Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Reminder: No Pools at Night!

First, I got a great telephone call this afternoon - my orthodoics are ready! I'm going to pick them up tomorrow morning. I'm really hoping that they are a bit of a miracle cure for the tendonitis in my heel. I'm definitely going to take it slow when starting to run again. Laura suggested that I start by running a 1/2 mile every other day and then bump it up to a mile and keep increasing from there.

Tonight I couldn't get until the gym until 8. I did consider making a reservation at the pool, but knew that even if I had to wait there would still be enough time for a half-hour in the pool. When I got to the pool, the pool was packed. I keep forgetting to factor in the hotel guests taking up a lane, leaving only 3 lanes for the rest of us.

I had to wait about 15 minutes for a space to become available. The pool only allows 2 people per lane (and doesn't encourage circle swimming) and doesn't give any regard to speed. It's just first come first served. These facts were actually pretty frustrating tonight because I was stuck in a lane with a girl who was content to swim breast stroke down the center of the lane. Meanwhile, in the lane next to me was a guy who was swimming at my pace and he was sharing with another slow person. Why the lifeguard doesn't regulate that is beyond me!

Now that I seem to have reclaimed my lungs from my cold, I was really trying to get a good swim in. I really wanted to see how quickly I could swim the (Olympic) triathlon distance. I swam 88 lengths of the pool (0.9 miles) in 27:51. I was really happy with that time, especially since I got a weird toe cramp somewhere around length 60 and it stuck with me until the end. I know that I definitely slowed down a bit once I got the cramp, but I knew that if something similar happened during the race that I'd have to keep going and push through. I will say that I just kept thinking that if it does happen it seemed like biking would be a bit easier than running, so I wouldn't have to panic right away.

As a side note about the pool, it actually was good triathlon practice. The water was really warm, which was okay, but it was also really cloudy and had a lot of stuff floating around, which made me keep my mouth shut. I'm guessing that's another negative of swimming at night. I'm really going to try to remember that swimming in the morning is better from now on.

1 comment:

  1. I think I always end up swimming with what I call "flailers" - people who swim really choppily and ALWAYS give me a mouthful of water when I swim by. I just like to think of it all as excellent practice for the open water swim madness.

    I find that foot/toe cramps always go away very quickly after stopping swimming, but making sure you keep your feet relaxed helps a lot.

    Is the pool you swim in short?

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