Friday, April 1, 2022

100 K, or the tyranny of the drawstring

Triathletes are typically obsessed with their numbers. How far, how fast, how often, totals, averages, fastest, slowest. There is technology that enables this fetish, and they are avid consumers. I did some of that, but never really tracked the swim, other than keeping track of fastest sprint 100 m, and typical times for 100 m, and for 1000 m. But I don't think I could ever have said how far I'd swum in any given month.

Now I can. 35 Km in March, and today is 100 Km this year so far. I missed swimming during COVID. That was maybe the hardest thing, knowing that swim fitness was inexorably slipping away, every day a little more. I kept notes as I started, wanting to track how long it took for the swim fitness to come back. 

Once COVID was mostly vaccinated and the pools opened without having to book a lane in advance, I was happy to get back in the pool. It was brutal at first. The first "swim" was at Repsol with Katie on August 4. This was sort of fitting, because the swim previous to that was in Feb 2020 in Auckland, NZ. I put swim in quotes because my notes from that said my arms fell off after 100 m, and mostly it was a water run to chat and catch up.

At the end of August I started back at Canyon Meadows pool. OMG. My notes indicate lots of short bits adding up to 1 K. I remember being absolutely bagged after these. September 15 I note 1K all at once in (covers face) 21:30. By October 18 that 1K was down to 20:07, and I was a bit cranky that I had missed it by THAT much, knowing my stroke had fallen apart and I blew a couple flip turns. But on the 25th that 1K was 19:35. 

That mirrors the last time I started swimming again after a long break. This was back in the early 2000 or so, even before triathlon training. I was aiming for a 20 minute 1000 m, which I remembered being easy. It took a long time to get there, and the first time I beat that I nearly puked in the pool gutter from the effort. The very next swim was 19:30 relaxed and happy.

It's been gradually getting longer and faster. Typically now I'm swimming 3 K, 3 times a week. Usually 2 K is straight up front crawl, trying to reliably break 38 minutes. I've done it a few times but it doesn't take much to make me miss by a few seconds. Then the other K is a mix of fins kick, pull, and backstroke. It sort of depends on what the other people in the lane are doing. In chatting with one of my regular lane mates earlier this week, she suggested I do another K to take up the space in the lane so the creep we all hate sharing a lane with would swim elsewhere. I could have, but didn't. She managed to finish before he showed up.

What I really need to be working on is intervals, but that's a problem in this pool. You never know when someone else is going to join the lane, and there are several people that are jerks about it. They don't get that some of us are watching the clock and one guy just does not believe that I actually swim faster than him. Typically at Repsol there's lots of other lanes so doing intervals isn't a problem. Plus there I can easily see the pace clock. 

Oddly enough, my weight hasn't changed. It cycles up and down over a 4 pound range. I need to dial back on the sweets a bit, and get more regular about walking on the days I'm not in the pool. I do some walks, of course, but typically these are photo rambles that average about 2 Kph as opposed to my regular walk of about 5 or 6 Kph. 

After beach walking about 15 K a day in New Zealand, I thought it would be easy to get back into running when I got home. Not so. My legs were quite cranky about running, even really short and really slow, so I gave that up. During some of the better walks I dream of running again, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is, a dream. I have to think about how long it takes to recover from injury now, and I'm at an age where a full recovery doesn't happen at all. I'd rather be walking for decades more, than injure myself running and have walking become a problem. Even doing kick with fins in the pool I have to be careful. I've given myself some hamstring cramps a few times and had one of my knees talking to me.

The orange pattern shorts that I'd been wearing for years and years finally died. It had got to the point I was inspecting them before putting them on, and last week I noticed one of the seams had a slight tear. Bye bye! On to another pair. Probably just as well, the drawstring was showing signs of wear as well, which isn't a surprise either. Years of tugging hard to cinch in the gut took their toll. Trust me when I say the drawstring is an essential part of the suit.

I don't have any swimming related photos handy.

Of the Day
Driftwood

Peony

Lily

Celina

Film (35mm)

No comments:

Post a Comment

Looking forward to reading your comment!