I heard about this swim race a few weeks ago, and it was perfect timing. I've been back swimming for 3 months now, and have been building up my yardage, and this race gave me a great opportunity to get an idea where I am.
Compared to the fast swimmers, yeah, I suck. But, compared to where I thought I was, I'm rocking it pretty hard!
Drew and I showed up at the pool at 10am an a real swim meet was in progress. We checked in, heard there were 14 swimmers for the 2.4 mile race and they would be running it in stages (2 people per lane, the middle seed times would go in after the fastest lane finished), and sat back to watch the speedie fish swim. About a half hour later they announced only 12 people had checked in for the IM race, so we'd run 2 people per lane starting at around 11am. Looking at seed times, there were quite a few hour-type swimmers so I planned to swim my own race.
At quarter til we got in and warmed up... a little cool but not bad. Then when the real meet finished we spread out into
our lanes. Shook hands with my lane mate, and asked my lap counter to let me know every 1000 yds. The pool was 25yds, and we were to swim 169 laps for 4225 yds. Ready, go.
Push off the wall and try to swim steady. My plan was to pick it up every 4th length for the first 1000 which I did and which helped my track my laps. My lane-mate was just a hair slower than me, and there were markings on the wall every 5 feet, so I could watch when he came by and see if I put a little on him or he pulled me in. After 1000 I lost count and decided to just swim steady. No flip turns, but focus on clean turns, and steady strokes. There's the kick board signal, I must be at 2000. Starting to get a little tired, and a little bored. Eki
ng up the feet on my lane-mate. Watching the rest of the pool and see the first gal finish... 55 minutes. Yikes! Start seeing other finishers and realize the pool is going to be quiet soon. Where's my 3000 indicator? I have to be at 3000. 1:05 goes by. My counter must have forgot. There's Drew finishing, 1:07... nice! Getting really boring now... Finally a kick board, and she's yelling 200 to go. Pick it up as much as I can, lost all form I had, and finally hit the wall and done! Lane-mate finishes a lap later.
1:27:29. Sweet! If my old rules still apply that'd be under 1:20 open water, and more importantly 3:00 may be realistic at the Double IM in March. That one is in a 50m lap pool...
Optimistically,
Leslie
10th of 12 swimmers.
5 of the 12 went an hour or faster!
"Hey, that's MY toy!"
Maddy and Gretchen have fully accepted little Ollie into the family!
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