A Tough Swim

Today I headed to the pool thinking it was just a normal Friday.  I began the day by cleaning out my swim bag (side note: I found 2 suits, bra/underwear, 6 pairs goggles, and tons of swim caps in my bag!) and so I was ready for the new year of swimming! I didn't know that I would be kicking off the first 50's Fridays for 2013 with one of the hardest workouts imaginable. 

This workout has been our lunch crew's nemesis since Thanksgiving.  We screwed it up the first few times that we tried to recreate it until Brent put together a spreadsheet with the send off times. This makes it easy for us to follow the workout and is how we have finally mastered the workout.  Truth time...it took us a few times to even write out the send off times correctly!

Brent got the inspiration for the workout from his daughter's college team.  They swim it in a 50m long course pool and we swim in a 25yd short course pool.  The workout is a descending set of 50's.  You begin at a 1 min interval and then work down by 5 seconds until you hit 40 sec. That's one set.  The first set requires one extra 50 but all of the remaining sets contain just 5- 50's.  We did six sets for 31 total 50's.  Once you get started it is pretty tough to keep track of the interval times...your brain just gets fuzzy from the oxygen deprivation!  One person usually calls out the next couple send off times during the sets and that helps out a lot too. 

My water logged send off sheet...it's generally a good practice to put your workout in a plastic zip bag!

I did an okay job on the workout today.  I sat out on 2 of the 50's when I fell off the interval and needed rest to get back on track with the group.  I will not lie...I don't hit the 40 sec interval.  I end up swimming that as touch and go on the 45 sec but it works out that the extra time I need just comes out of the 1 min interval for the next set. 

It's a tough workout for me but I can tell that the rest of the crew is working pretty hard during the workout too.  There is hardly any talking during this workout and normally our crew is always chatting during our rest breaks.  There just isn't much rest so that makes the workout go by quickly. 

So far 2013 is off to a great start since I survived more of this workout than ever before! Plus, I signed up for the Nike Go the Distance challenge and selected 250 miles for my goal.  I officially ended 2012 with 203.7 swimming miles.  I'm excited to see if I can maintain consistent mileage throughout 2013 and continue to improve my times.  Without my goal to swim more in 2012 there is no way that I would have been able to hang on and complete the workout today!