So what do you do….

What do you do when you freak out about open water?
What do you do when you have some knee pains and need of rest?
What do you do when you don’t have enough sleep because you are spinning a lot of plates?

You go for a swim. And off I went. Today’s swim was suppose to be a drill swim. But after work, the pool only has one lane for length swim and as usual by the time I got there, there were congestion in the lane. Seven people swimming means no drilling for me.

I swim one length whenever I see the gap. After a while, the lane started to thin out. Let’s do 20 laps (1 km) then. I try not to swim faster but to swim smoother. To swim relax and not muscle my way. This ain’t a swimming contest. Swim smooth and relax so I can stay in aerobic zone. Then again when I swim smoother, I also swim faster….

By the time I reached 15 laps, I figured, ‘hey why not do another 15?‘. And so I did.

The first few laps were figuring out how to swim relax. The middle laps, I focused on the glide. My left glide is still a bit off. My right glide is strong. I could feel it. Kept my head looking down at all times. Back and fourth. Some people came in and some people went out. Some people swim one lap and they rest. One guy was doing breastroke and he was up to my pace the whole time.

By the last 4-5 laps, there were more people in the lane again. Argh. A few times, I sneaked to the other lanes (they were teaching kids how to swim) to keep my focus.

During the swim, I thought a lot of things. I recognize all the life guards in the pool. There are one or two that I talk to. I think I should be more friendly and say hi to all of them. Also, they must have seen my progress since November when I am a sinking rock :0. I am like a machine. If I keep at this, I would be swimming an hour or two non stop :O. CRAZY.

I left all my gears on the other side of the pool so I figured I would do one lenght all out. I focused on bringing up my stroke rates. So here I am meshing in the water, I passed a lady and didn’t notice there was a girl swimming into me. Bam….almost hit her. I apologize..

So how do you know when you swim enough? I based it on how often I wear out my gears. I use the one my coach gave me. It is white. Sorry it was white. Now it is stainned in some light brownish color. I ripped a bit off last night. Good. Soon I will need to get another swim cap.

Tonight, I am doing another open water splish splash. It is like a bad date. I keep coming back for more :). It is all a numbers game..sooner or later I am bound to land a good date..right? 😀

What do you do when your coworker gets you a coffee despite the fact you said no?

You say thanks and pour it down the drain (when no one is watching).