Swim Swam Swum

Today was day one of the Higdon Intermediate Plan and was reserved for cross training. Esti Ginzberg (left) and I headed over to El Dorado pool for some lap swimming. I found a lane with a slow looking swimmer in it, and took the plunge. I have not swum for exercise since high school.

I had it in mind to swim for 1/2 hour and see how it goes. All freestyle and nice and easy. The lanes are 25 meter long and nice and wide. After a couple of laps, it seemed like I would be smart doing ten laps total and that would be about 30 minutes. I finished in 18 minutes but decided to take it easy. There was some kind of cramp going on in my left forearm.

I oaf/blubbered my way out of the pool and got to talk to a skinny guy with an ironman tattoo. I asked him how many laps would equal 2.5 miles. He looked at me like I had suggested we swim with arms linked at the elbow and said that he didn't think anyone had ever done that kind of conversion.

I later realized it was like asking how many times would I need to skip down my driveway to get the paper and have it equal a marathon.

Determined, I spent some time with an online calculator  (HEY! Eyes back here! I'm describing my first swimming experience in this blog. Esti can wait!!) Anyway (Adam! Did you hear me??!??) By my calculations, I would need to swim 77 laps to get to 2.4 miles, and the pace would take just beyond 2.5 hours. In other words, in an ironman competition, I would get picked up by the rowboat and not even be allowed to get on the bike.

I liked the experience and want to try swimming about 2x per week. We will see how it goes, but its nice to change it up. I also got some advice from Molly, Luke, and Evolving Through Running for yoga and tennis. And a promise from Rio and Runlaur to support and join in on the swimming. My 2 year old loves that pool so I will probably get to play with him over there too. Thanks guys!

It's ok to look again.