guts, listen to this: I was in the middle of a meet checking out the (so far) posted results when I overheard a woman behind me telling someone she’d learned to swim less than two years earlier. (Huh!?) It was kind of crowed and boisterous on that part of the deck and I didn’t trust my hearing, so when she’d finished her conversation I chatted her up a bit (she was really cute too, which didn’t hurt either). Turns out she really had never learned to swim (she was about 30). Her adolescent daughter was learning to swim, so she figured it was about time that she do the same. She was an athlete, was into body sculpting, but blew out her knee and her doctor told her all she could do safely now was swim (so that was additional motivation to learn). I watched her swim at meets for about two years (I’ve since moved from that region). She was by no means the fastest fish in the pond, but she kept showing up and doing it. I thought she had a lot of raw nerve. She got LOTS of support from her team too (which was usually the biggest team at meets). They would cheer her on during her swims to a level that you generally had to suspend conversation. It seemed like a win-win situation all the way around to me.