Friday's Training

Yesterday I wrote about my early morning Friday, how I felt, and what I hoped to get done. Now it's time to talk about what I did get done. I mailed the letter, my registration and fee for my first Senior Olympics, went to Walmart and bought whey protein, and bought the bolts I needed to finish the Plate City improvement. Then I went to the pool.

The ladies aerobics class was just clearing out when I arrived at at ten minutes after 10:00 0'clock. I went in, got things set up and began to swim. The plan was to do no sets, just a straight swim for over two hours. But since my left shoulder has been a little gimpy lately, I knew I heeded to listen to my body and tap out if anything began to hurt. I swam for thirty minutes, then forty and slowly the time approached an hour. Everything felt solid and my pace was pretty good for not trying to swim fast. I make an hour and fifteen minutes, then an hour and a half. 

Slowly the time and yardage kept creeping up. Besides the physical changes that happen in the body because of swimming for a long time, there are changes that take place in the mind as well. The main change in the head is that the mind learns to relax and not tell you to stop. Just a few weeks ago after a little over an hour of straight swimming, my mind was screaming at me to stop. And I wasn't even tired, but the brain was not used to being continually occupied with anything for that long. Each week since, the body has more endurance and the mind better accepts a long swim. Last week I swan 6,600 straight in 2:01:50 before I stopped and did some paddle work to bring the entire practice up to 7,00 yards in 2:06:50. This week I wanted to swim farther and longer. At 6,600, I was still several minutes from two hours. I made the full 7,000 which equaled last week's total, and kept swimming until I made 2:07, one minute longer than last week's total time. It took me 7,250 yards to get it. I still felt like I had a little juice left when I stopped.

I went home and ate lunch while watching an episode of In the Heat of the Night. After that I went outside to play. I lifted, focusing on biceps, shoulders, and rotator cuffs, and of course I did lots of dog petting. And I worked on our improvements on the gym which I hope to finish tomorrow and have some pictures. I also shuffled .4 of a mile in 5:30. Right now I am only trying to run enough be an aide to my swimming. The 500 takes me between 7:30 and 8:00 to complete. So I want to build to 8:00 running just to improve my cardiovascular efficiency for the pool swims. I am going to do everything possible to get in my best shape of my life for the pool meet. Thank you God for the goal, the health, and the opportunities to dream, to train, to compete.