I probably waited too long to post this inquiry, but if anyone has advice on how to swim the 1650 when slightly (as opposed to deathly) sick and microbially-exhausted, please let me know soon! My heat is scheduled to start at 8:52 tomorrow morning.
Notes:
1) I did the hour swim three weeks ago, nice and easy pace, for a total of a less than spectacular 4825 yards, but I felt good, relaxed, and that great sense of "breathing really well" that periodically characterizes my distancy swimming, for reasons I have never quite figured out.
2) in the interlude between then and now, I got some kind of cold/malaise-virus, that left me extremely tired, prone to head rushes upon climbing a short set of stairs, and in a mood to do little more than nap on the couch with professional golf on the tv in the background. in the pool, I have really struggled.
3) the above malaise seems to be slowly receding, and since I already paid for tomorrow's 1650, I am going to go for it, but--and this is the reason for my emergency request for strategic advice--I don't want to A) HUMILIATE myself, or B) delay by several hours the expected timeline of the meet.
So, in this spirit, please tell me how to swim the 1650 tomorrow (medical fuddy duddies out there need not advise skipping the attempt, since cheapness is trumping infirmity in my psyche, and I can't get the $15 entry fee back.)
Thanks in advance!
I'm not necessarily a medical fuddy duddy, but I just don't get competing when you are ill. If you are Bob Kempainen and vomiting your guts out while going on to win the 1996 US marathon olympic trials or Michael Jordan with a 104 degree fever beating my beloved Utah Jazz in game 5 of the 1998 NBA finals, I get it. We are just washed up masters swimmers, with nothing left to prove right? Having said that, I usually do the one hour postal sick or get sick afterward. So go out controlled, try not to breathe on anybody, and above all, try to keep your vomitus in the gutter sickie. :cool:
Swim within your limits, start with a pace that feels good to you, it is not a sprint.
Take a couple of aspirin before you go to bed and get a good rest. Pretend you are nursing a hangover.
Good luck in the AM.
Will do! Or, should I say, won't do! i.e, breathe on friends or vomit on or in anybody/thing.
Not that sick at this point--no nausea or the like. Just wiped out and probably on some level attempting to lay ground work for being beaten by my friends.
I did skip a meet last week when really at the peak of this, so i basically agree with you that it's not worth it when really sick. I am, at worst, semi-sick now, hopefully on he way back up.
Thanks.
I probably waited too long to post this inquiry, but if anyone has advice on how to swim the 1650 when slightly (as opposed to deathly) sick and microbially-exhausted, please let me know soon! My heat is scheduled to start at 8:52 tomorrow morning.
Jim
Get to the emergency room as soon as possible! You're sicker than you realize to even consider doing a 1650.
Highly amusing! But when you've let you body get as filthy as mine has, you have no choice but to splash around for at least a half hour in pristine chlorinated waters to cauterize the lesions and get rid of some of the stench of pustulence!
I thought that was why everyone joined USMS? Isn't it?
Jim,
Been there, done that. Actually, done this:
I'd pop two ibuprofen with 16-20 ozs of water and food when I got up and consider one more no closer than a half an hour before start time (with just enough water to get the third one down) if you decide it may help.
Take it kinda easy the first 500 and build from there. If you can.
Good luck. Let us know how the story ends.
Certainly this advice is late, but the one thing I would add is that if things get out of hand, don't be afraid to pull the plug.
There's a great adversion to being a "quitter" in this situation that is easy to understand for me. You want to finish what you start, even if you're hurting a lot.
But when you're sick (and only you really know how sick you are), it's really easy to overextend doing anything and make things worse in your recovery. Sure you might be able to afford to do that, but it's not really a good thing.
So as suggested, take that first 500 out fairly easy (you may even want to emphasize the easy part; it's quite "easy" to go out faster than you should) and see where you are. If you're feeling alright, then you might as well keep going. But if you're feeling bad at that point, especially with the sick feeling, you may be better off folding your hand.
Of course, when you wake up in the morning, as I sometimes do when I thought earlier that I was coming down with something, it blows up and is worse than originally thought. You may be forgetting the idea of a DNF and phoning in the scratch card.
Good luck Sunday and hope everything works out well.
Patrick King
Well, I didn't take ibuprofen in the morning, just an Egg McMuffin, some coffee, a packet of GU, and a chicklet of Jolt caffeinated gum sublingually.
One of my many competitive nemesises (nemises?) was in the adjacent lane. After the first 50, he was two body lengths ahead.
I thought: "This is not my day."
I didn't see him after that, but kept waiting for him to lap me. I consciously tried to stay smooth and swim easy and not build up any lactic acid (or whatever new substance has now been pegged by the exercise physiology community as the source of muscle tightness, fatigue, and eventual tungsten-ization.)
By the 1000, I was still feeling okay, but not so okay that my original strategy (wait until the 1000 then pick it up) proved doable.
At the 1500, my cap fell off.
I had enough left to sprint the last 50 at least. I made the whole race (not just the last 50!) in 19:47.+, which was almost a minute slower than 5 years ago, but nevertheless faster than I had imagined I'd be going. Retrieving my cap was almost as difficult as the swim--akin to pearl diving under the influence of pneumonia.
In any even, it's now time for that nap to the accompaniment of professional golf, the perfect soporific!
Thanks for all the excellent advice. Oh, I ended up beating the nemesis by 30 seconds or so, though I never saw him after he took that two body length lead on the first 50. Maybe he rested on the bottom of the pool for a little while?
