Solo Swimmers

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you-- especially to my fellow SOLO SWIMMERS! I hope it was an enjoyable year in the pool for you! I encourage you all to give making resolutions a big miss; however, DO set goals this year. Make them S.M.A.R.T! (Specific. Measurable. Achievable/Attainable. Realistic. Time-bound.) Did any of you set swimming goals this year? What was one of your successes? I had set a F.L.O.G. goal of 275 miles and ended up with 316.28 miles. I have swum more than that in past years; however, I dialed my goal down to spare my body from repetitive stress injuries. My race times are slower because of it; however, I feel great! One of my goals for this year will be to race the same times (or better) at the National Senior Games as I swam at the qualifying meet in Alabama. (I'll be 57 in a few weeks, so to not slow down would be great for me!) How about you? Let's hear it! Cheers! :wine:

Not 100% sure this is the best place for advice. However, I’ve yet to find another forum. I am 45/F, used to swim competitively from Jr High - early college. Then work and life got in the way. Five years ago I injured my back and now have disc degeneration in my lower back. Two years ago I got back in the pool and eventually went from 2 laps to 50 (25 yard pool). Then I really got to feeling better about my swim and back after a year of sticking to it. And work and life got in the way again and I didn’t put in the time like I did for a year and had another disc blow out. So on 11/20/18, I had back surgery and 12/19 made it back in the pool. I’ve been swimming every day since aside from one day off each week. I am starting over again, and can only get to about 850 yards and (3) sets of 15 ladder pools before I run out of gas. Today, after my swim, my whole body is aching. I swim at my gym pool, which is indoors and at about 77*. Which brings me to these boards looking for advice. Am I doing too much at once? And any other suggestions you have are appreciated! I don't think you are doing too much. I'm your age, swam as a kid, a bit in college for fitness until I broke my ankle, which kept me from swimming. Picked it up again about 18 months ago, maybe a little more. I went from I think 800 yards or so my first time to a couple thousand in a couple of weeks, and was up to 4000 in a couple of months. I had dropped about 10 points from my resting heart rate. I then started following the posted workouts on the workout forum, and am closer to 3000 yards per workout, but they are much more intense. Since then, I have added about 5 pounds of muscle (had lost about 30), but my resting heart rate has dropped another 15 points. I personally prefer to look at my RHR to determine how fit I am, which would of course be a pretty strong indication of endurance.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you-- especially to my fellow SOLO SWIMMERS! I hope it was an enjoyable year in the pool for you! I encourage you all to give making resolutions a big miss; however, DO set goals this year. Make them S.M.A.R.T! (Specific. Measurable. Achievable/Attainable. Realistic. Time-bound.) Did any of you set swimming goals this year? What was one of your successes? I had set a F.L.O.G. goal of 275 miles and ended up with 316.28 miles. I have swum more than that in past years; however, I dialed my goal down to spare my body from repetitive stress injuries. My race times are slower because of it; however, I feel great! One of my goals for this year will be to race the same times (or better) at the National Senior Games as I swam at the qualifying meet in Alabama. (I'll be 57 in a few weeks, so to not slow down would be great for me!) How about you? Let's hear it! Cheers! :wine: Happy New Year to you and Bruce, Elaine! And thanks so much for starting this fantastic Solo Swimmers thread. Speaking of solo swimmers, I was happy that your article on "Six Suggestions for the Solo Swimmer" was among the top 10 most read articles on Swimspire for 2018! :) www.swimspire.com/.../ Hope you will be able to contribute another article again this year!

Happy New Year to you and Bruce, Elaine! And thanks so much for starting this fantastic Solo Swimmers thread. Speaking of solo swimmers, I was happy that your article on "Six Suggestions for the Solo Swimmer" was among the top 10 most read articles on Swimspire for 2018! :) www.swimspire.com/.../ Hope you will be able to contribute another article again this year! Thanks, Julia! Our best to you and yours as well! Thanks for the update about my article and for including the link. Hopefully, my suggestions will help my fellow solo swimmers! If you have any article suggestions, you know where to find me! ;)

Good luck with your goals, 'badger! They seem reasonable to me! :cheerleader:

My (possibly ambitious) goal is to swim in three specific open-water swims and not finish last. :D (I might even aim to make a respectable time, but let's not go completely crazy here). There's one in particular that I've been dying to swim in since I first got back into swimming (Swim & Fin for Salem Sound), and fortunately it's near the end of the summer, so plenty of time to spend practicing in the lake and the ocean. I'm bugging a friend of mine (now in medical school) to swim in a 5K open water that supports LifeFlight in Maine, so at least I'll go up and cheer her on, and she said she might be able to come and swim the open water ones here as well! :) My ambitious goal is to complete cold half (15 km open water race in about 16°C) in February 2020, and do the channel in 2021. But I may be daydreaming for the latter part because it might not be possible to book a place in 2021 by 2020.

My (possibly ambitious) goal is to swim in three specific open-water swims and not finish last. :D (I might even aim to make a respectable time, but let's not go completely crazy here). There's one in particular that I've been dying to swim in since I first got back into swimming (Swim & Fin for Salem Sound), and fortunately it's near the end of the summer, so plenty of time to spend practicing in the lake and the ocean. I'm bugging a friend of mine (now in medical school) to swim in a 5K open water that supports LifeFlight in Maine, so at least I'll go up and cheer her on, and she said she might be able to come and swim the open water ones here as well! :)

Thanks 67King! WOW - what an amazing success story about getting back in the pool. I really thoguhr I could get back up to my 16-1700 yards after a couple weeks. I just get so week at the 800 mark and really have to push for that last 50yards. I was reading on another post people eat PB&J before swimming. So tomorrow I am going to try that on my way to the gym. Maybe my food intake is not proving me the fuel I need? Sometimes it just takes people longer to recuperate - and some things knock us down more than we realize. You might try, as above, breaking down your workout into even smaller pieces and taking more rests, or even just counting them differently. I found when I started counting 500yds by 4s it seemed to go faster. (Not that I went faster, but it didn't seem as intense). It will come back, I'm sure. Good fuel never hurts, either.

Thanks 67King! WOW - what an amazing success story about getting back in the pool. I really thoguhr I could get back up to my 16-1700 yards after a couple weeks. I just get so week at the 800 mark and really have to push for that last 50yards. I was reading on another post people eat PB&J before swimming. So tomorrow I am going to try that on my way to the gym. Maybe my food intake is not proving me the fuel I need? Hardest part is convincing yourself. Mentally, I break things up, and say "I'm going to get to this point." And then when I'm at that point, I'll tell myself, "okay, now to do one more set" or whatever. Back when I was just doing laps, it was "okay, gotta make this 500 yard set." And then "Alright, one more." Now, wiht intervals, I break them up in my mind. Say you have a set where you are doing 40 50's. Each 10 is 1/4. So each one is 10% of that quartile. So after 5 of them, mentally I tell myself "halfway through the first quartile!" Another thing you might do to reach your goal is a Davis mile set. A competition mile is 1650 yards. The Davis mile is this: 11 laps, rest 10 seconds 10 laps, rest 10 seconds 9 laps, rest 10 seconds. ..... 2 laps, rest 10 seconds. 1 laps. So you count down, doing one fewer lap each time, and get a 10 second rest. Add 'em all up, and you've gotten in your 1650 yards. Subtract 100 seconds and get your mile time. But the point is, the breaks, although they are small, give you something to work towards psychologically. Just push yourself to that next interval, and when there, push to the next. It is tough, but if you can get through that mental barrier, you can start making some seriously quick progress. E.g., I was doing 28 minute miles, say, 15 months ago, and now I"m doing 22 minute ones. But I find that the fatigue is more mental than physical. For fuel, need some complex carbs and some protein. I eat granola with greek yogurt. And as I swim at 5:00AM, of course I have some coffee, too :)

Good luck, miklcct! Keep us posted on your progress! :banana: