The goal of this particular postal swim? To swim as far as possible in one hour. The recorded distance (total yards swum) determines the order of finish.

I had to have an official counter/timer, who recorded my lap count and my cumulative split every fifty yards. Ben graciously volunteered/was dragged along in spite of his loud and frequent protests.

I completed 2,900 yards (116 laps). It wasn’t quite what I’d hoped for; my goal was 3,000-3,200 yards. It must have been all that slacking and those extra gingersnaps over Christmas break. Still, the swim felt good, very strong at the finish, and as always, I was very consistent – my 50 splits at the end were the same, maybe even a little faster, than my 50 splits at the beginning.

Of course, I have no idea what my regional results will be – that will take couple of months. I doubt I’ll place in my age group; it’s pretty competitive. That wasn’t my objective anyway,I just wanted to do it, and maybe set a baseline to improve upon next year.

First, I’m starting swimming with the brand new Poulsbo masters’ swim team. For those of you who don’t know, masters’ swimming is adult competitive swimming. It supports multiple goals – regular swim meets, broken up by age groups; triathlons; and longer open water events. The latter is my gig.

While I’ve been swimming with many of these folks on an unstructured basis throughout the last year, this will be the first time I’ve actually done a formal workout with them under the guidance of a coach. I’m quite nervous about the whole thing, although tomorrow’s workout will be more evaluation and less exhaustion.

Second, I start a new job tomorrow. I’ve been a project manager in IT for nearly five years. We’re spinning off a subsidiary company as an external service provider, and I’m taking a role with the new subsidiary as a senior business analyst. It’s a little different than what I’ve been doing to date. While there’s about a 50% overlap, it’s more technical and detail oriented. I’m nervous about that change, too.

Maybe I could throw in a first date and first day at school tomorrow as well, just to make matters entertaining all around.

Earlier this week, I was talking with a good friend who said, “I don’t time my walks and don’t care how far I go, so it doesn’t matter to me. I left all of that competitive time (running, walking, etc) stuff behind in the military.” Instead he walks by the river, watches the morning sun and the ducks on the water, the beavers build their lodge, and basically enjoys being outside.

Another friend sent a link on the “Fun Theory”, a fascinating YouTube video documenting a social experiment. A group of engineers transformed subway stairs from plain into a black and white, musically functional piano keyboard – and 2/3 more people took the stairs just to play on them.

Entrepreneur and fitness guru Jonathan Fields has a fabulous post on how to make exercise more fun than sex. Perhaps he’s a tad optimistic, still, he has a point. We used to run around outside playing until we were exhausted as kids, and never once thought of it as drudgery or exercise.

So what do I do?

I swim. A lot. I’m kind of obsessed with swimming. And truly, I love it! I enjoy the coolness of the water, the weightlessness, the strength, grace, rhythm and endurance I feel in the water. In a pool, I like the smell of chlorine, the stillness, the snap of a perfect flip turn. In open water, I like the light refracting through the water, the waves, the sense of connection to the natural world.

Still, I let myself get so hyperfocused on the trivial details, the part that matters so much less. I require myself to swim two miles per workout. I want to get faster, I’d like to get my mile back under 30 minutes. I need to kick more. Intervals would make me faster; harder workouts would improve my time.

Holy crap, I’m 45 years old and I’m not and never will be Dara Torres! As my friend said, it’s not about competition. If I do what I love, and focus on the things I enjoy most, the rest will follow. And even if they don’t, I’ll stick with it, because doing what brings me joy motivates me.

I also walk and do yoga, but I don’t get so wrapped up in compulsiveness there. I don’t know if it’s because I am not so attached to those activities, because they aren’t naturally competitive sports, or because they don’t lend themselves as easily to the process of continuous evaluation and improvement.

The line between exercising for enjoyment, fitness, physical and mental health, and obsessively, compulsively exercising to a rigid perfectionist standard, is not fine and is not blurry. I wander across it far too often. I need to – I will – focus on joy and loving what I do as a primary goal, a lifetime goal.

I’ve been swimming pretty good workouts lately – usually 2 miles, 3x a week, consisting of:

• 1 mile freestyle warmup

• 400 mixed kick
• 800 of stroke work, more distance or intervals
• 200 warmdown

It takes me about an hour and fifteen minutes and feels really good.

Motivation

I had the chance to swim with a triathlete friend in Alaska. Craig is a good distance swimmer – he lapped me a few times. (Dammit!) We both want to improve our endurance swim times, and had a great conversation about workout intensity.

We prefer solo swim workouts and long slow distance training. It suits our strengths in the water. (And on land.) He mentioned, though, that he tends to not push himself as hard when he swims by himself. I notice myself that I’m predominantly a mono-paced swimmer – my half-mile, mile and two mile pace are all the same.

He suggested — and I agree — that it means I’m sandbagging a bit. I’m not working as hard as I could be and I’m keeping plenty in reserve.

The alternatives? Interval training by myself is one possibility, and I already do a little, but not a lot. The other is working out with the local Masters’ swim team.

Interval Training

Long slow distance is a phrase commonly used to describe both training method for endurance sports. Many find it effective preparation for endurance events like marathons.

Still, most coaches and sports trainers recommend interval or speed training to build speed. It’s very effective in cardiovascular build-up and makes more well-rounded athletes. Interval training can also be more effective at inducing fat loss than simply training at a moderate intensity level for the same duration.

What is interval training? There are several variations, but they all include shorter distance, higher-intensity effort. They might include:

• Intervals: Swim 8 x 100 yards free with 20 seconds rest in between

• Timed intervals: Swim 8 x 100 yards free on the 2:00 – the faster you swim, the more rest you get
• Laddered intervals: Swim 2 x 200s, 4 x 100s, 4 x 50s, with 20, 15 and 10 seconds rest respectively.
• Fartlek training: Swim 800, alternating 50 easy with 50 sprint, no rest in between.

The last type of interval training might be familiar to those who use programmable fitness machines, and add in hills, variable speed or incline, or intensity to their workouts.

This is pretty do-able, in fact, I already do it probably one day a week. Today it was 8 x 100 IMs, with 15 seconds rest, but practicing it more regularly would help my speed.

Masters’ Swimming

Masters’ swimming is the adult version of a club swim team. It’s for all age and ability levels and all goals – competitive swimmers, triathletes, fitness swimmers and open water swimmers.

My wonderful mother swims Masters’ at 76 years old – she competed in the national Senior Olympics this summer. So do Dara Torres, Rowdy Gaines and open water champ Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen.

Masters’ teams – there isn’t one at my local North Kitsap pool, but there is one at Bainbridge Aquatic Center, the next town over – generally work out 3-5 days a week, with flexible schedules to serve working adults. They do shorter, intense, interval-oriented workouts, but still do a good job of supporting the endurance athlete since so many of their participants are triathletes or open water swimmers, rather than meet competitors.

The thought of working out with a swim team makes my OCD heart palpitate. I’d have to circle swim in a busy, choppy lane, feel all competitive and pay attention to a pace clock.

Why would I do this? Interval training and/or Masters’ swimming? I’d like to continue to enjoy swimming, to love what I do, but I’d also like to build a better speed base and prepare for some longer and faster open water events. I’d also like to build a variety of ways to stay actively involved in swimming for the long term, and social and team engagement is a good way to do that.

So what do I have on the horizon, keeping me going?

Ironman Course Swim (2.4 mi, Kailua-Kona, March 2010) I’m going to Kona for a girls’ va-ca, and plan to dive into plenty of swimming and water sports while there. One of the world’s premier open water swimmers lives and operates a training business on the big island, and she will swim the Ironman course with clients and provide coaching on technique, open water and racing.

Fat Salmon Swim (3.2 mi, Lake Washington, July 2010) This is the northwest’s premier open water distance swimming event. It’s the longest one on the schedule, sanctioned by USMS (Masters’ swimming), and has minimum entry time guidelines. Yes, I meet them, but back of the pack isn’t exactly my goal here.

SCCA Swim Across America (2 mi, Lake Washington, September 2010) This event, held for the first time this year, was popular with swimmers of all ability levels, from recreational to Olympian. The water gets a little cold in mid-September but that’s ok – the English Channel is even colder.

Swim Around the Rock (3.25 mi, San Francisco Bay, TBD) This elite level open water swim around Alcatraz and back bills itself as a challenge for fast swimmers. It requires a very strategic race plan because of the changing tides and fast currents around the Rock. This is a goal for the future, when I have more speed and experience with ocean swimming.

Crossing for Kids (3.5 mi, Puget Sound, not scheduled) In 2005, the first and only Crossing for Kids was held, from Bainbridge Island to Alki Point, 3.5 miles across Puget Sound in 51 degree water. I would love to swim this crossing! In fact, if it doesn’t ever get rescheduled, I may recruit a couple of swimming friends and a boat escort and swim it privately, just for the thrill of achievement.

I’d also like to do a sprint triathlon next year, the entire race, not just relay style like I did this year. (I’ll walk the run). The women’s Gold Nugget Triathlon in Alaska is an option, although the swim is depressingly short, not to my advantage. There are dozens of sprint triathlons in the Puget Sound area, so I have no idea which one I’ll select. It won’t be the insanely overcrowded Danskin women’s sprint tri, with 5,000+ participants it’s such a melee it can be dangerous.

My goals are threefold:

• gain fitness, as defined by improved endurance, strength, flexibility & balance

• improve my mental health, emotional resiliency & stress management
• lose weight and improve my overall health & appearance

What motivates me? Being able to see noticeable progress. Feeling good about my fitness level and body. Setting (and achieving) interesting fitness goals.

This year, I wanted to start exercising regularly again and swim an open water swim. (I’ve done two – a 1 mile and a half mile.) In the next year, I’d like to try for a longer and more challenging open water swim – a 2 mile or 3.5 mile. I’d also like to try and finish a sprint triathlon, walking the run.

Up until recently, I’ve been exercising 45-60 minutes a day, alternating between distance swimming and walking, six days a week. (Note: I have a REALLY HARD TIME taking that one rest day a week off.) I’ve been doing yoga randomly and irregularly in the evening for strength and flexibility.

I’ve been somewhat stalled, not making much as progress as I’d like on fitness, weight loss or mental health management. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve decided to increase my workout duration but leave my (relatively healthy) eating habits alone.

So, now I’m alternating between swimming and walking 60-90 min daily, six days a week. I’m doing yoga regularly, every other day, in the evening. On the alternate evening I’m doing something active just to pry myself off the couch – my daily life is very sedentary. I’ll go for a bike ride, go out kayaking, take a short walk with the dogs, just get moving.

What do my swim workouts look like? They’re very distance-oriented. I battle my OCD tendencies constantly so try to avoid timing myself or doing any kind of timed interval work. On the plus side, I don’t get bored with distance swimming – my mind is always busy. My routine is usually similar to this:

    Mile freestyle warmup
    400 kick, flutter, dolphin, breaststroke
    4 x 200s, varying strokes, short (10-15 sec) rest
    400 freestyle warmdown/stroke drills

I’m trying to make this fitness journey sustainable and enjoyable. I can’t increase workout duration any more without it becoming a time management problem – although there’s certainly room to work on intensity, and weave more activity into my couch potato telecommuting lifestyle.

We compared dates and events, and finally settled on the Kirkland Triathlon this last weekend. Unfortunately, Chuck hurt himself a couple days before the event, so Steph rallied to do both the bike & run – she is amazing! (She’s training for the Portland marathon two weeks from now.)

One disadvantage of this event was that it was at 7am. In Kirkland. That meant leaving the house at 4:40am to make the 5:20am ferry. And — cold, 68° lake water never seems very appealing at that hour of the day.

There were over 1,000 entrants in this triathlon, and a few dozen relay teams. A triathlon is swim, bike, run – and relay team members have to tag each other in the transition area between legs of the event.

Because the triathlon had so many participants, we started in waves of about 50 – 60 swimmers, 5 minutes apart, and each wave had different colored swim caps. We’d wade in until we were waist deep after the group ahead of us took off, then wait our turn. I prefer to start near the back, I don’t care for the melee at the front. The water wasn’t nearly as cold as I was afraid it would be, I was fine.

The first 100 yards or so are always tough, adjusting to the cold, the crowd, the different stroke technique. (for me, seven strokes head down, one with head up, to stay straight) Then I found my rhythm – and this time I started passing people. A lot of people. Maybe enjoying it was not the best sportsmanship, but it was satisfying. According to Steph, I finished about a third of the way back in my group – not bad for starting in the back row. If it had been longer I would have been able to pass more swimmers.

Then Steph took off on her bike like the experienced triathlete she is. (She’s done an Ironman and a few ½ Ironman tris – I admire her strength & endurance.)

I couldn’t get to the finish to watch her because the course was laid out like a pretzel and crossing the course was nearly impossible. I hung out in the transition area, overheard the swimming organizers debriefing, and apparently they rescued 6 swimmers in trouble, and pulled out another 66 who asked for assistance. My gosh! I can’t imagine trying a deep water, lake swim unless you were completely prepared for it.

Would I do another relay triathlon? Definitely! It was fun and I think I supported our team creditably. I’d also like to shoot for a longer swim next summer, if I find the right event.

Thanks, Steph, for this awesome opportunity!

I’m at the point now where I think I need to stop the build-up, at least of duration. An hour of yoga (3-4x a week) and an hour of something cardio daily is probably sufficient and it’s working well for me. I can focus on technique, form, speed, or intervals, but I think continuing to push for more time is counterproductive.

Although I actually enjoy strength training, I don’t want to do it it – I’m one of those atypical females that bulks up a bit with weight training. Yoga (and Pilates as a first cousin) contain a significant strength element but the focus is different enough it doesn’t have the same effect.

I do enjoy cross training, not doing the same thing all the time. It’s fun to go on a bike ride instead of a walk, or kayaking instead of a swim – it keeps things interesting and works different muscles.

When I was young, dumb and at the peak of my physical conditioning, I was swimming 2 x 2hr workouts a day, plus lifting weights an hour a day. I also ran 2-3x a week for crosstraining, and played racquetball and took dance for fun. I was perpetually exhausted but in fabulous shape, 17% body fat.

I wonder if I didn’t sort of warp my metabolism back then, so that I’d require that kind of workout load to ever again be slim. I hope not, because that’s not happening! I have a life. I’ll see where I end up with current efforts.

Back in April, inspired by my son’s slightly insane bike ride, I set a goal – to swim an open water distance swim. The swim I had in mind, the punishing 3.5 mi Puget Sound crossing, is not being held this year, but there are several lake swims scattered around the Puget Sound this summer.

I set my sights on the first one scheduled as a ‘maybe’. I completed it today – the Green Lake open water swim, a mile across the lake and back. My goals for the event were simple – to finish the race, and to not be last. I accomplished both, plus, I was very pleasantly surprised by my time. (Until, of course, I compared it with my 15-minutes faster high school mile time… LOL)

My wonderful mother was my companion, supporter and towel holder for the event – thank you, mom! While mom is not a distance swimmer, she is swimming a few events in August in the Senior Olympic Nationals, held at Stanford, so it was great having another swimmer cheer for me.

One woman she was chatting with while I swam asked, “If this is your daughter’s first open water event, why did she choose the mile instead of the easier half-mile?”

Sheesh. Some people. Why do people climb the TALLEST mountain in north America, or in the world, rather than one that’s half that high? If I could accomplish it – and I routinely swim more than that in training – of course I wanted to swim the longer event.

Shoot, I’d like to try the Puget Sound crossing. Catalina Island. Long Island. Maybe someday the English Channel! (although probably not) These aren’t because I love the activity so much – it’s because they’re the big mountains on the horizon worth climbing.

So, back to today’s swim. In some ways it was harder than I anticipated, and in some ways easier.

Please note that I am not in this picture, but just to the right, out of frame. This is on purpose.

The cold water, at about 68° was more of an impact than I expected. I chose not to get in and warm up, ‘warm’ being a bit of a misnomer. My initial plunge started me hyperventilating a bit and I had a hard time evening my breathing out and establishing a rhythm for about the first 200 yards.

Then I had a tough time staying on track. I know the drill, swim X strokes head down then 1 stroke head up to sight on a point across the lake, and I did 5:1, but I still tended to wander a bit, worse toward the end when I was more tired. The general lack of visibility in the murky water was a bit distracting, I couldn’t see other swimmers until I was nearly on top of them.

I got foot cramps a couple of time, which I never do in pool swimming, bit swam through those easily by just not kicking for a couple of minutes.

The distance itself was only a little tiring – and my shoulders are a bit achey tonight – but I expected that because this distance was unhelped by turns & pushing off the wall every 25 yards, like I do in the pool.

This is our finishing group. The swim went all the way across to the building at the other end, around a buoy, and back.

All in all, I’m very glad I did it. It was a low key event, 120 swimmers in the mile event, and folks were positive and supportive. I’ll do it again – maybe Lake Washington later this summer and perhaps the swim portion of a team triathlon in Olympia in September – both depending how my travel schedule works out this fall.

I love it. I absolutely love to swim. I don’t know why I’ve let it be so many years out of the water.

I swam competitively in junior high, high school & college. (Yes, that’s me in the white cap, foreground, in the picture.) I was never a star, just a good solid second string competitor with an occasional win in my best events. Back in those days I swam 5:30-7am and 3-5pm 6 days a week, with an added hour of weight training 3 days a week. It wouldn’t be unusual to put in 7,500 to 10,000 yards a day.

I remember the first race I ever won. 200 backstroke, Wenatchee swimming pool, I must have been 12 or 13. I had not the faintest idea that winning was possible, but I pulled ahead from the first stroke, and built upon my lead with each lap. When I touched the wall 2 or 3 body lengths ahead of the second place swimmer I was euphoric! And exhausted – the 200 hundred is a middle distance event.

Through the years I’ve started lap swimming a few times, but then my interest has petered out. I push myself too hard, get too competitive and critical, and compare myself unfavorably against my younger, faster, fitter self. I’ve even swam with the Masters’ team a couple of times but I didn’t enjoy it – I had to push too hard, and don’t enjoy swimming in a crowded lane. While I recall the elation of winning, those goals are not for me any more.

If I simply let myself enjoy swimming, without pushing or competitiveness, it’s a wonderful experience. From the moment I walk into the pool and smell the chlorinated air, put on my cap and goggles while looking at my still, glasslike lane, and take that first plunge into cool, embracing water, it’s entirely like coming home. I love the weightlessness, the smoothness, the hypnotic rhythm, and the mindful, meditative state I reach after lap upon lap.

I leave the pool completely centered, energy level turned up to max, with a clear mind and my anxieties drained away.

I don’t know why I ever stopped – and I sure don’t plan to again.