Tag: swimming

Swim Challenge and Austin 10/20

We had a pretty packed weekend with the start of the swim challenge on Saturday then the Austin 10/20 race on Sunday.

PhotoGrid_1459800123668To start the swim challenge is the first Saturday of every month. Starting April with 1 lap. Each month adds a lap of swimming around the lake. In other words it took about as long to put on the wet suit as it did to swim this months distance. Swim data here!

This is going to be a great challenge for me to get my OWS mileage up this year. Although I have done 7k in a pool, my longest OWS was just under 5k about 3 years ago. Also lake, I LOVE lake!

 

PhotoGrid_1459800056210I snuck in a bike ride on Saturday just for a few miles and visited play it again sports and some pawn shops. I was looking for some used disk golf disks so next time we are at Lions park up in temple we can play. I was also looking to find a cheap djembe drum, since I like being part of the drum circles out at fair. Bike data here!

2016-04-02 17.49.06Bed early on Saturday night and I took a sleep pill since I would have a nice long sleep. That was a great idea, but the sleep wasn’t as good as it could have been. We got up just after 7 and out of the house 20 min before the race start. Good thing the race start was only an 6 minute drive from the house!

Ran into Brian while in the Port-a-potty line and we ended up at the start line about 7 minutes after the race had officially started. I really don’t like starting in the back of the pack, but this wasn’t even back of the pack this was behind the wall of walke2016-04-03 10.11.41rs. Our goal was to just easy run the whole thing somewhere in the 11 – 12 min mile pace. Brian had said he was going to do 5 with us, then 5 fast. When he took off my goodness he took OFF! Quix and I stayed at our planned pace and I had just a great day out running. Nothing felt hard and I kept a conversational pace the whole time. Quix on the other hand might have turned into some sort of animal for the hill section of the run, but she came back to normal after the finish. Run data here!

I need to remember to do at least 1 double digit run a month while in the season of body training. I just love the feeling of running again I hope to never lose it.

After the race we had some fish and chips and I might have had more beer than I ran, but it was my splurge day, and I splurged quite a few IPA’s.

 

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The Month of Swimming

Frozen fish

I am not a fan of the cold at all. As a matter of fact I have attempted to move to places where “cold” only happens a few times a year. But this year I decided since Quix was going to do a January run streak, I wanted to do a swim Streak.uvs150116-002

Well, the pool at the gym was closed on the 1st and 2nd, so I just get 29 days instead of 31 I guess. But I will attempt to make up those swims by doing a few “doubles” so the effort will be in there.

Thinking about swimming 30k in a month piqued my interest in December when I realized I was going to be at about close to 20k swam. It was because it was my only recovery workout I was allowed to do after the bear fight, but I was really starting to enjoy it. So enter the Lets do 1k or more every day this month.uvs150116-001

Last year, a 1k swim would take over 30 minutes and eat up a whole lunch hour. But by swimming more I have gotten faster. Who would have thought that would happen? So yeah, now that my slow pace is 2:10/100m or less it is getting easier and easier to get in longer swims at lunch. Last week I started with the 1k per lunch, but by half way through the week, I was wanting to do 1100m instead.

uvs150116-003Last friday night I did a nice 3k in just over an hour and felt great. It was just above freezing, raining and a little windy, but the pool is heated and steam was coming off of it in a beautiful way. I just didn’t want to stop. The only reason I really did stop was because I knew that the gym was going to be closing in half an hour and I needed to get a shower and get warmed up.

A few days later I went and swam at the Sun City Indoor heated pool and thought I was going to over heat. I have for sure gotten used to the cold air when swimming.

Even though this has been brought on by the need to swim for exercise during recovery, I am loving being in the water and being able to zone out when I want, or to push hard and see how fast I can go.

uvs150116-005My Goal of 30k by the end of the month looks like it will happen early, and I think once I finish that goal I want to attempt a 5k swim. If I get my 30k + the 5k swim I don’t see a reason not to shoot for 40k by month end. But now, I am just getting crazy.

I should point out that I have been just swimming. I haven’t put any drills with kick board, or pull buoy or anything like that so far this month. That can be next month. This month is about just the streak and distance.uvs150116-004

Well, that is a quick recap of the first half of the month. Its the 16th and I am just about to leave to get in my 16th swim of the month. With the next swim ill be at over 20k swam so far!

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