Iron Pol

The past few weeks have been dedicated to getting back into the swing of things, training wise.  Brilliant idea, trying to jump start training over the holidays.  Does anyone care to guess if I hit all my workouts?

There was, however, a positive side.  The high-tech (cheap) body fat scale says (guesses) my weight today is the same 186 it was before the holidays.  If I can make it through Christmas and New Year without significant gains, I'll call it good.  Of course, the scale could just be lying to me.  I wouldn't put it past it.

I've been working on base runs and swims.  In the pool, my main goal has been to remember that I DO know how to swim.  Some of the people who swim with me might disagree.  And they might be right.

Up until today, I've stayed in my lane.  I tend to take the "Medium" lane, as I am somewhere above "trying to avoid drowning" and well below "Flipper."  Most workouts have focused on 100 yard repeats, typically 10 sets.  Pace?  Let's not talk about that.

Today, I hit the pool for a short workout after a 5K run.  After all, I didn't want to overdo the running thing.  So, I headed to the pool and checked things out.  Water aerobics day, and you know they HAVE to take up one of the swim lanes.  Of the two left, I had to pick between uber-slow and hella fast.  The two in the slow lane were on seriously different paces, so I ruled that out.  That left Ms. Speedy Dolphin and the guy sucking up her wake.

I jumped in with them.  After all, I was only looking at maybe 500 yards.  They wouldn't pass me too many times in that distance.

Turns out they were doing 100s with 10 second rest intervals.  Well, 10 seconds for the guy.  Ms. Speedy Dolphin got more like 20-30 seconds.  So, I jumped in with them.  Who needs rest intervals?

I did the first 100 no problem.  In fact, it was awesome.  I swam something like 1:44.  I know that's nothing amazing for all you fish out there, perhaps even a bit pokey.  But for us 2+/100 swimmers, that's pretty fast.

The second 100 was a bit more annoying.  It was even faster (1:42), but I noticed water squishing through my ear plug.  Yes, it squished.  It's my ear and I say it squished.  After the set, I attempted to get a better seal, though I should have known better.  It's always been pointless to try.

The next 100 was more like 50.  Okay, it was exactly 50, but in a pretty good time of 50 seconds (shut up, that's fast).  Buttttttt, and it was a huge butt, my ear plug was completely useless and I had water gleefully leaking into my inner ear.  Really.  I heard it going "Wheeeee!" as it went through the holes in my ear drum.

I hopped out of the pool, ran into the locker room, tried (in vain) to get water OUT of my ear, and popped in a new ear plug.  I took the pack with me, just in case.

I jumped back into the rotation at a convenient point, and banged out four more 100s, all under 1:45.  Then, they switched to 50s.  Since I had already done 650 yards of a planned 500 yard cool down, I decided to only do two 50s with them, just to see how it went.  The first was great.  The second?  Let's not talk about it.

Needless to say, I decided that was a good time to stop, so I went to the hot tub.  NOBODY laps me in a hot tub.

I was a bit dejected when I got out of the pool, as I somehow deleted the swim set from my watch.  I was REALLY dejected when I got to work and realized that I had somehow deleted both the swim set AND my run set.  I remembered the time for the swim.  The run?  I just guessed.  It felt fast, so I went with a bit slower than my last 5K run on the track.

But who cares about the run?  I managed to hang with the dolphins without drowning or dying.  That's gotta count for something.