Diving In

I always dread going to the pool for the first swim of training season. I know I need to go and just get it over with, but I'm never happy with where I'm at with endurance and form. That being said, it felt great to get in the pool again.

I headed over there for lap swim around noon last Thursday and told myself I would just take it easy and see how it goes. I started with an easy warm up of 200 with the kickboard and 200 with the pull. My arms were already feeling sore from my aerobics class I taught Wednesday night -- maybe I shouldn't had done those lateral raises and shoulder presses!

After the warm up, I swam 300 freestyle, but had to take a LOT of breaks in between those sets. In fact, It was hard to go 60 yards, before needing to catch my breath -- needless to say, there is much room for improvement! After getting frustrated with my endurance, I decided to focus on my form. I was going a lot slower, but I felt like I wasn't struggling against the water -- I was gliding with it.

I finished with a cool down of 200 with the pull and by the last 20 yards, my right shoulder was popping every rotation I made. So in the end, it took about a half-hour to do 900 yards, which is slightly longer than the distance I'll need to do for my race in July.

After I went home, I thought about how I can be a little hard on myself for not having good form or great endurance. I've established a starting point and now I can focus on making improvements as I move forward in training season.