On Wednesday, I pretended like I was up to a 15.1 mile bike ride.  I almost convinced myself too!  I mean, I actually did the whole ride without any major breakdowns.

Then, on Thursday, I felt my butt.  And my hamstrings.  And the hot tub was calling my name. . .

But I didn’t go to the pool on Thursday.  Or Friday.  So I dragged myself to the pool on Saturday, not intending to swim a mile at all.  And I didn’t.   I had no idea how low bike butt extends!  I mean, I was all kinds of sore in the middle of my hamstrings.  Every kick hurt.  I felt slower than molasses, grateful for how empty the pool is on Saturday morning.

I set out to swim 500.  That is what I swam.  Then I headed to the hot tub. . . and stopped dead in my tracks.  Pregnant women aren’t supposed to use hot tubs!  How many times had I unsuspectingly used the hot tub?  Had I even gone since I’d found out I was pregnant?  I don’t think so, but I don’t remember.  That’s something to mention at the midwife.

On a completely unrelated note, I ran into a huge crowd outside the Y this morning.  People were scaling the steep hill beside the Y to begin a run.  I noticed all different shapes of people, but didn’t see one black face.  That was not the case when I ran the 5K with my daughter a month ago, but here at this event, I didn’t see anyone like me trying to participate.  It made me sad.  It made me sad to see all these other people embrace a life of fitness, but not my own people.   As I like to cry out to folks on this blog to ‘just give swimming a try!’  I’d like to give a shout out to a fit lifestyle.  Sign up for these races!  You can do it!  Swim!  Run!  Play tennis!  Ride bikes!  Try one of these lifetime sports–you can’t play basketball or football, or even soccer forever.  And your body was made to be in motion.  Forever.  So use it!

*stepping off soap box*

So last week I had a setback.  My baby was sick, so I stayed home with her on my usual swimming days.  She was feeling better on Saturday, so I went swimming then.  My oldest daughter had a 9 AM appointment, so I felt like starting at 7 AM it would be pushing it to get a mile done in time.  So I went into the workout thinking I would quit before a mile.  But after I finished that first 900, I decided to go for it.  I got home in time for her to make it to her appointment!

I remember learning to swim at the ripe old age of 12, and how I had thought it would mean I could finally do all the strokes.  Like the cool strokes.  Like butterfly.  But, alas–my advanced beginner class stopped at breast stroke.  They threw in a side stroke, which is not a competitive stroke, but no butterfly.  I was excited to see my children learn to swim butterfly (fly) while doing swim team.  My daughter especially took to it.  Not to say she liked swimming it or anything, but she was good at it.  My son had shown such promise in learning the kick, but couldn’t deliver with his arms.  I wish he’d continued swimming; he’d probably be much stronger in fly by now.

So what I learned about fly I learned from watching the kids in swim practice, and listening to their coaches.  The kick is a wiggling of your whole body, not really doing anything with your feet.  You do this undulating while your arms are in streamline, clasped at the wrist and arms over your ears.  Your head is underwater at this point.  To take a breath, you pull your arms back, pull your head up and then kind of dive your hands back in the water over your head, in the streamline again.  It feels kind of awkward at first, and definitely like a shoulder workout.  I can do about three kicks per breath at this point, sometimes four.

I don’t do any butterfly lengths by themselves.  I only do them as part of an Individual Medley (IM).  In the IM, you swim 25 fly, 25 back, 25 breast, and 25 free–in that order.  I feel like, even though I should be practicing to swim freestyle for long stretches of time, I am actually training to swim IMs.  I swim two actual IMs, but in other parts of my set, I swim the strokes in IM order, like breast, free, back, breast.  The effect is that I have an easier time swimming the IM faster, because I’m so used to the order of the strokes.

I feel like the ultimate swim geek being so into the IM.  I remember being giddy when my daughter got to compete in IMs.  Never mind that she hated every minute of it.  Her stroke was good enough to swim all four competitive strokes in one race!  That was great, especially considering how she had started off a scared little 5 year old who couldn’t bear to get her face wet.  My fearless son also got to compete in IMs, but his breast stroke wasn’t consistently legal, so sometimes I’d watch him win his race only to get disqualified later.

Anyway, watching them compete in IMs made me want to swim it so much I could taste it.  I was so excited to finally get in the pool and swim the 100 IM myself.  And then I found out how truly exhausting it is!  I would find myself panting and praying in the deep end before forcing myself to swim that final freestyle.  It is still hard for me, but I can usually make it down the final length before I’m breathless and panting.

Then I reward myself with a lap of elementary back stroke.  This is totally a cool down stroke for me.  My goal is to be breathing normally at the end of this lap.  Sometimes I am; sometimes I’m still catching my breath at the end of the 50.

I only timed one IM on Saturday.  I finished at 2:42.08, which was pretty consistent with what I’ve been swimming lately.  But it wiped me out so much that I didn’t want to push myself the second time I swam the IM.

Lately, I have been more tired than usual in the pool.  And I recently found out that I have a good reason for that.  I am pregnant again.  With number 8.  My last pregnancy was the first time I got to swim up until delivery, and it made such a big difference in labor and delivery!  So plan to keep swimming this time, too.

I did end up swimming again last week, but I didn’t write about it.  Then, I went swimming again today, so I’ll write about both experiences in this one post.

I noticed last week that I felt dog tired until I’d hit 1200 yards.  I don’t think that’s a magic number; that’s about when I get over the freestyle hump.  I’m still struggling to feel good swimming freestyle.  Baby steps.  I remember when I couldn’t consistently do streamline past the flags on my fresstyle lengths.  Streamline is when you put your hands together, one over the other, and hold them over your head.  You are squeezing your ears with your arms.  This is a racing start that has you shaped like a torpedo in the water.

Watching my kids practice for swim team, I knew that being able to hold their breath until they past the flags at the beginning of the lane was a huge leap.  It’s hard for little kids–shoot!  It’s hard for grown folks who don’t have swim training.  It has taken me a few years of working on my swimming to get consistent with this.  My next freestyle goal is to be able to keep going without stopping to catch my breath or change strokes!  After that I’ll try to flip turn to a freestyle position.  I’m scared to death to do that now, because of all the breath holding you already have to do with a freestyle.  Flip turns are just another exercise in holding your breath!

Anyway, when I swam last Friday, I swam my IM’s at 2:43.10 and 2:42.36.  I was feeling pretty good about myself for swimming my second one faster than my first one.  Then I looked over one lane, and I saw the guy over there swimming IM after IM after IM, never taking a break, or cooling down or anything!  And he was swimming 100 yards faster than I was swimming 50 yards.  Talk about taking yourself down a notch!

Today when I swam, I did my IM’s at:  2L38.20 and 2:39.34.  My old goggles fell off in the middle of the second IM, so I was pleased with that second time.

Last week, as I leisurely swam breast stroke straight down the single lane, I looked up to see a man barreling towards me swimming freestyle!  He had entered the pool without saying anything to me, and –whoa!  If I hadn’t looked up, that would have been a collision!  He was a swimming machine, kicking up tidal waves every time he passed me.

Today, I swam in the double lane.  We could have three people swimming there without feeling cramped.  I had half finished my mile when the old man next to me excitedly announced he’d swum 36 laps.  (That’s a mile!)  He had on flippers and told me that it had been a year since he’d swum that far.  He told me to never quit swimming, and then left to tell his wife what he’d done.

Tired, but encouraged, I finished my mile.   I hope to swim again on Thursday.

My schedule was thrown off this week because of Girls on the Run. The big run was the day I would have gone swimming, and I took the next day off to recuperate.  Even so, today was tiring.

My suit is also tired. About two months ago, I bought a new swim suit.  It was a Speedo, so I was excited to have a serious suit.  There was an immediate problem:  it has a plunging neckline, not really great for working out.  It looked good on me though, so I used it.  Now it has a different problem:  it’s breaking down, becoming threadbare in areas.  This happens to all swim suits, the more you use them.  But there’s one suit I bought 4 years ago that’s still holding together just fine.  So I retired the newer suit and brought out the old one.  Go figure!

The “I’m swimming!” glow was still on when I swam the first 300.  Then it was time for my first IM.  It came in at 2:47.02, which by itself is pretty decent, but it’s 3 seconds slower than my slowest time on Tuesday.  I did some more laps, too tired to really work on flip turns and did my second IM in the 800-900 yard set.  This was even slower:  2:50.76, even though I felt like I was flying.

In my 1200th set, I tried to swim 100 free without stopping.  I was panting and disappointed with myself after the first 50.  I went ahead and finished that set, followed by 100 back.  I did flip turns when I could manage.  I banged my heel on the edge of the pool doing a flip turn. It stung, but I kept going.

My total yardage was 1700, which is just 100 shy of a mile.  I intend to stay there a while once I achieve it.

I was looking forward to today for two weeks.  Today was the pool party for Girls on the Run.  I had envisioned a family love fest in the pool.

Not 5,000 balls flying through the air, landing dangerously close to the baby.  Rather, hitting her in the face.

I had forgotten the joys of a kids’ pool party.  The only thing missing was a proliferation of water guns.  phew!

And while the other Mommies sat watching from afar, I was in the pool, clutching the baby, who loves water.  She didn’t cry when the balls came flying in her direction, but I could tell she wasn’t feeling it.

I had my older children throw back every ball they could find.  They did that until there was a reasonable amount of balls in the water.  Then they started playing with them.  The baby and I had moved out of the danger zone, started bobbing around and playing.  She was cold.

I hung in there with her; we didn’t have much longer.  I watched my other children.  Neither of my little girls were up to the swimming test.  The 8 year old got too tired, trying to swim a 25 two different times.  The 7 year old is just not ready for that.  They had a ball in the shallow end splashing around with their friends.

My little boy was doing what he usually does; staying out of the pool for the most part.  He was a major offender in the ball wars, pulling them out of the bin and filling the pool–from the outside.

The older kids let loose a little.  They even had a couple races.  The girl won the first one, and the boy blamed it on the goggles, so they switched goggles and tried again.  The girl won again.  She’s 17, he’s 14.  He’s not quite got the man strength.  I’ll check them again in a year.  They’d lost the joy of swimming years ago in swim club.  Excursions like this make them glad they swim well.

I still have plenty of work cut out for me in getting the young ones up to speed.  8 year old has halfway decent form, but no stamina.  Doesn’t that sound familiar?  I know the cure for that–going swimming!

It feels like all swim workouts have an element of swimming while tired, but today I was above and beyond tired.  It was a combination of having gotten up an hour earlier than I had hoped, and the heavy dinner I felt on my stomach in the 6 o’clock hour.

But that was too bad.  I pushed through the fatigue to do my set.  The one place I gave myself grace was on my yardage.  Rather than push myself to swim 1500 total yards, I swam 1400 again, as I’d swum on Friday.

My IM times were slower than last time:  2:51.56 and 2:51.51–at least I was consistent!

I also worked on my flip turns, but I isolated it to the front to back variety, rather than the other way around, or back to back or front to front.  I got the hang of taking one last big breath before going into a turn, hurrying up as I went into the turn, and then, after the turn, doing butterfly kick to get myself up and floating on my back properly.  I was more comfortable doing these turns by the end of my set.

Ever since I started going swimming with my daughter, I have been pulling harder in my freestyle, and it has made all the difference.  Rather than stroke with bent arms, I fully extend them, having them almost straight when they enter the water.  I feel myself gliding better, moving across the water faster, and my breathing is even coming easier.  What a relief!  It has been a long time coming.  I ended up with 450 yards total freestyle and backstroke again today.  Next time I go swimming, I want to push the freestyle up to 500.  I might do the same thing with the backstroke.