I went back to the Koret Center last night, determined to make a little more progress with my swimming. Jessamyn's comment on my last post was pretty encouraging, and Harper went with me last night, which set a nicer tone all around. But I'm still wary of the water.
Prior to going there, I went to Sports Basement and purchased an embarrasing pair of swim trunks to replace my board shorts. This was largely due to the coaches at our last TNT training session telling us "don't show up in board shorts."
Gotcha.
I still didn't understand the notations on the training sheet (having missed the first coached pool session due to my trip to Florida) but I decided to try to swim the "pro" distance (there are three training levels, pro, elite and age) anyway without worrying about specific strokes. 2 x 100 free on 10"? I have no idea what that means.
But I knew the total was 1800, so that's what I shot for. I did the freestyle, the sidestroke, the backstroke, the breast stroke, and used various floatation things in the same ways that others were using them. An hour later, as I dragged my weary body out of the pool, I realized that I hadn't counted my warm-up, and so I'd actually swum 1900 yards (although, at the time I was under the impression I was swimming meters). I'd done it. Crazy.
At home, in bed last night, I was wondering exactly how much 1900 meters was in miles. I knew a kilometer is roughly 6/10 of a mile, but I was exhausted, and couldn't force my brain to do math. I'm going to have to swim 1.5 miles in the open ocean, I know that. But what fraction of that had I swum at the Koret Center? I fell out of bed and crawled over to the computer to ask the google, and was completely re-energized when I got my answer: I'd just swum a mile!*
Wow. I can do this.
Finally, once again, I'd like to encourage you to donate money via my Team in Training fundraising page. I'm trying to raise $3,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Since I paid the $200 race entry fee myself, none of your money will go to race overhead, rather it will go directly to the society.
*First I looked up the Koret Center pool's distance, and discovered I was swimming yards not meters
Originally posted on mat.vox.com
