Swimming Alone

I knew I wouldn't be able to make it to Masters swim tonight, so Redfish and I headed over the the Y. Rain is predicted for today, along with thunderstorms, so I was praying we would get neither. Not just so I wouldn't get kicked out of the pool, but also since my window is stuck in the down position. I figured I'd already be wet from the swim so if it started to pour, I'd just get wetter, but still, I wasn't looking forward to it. Not to get sidetracked here, but while I need to fix it as soon as possible, I can't figure out when I can give up my car for the entire day, and I can't seem to figure out where the $400 to fix it is coming from either.

Luckily, all the fates aligned this morning. Actually, I'm in a great mood, because of all the things that finally went right. Redfish now considers the YMCA childcare in the gym "fun." Also, as an added bonus he is learning the letters YMC and A! It didn't rain, but got sunnier during my swim. And, after I warmed up, my ribs stopped hurting. Jason, my physical therapist, picked up the slack of the past couple of weeks and really gave my injury some much needed attention. He is super good, but for some reason, recently he's been so busy and distracted, I'd been having trouble getting him to do the deep tissue stuff I needed, in the time he had. It also helped that his intern, Liz, spend about 15 minutes on me too. Anyway, I decided since I have so much trouble staying focused on my swim when I swim by myself at the Y, I decided to just swim for 30 minutes with no breaks at all and see what happened.

For the 4.4 Mile Bay Swim, I'm going to need to swim about 3 hour straight, so this really was a baby goal. Then again, taking breaks, even for 10-15 seconds at the end of a 200 is a huge help, so not having the breaks will help me get used to the reality of 4.4 miles in the open water with not a wall in sight.

The swim just kept getting better and better (as opposed to worse and worse, which is how many of my runs end up). As I put more distance behind me I focused on turning my core with my hips, bilateral breaths every 3rd stroke, and flip turns. In fact, things were going so well that after 30 minutes I took a 100 yard "break" of side stroke and then swam another 45 minutes straight. I looked at splits for my 100's and maintained a fairly consistent 2:01 to 2:09 for the entire swim. If I was better at math, I could tell you how far I swam. I'm guessing maybe 3600 yards or just over 2 miles, plus my 200 warm up. I was sort of tired of the chlorine and the black line on the bottom of the pool and all those ladies doing their water aerobics, but still felt like I wanted to swim more. Ah, I'll save it for another day. I don't want Redfish to think I've abandoned him.

I can't wait until Friday to put in some more time in the pool. Now, all I need is some company to draft off of! And, I won't miss you guys too much tonight while you are at Masters while I'm babysitting the kids and Mr. Preschool is off seeing DJ Spooky at the Modlin Center, cause at least I got in a good workout today.