I am 35 and in pretty decent shape. I ride 4-5000 miles a year and do endurance events (100 mile mt. bike races). Unfortunately, my Dr. just told me no more riding for 3 + months. I usually ride through the winter, well enough to stay in some sort of shape.
While I am not excited about droping $800 bucks to join the Y to use the pool I am kind of excited to try something new. My Dr. told me I can swim and I plan on using this to keep my cardio and tone up over the winter.
Problem is I have no idea where to start. From goggles, suit, to what to do in the pool other than swim. In cycling I always tell beginners any cycling is better than no cycling, I would guess this is true for swimming (at a beginner level).
I know how to swim and was on the swim team through grade school (yeah I know a long time ago but at least I know what its about). I have tried to read some of the posts here about training, but to be honest I just dont know the lingo.
Like most things I will probably get hooked on this and want to see what I can do with it. I would like to work up to doing 1-2 hours.
Thanks for the help.
Al
Parents
Former Member
happy New Year to all.
Well I thought my base fitness was getting there, until today and yesterday I tried to swim without the float buoy. I nearly drowned. I have lost all coordination to do kick and pull. Not only that but I am slower on my splits. It just was not fun. Its ok because my knee is not ready to go yet anyways, but it was certainly disappointing.
The good.
I have not been doing too may intervals for a couple of reasons. I have been very sore. I figured out a big part of that was from over stretching. My joints had started to ache. I noticed after skipping a day of stretching the pain went away. So have not been pushing the myself on the stretching and most of the soreness has faded.
I said most because there is still some left due to the fact I am pushing too many days in a row. The holidays messed up with my scheduled day off (Sundays). So tomorrow will be day 9 in a row so i can get back to my sunday off.
The good is this. While purposely not doing too intervals because of the soreness and knowing i would do many days in a row i backed off them for the past week.
However 3 days ago I did try to do some intervals. The first 250 I set a new record 3:52... My first under the 4 minute mark, this beat my time by almost 15 seconds. The next interval i did in 3:56. I was shot after this, i tried to do a third but I was in pain (shoulders) and the buoy came out after 100 yards. I stopped, recovered and then just swam out the rest of my hour.
Today, day 8 in a row, after 40 minutes of active recovery, i decided to see what I had in me. 3.47!!! My first 3 50 splits were identical at 45 I lost 1 second per 50 after that. I was really happy about that.
To go back to a previous post: I have been working on the flip turn and I am feeling more comfortable with them. Only problem is they will knock my ear buds out after while. It might make me faster in the long run but its not really important to me.
What i find amazing is how much faster people can get. I mean in a mere 6 weeks i have taken a minute off my 250 time. OK i had a long way to go and still have a long way, but there are people in the pool that seem to be just cruising along and I am going as hard as I can and cant keep them in sight. ITs just crazy. Anyways. its all good and I am happy with the progress to date.
happy New Year to all.
Well I thought my base fitness was getting there, until today and yesterday I tried to swim without the float buoy. I nearly drowned. I have lost all coordination to do kick and pull. Not only that but I am slower on my splits. It just was not fun. Its ok because my knee is not ready to go yet anyways, but it was certainly disappointing.
The good.
I have not been doing too may intervals for a couple of reasons. I have been very sore. I figured out a big part of that was from over stretching. My joints had started to ache. I noticed after skipping a day of stretching the pain went away. So have not been pushing the myself on the stretching and most of the soreness has faded.
I said most because there is still some left due to the fact I am pushing too many days in a row. The holidays messed up with my scheduled day off (Sundays). So tomorrow will be day 9 in a row so i can get back to my sunday off.
The good is this. While purposely not doing too intervals because of the soreness and knowing i would do many days in a row i backed off them for the past week.
However 3 days ago I did try to do some intervals. The first 250 I set a new record 3:52... My first under the 4 minute mark, this beat my time by almost 15 seconds. The next interval i did in 3:56. I was shot after this, i tried to do a third but I was in pain (shoulders) and the buoy came out after 100 yards. I stopped, recovered and then just swam out the rest of my hour.
Today, day 8 in a row, after 40 minutes of active recovery, i decided to see what I had in me. 3.47!!! My first 3 50 splits were identical at 45 I lost 1 second per 50 after that. I was really happy about that.
To go back to a previous post: I have been working on the flip turn and I am feeling more comfortable with them. Only problem is they will knock my ear buds out after while. It might make me faster in the long run but its not really important to me.
What i find amazing is how much faster people can get. I mean in a mere 6 weeks i have taken a minute off my 250 time. OK i had a long way to go and still have a long way, but there are people in the pool that seem to be just cruising along and I am going as hard as I can and cant keep them in sight. ITs just crazy. Anyways. its all good and I am happy with the progress to date.
