I've now done two nights of back-to-back swimming and it's funny how completely different they were.
Last night: stressful night, crappy dinner, had to wait forever to get in the pool, felt rushed, swim felt like poo.
Stats: 800m in 18:20.
Tonight: less stress, a more quality dinner, had the pool to myself, perfect temp (chilly, but not too much); felt like a torpedo gliding along.
Stats: 1000m in 23:40.
I've kept up my swimming off and on since July and our last tri but I haven't done a swim of 1000m or more since October 27. That swim: 1000m in 23:05.
However, with tonight, I felt amazing in the water. I kept glancing at the clock, astounded at the time, not believing how fast I was crusing along. Granted, I felt like I was moving in the water. If you don't already know, I do all my swimming (at this point) breaststroke. Yes, I know it's not that efficient, but right now ... it works with me and my sports asthma and my brain and everything.
Now that you know that, if you've ever breaststroked, you know that you can sometimes feel like a frog when doing so with your butt and legs hanging low in the water. Tonight, it felt like I was straight and streamlined in the water like a crawler. I kept consciously telling myself to slow down ... but I didn't need to. I definitely exerted myself and was breathing hard after the workout, but I felt amazing. In some respects, it was like I had a zen experience in the water, with just me and the pool.
It was definitely an awesome feeling to get especially this early into this year's training. I can only hope I have more of these zen/in the groove moments in the pool and that I might even be lucky enough to experience them while on the bike or while running.
Even though I was on my swim team in high school, swimming has always been my weakest tri event. I was swimming a mile at a time, but I just wasn't willing to keep it up to get the breathing part down. Sounds like you are half way to becoming a fish in the water :-)
ReplyDeleteDr. J