1,2,3,4,5.....laps

Today was a swim day. The question was, Do I swim outside or inside?

The weather for the past 48 hours has been horrible. The last 12 hours pouring not cats and dogs, but horses and cows.

The rain was so strong and along with it came rolling thunder and lighting. I was up pretty much the entire night. I thought for sure when I got up the basement would be under water and our leaky window would leave us a huge puddle on the floor. Luckily the basement has survived so far as long as the sump pump keeps pumping but that puddle, it was there. The carpet was soaked. Guess we need someone to come take a look at it. I'm afraid it's going to be one of those things that becomes a giant issue. Like the whole wall is soaked.

Anyway I could of put on my wetsuit and headed outdoors. Not into the river or lake but into the mini pond that formed at the playground. Or the pond that has appeared at the bottom of the "snow hill" that all the kids flock to in the winter. But I refrained and headed to the gym.

Pool has been very crowded the past 2 weeks. Not sure it that has to do with triathlon season starting or not. I'm thinking that some of the swimmers are athletes but many are not. Why now do they start swimming? I was lucky enough to grab the outside lane which isn't supposed to be shared as it's a tad bit smaller and against the wall. I did this because I had a whopping 4000yd swim today. It started with a 300m warm up followed by 1000m then 800m then 600m then 400m then 200m then 100m then a 100m cool down. All totaling 4000yds. To put this in perspective 4000yds is 2.3 miles. The half iron man is 1.2 miles. Why my training programs has you swim almost twice that more than once is beyond me. But I do what it says. Most of the time anyway. It's the easiest on the body of the three sports and it does increase your overall endurance while keeping your heart rate in check. Chances are you won't hurt yourself in the pool. Cramps in the calf's and toes, yes but not much else.

So I decided to swim the 1000m and not do the 1 minute recovery and go straight into the 800m which is a total of 72 laps of the pool. I wanted to get a feel on how long it will take me for the race. It took me about 42 mins. That was going at a very comfortable speed not really trying much at all. Now the race is about 1950m. So lets assume that if I was racing and had a wetsuit on I would still be able to do the 1950 in the same amount of time 42 mins. Certainly within the range that I would hope for. Anything under 40 mins would be fantastic. 40-45 I'll take it. Over 45 and I'm in for a long day.


So today I decided I'm ready for the swim. I can handle the distance and I'm comfortable in the water. I will get to race in open water just a week prior to the iron man which will be good. It will be under 1/2 the distance but still will get me even more prepared. If I can swim 140 laps in a pool I can swim 1950m in open water!