2014 One Hour Postal Swim

It's nearing the end of January but on Friday my friends and I still managed to sneak in our annual One Hour Postal Swim.  The Postal Swim is a national swim meet that you hold at a location and time of your choosing.  Once complete, then you mail in your results and that is how the meet becomes Postal! There are various postal meet events through out the year with US Masters Swimming but January is known for the One Hour Postal Swim.

This year, we gathered again on a Friday evening to hold the swim.  Our pool has lanes in use after work for one of the local swim club teams.  We managed to get the final two lanes in the pool except we had five swimmers.  Luckily the next lane over was a pro-triathlete who was willing to split the lane with us.  There isn't much fanfare to the one hour swim.  Our timers sit in chairs at the end of the lane.  They each have a stop watch/ iPhone to time with and a split sheet to track the splits for each swimmer.  The splits are kept per each 50 yard lap of the pool.

Lori, Jeff, Me, Brent, and Jeff

We select a time to start and then with a jump into the pool everyone is off and swimming.  Once again, Lori and I shared a lane this year.  I think Lori and I have shared a lane for almost every year that I have done the one hour postal swim.  She is much faster than me and that provides me with mental entertainment during the swim as I try to calculate how many laps it takes her to lap me or other silly things.

This year I made the decision to count laps for every 500 yards.  It helped me gauge the amount of time that I had been swimming and stay mentally focused.  I went into the event without a goal and very fearful that my distance was going to be much lower than I wanted.  My swimming this fall has been hit and miss as work has sometimes overtaken my life.  Counting the laps led to me doing some math to try and calculate out what distance a 50 sec 50 yard pace would cover which was equal to 3600 yards.

I had asked Jon, Lori's husband, who was timing for the two of us to give us a 10 minute warning.  His warning came and I definitely felt like I had to pick up the pace to try and get my remaining laps in and try to hit 3600 yards.  I ended up with 3560 yards in the one hour time.  This equates out to a pace of 1:41 per 100 yard which I was happy with for the most part.  My distance in 2013 was 3580 yards so it was a little disappointing to miss that distance by 20 yards or less than one length.  That equates out to 1/3 yard per minute which is so negligible in the long haul.

Below is my distance history for this event.  Every year I am so happy when it is over! With that...12 months until I have to do a solid hour swim again! The best part of this event is definitely the dinner and social time afterwards with my buds.

2014 - 3560 yards
2013 - 3580 yards
2012 - 3440 yards
2011 - 3295 yards
2010 - 2935 yards

A Swimmer's Weather Dilemma

I love my lunch time swim workouts but every so often I encounter the swimmer's dilemma...rain.  I'm very lucky to have outdoor and indoor swim options during the summer.  I usually spend all but a few days doing outdoor swims because there is nothing better than getting a little sun and a good workout in.  

This week there were two days where rain played a factor in deciding what to do for my lunch workout.  The first was on Monday...it was storming hard and for the life of me I couldn't fathom heading out into the storm to get soaking wet and then jump into the pool.  I know that seems silly but silly I am! 

No matter how great your umbrella is you are bound to get wet in the rain when it is storming hard enough.  I headed to grab lunch from the cafeteria and got a chuckle when I looked around and saw that one of my normal swimming workout partners had also chosen to take a rain check on the lunch swim.  

On Thursday, we were all swimming outside and we discussed the forecast for Friday.  The meteorologists were calling for an 80% chance of rain all day.  No fun! We all decided that we would swim indoors if there was rain.  

Sure enough on Friday it was raining and it seemed like the rain fell even harder right as it was time for my lunch workout.  I got to the gym and got lucky to score a close by parking spot.  Our gym gets super crowded for lunch workouts and I was very thankful. Unfortunately, my parking spot was in an area with horrible drainage.  I swear the water was an inch deep and running fast through the parking lot.  My shoes were platform sandals and my feet and jeans still managed to get wet.  

I jumped into the pool after a quick hello to a friend and began my warmup.  I knew what workout I wanted to do and it was a set of 50's that would hit 800 yds.  I knew my total distance that I wanted for the day so I came up with a warmup and early set to help me hit my goal.  Warmup was 400 yd easy swim followed by 4 x 50 yd of drill/swim in IM order.  

Set one - 500 yd ladder.  25 yd on 30 sec.  50 yd (free/back) on 1:00, 75 yd (50 free/25 breast) on 1:30, 100 pull on 1:50 and then go back down with same.  

As I was finishing up my 500 yd ladder one of my workout buddies showed up.  He had given the rain a little time to let up.  I offered him a 200 warmup because I was ready to hit my 50's.  While he did his warmup I swam a 200 pull.  

Set two - 4 x 50 x 4.  The first set of 4 x 50 are free/stroke on the 1:00.  The second set are all free on 50 sec.  The third set are pull on 55 sec and the final fourth set are free on the 45 sec.  You get a little rest by changing the interval times so that it isn't a complete descend from 1:00 down to 45 sec.  I'm still struggling to hit the 45 second intervals.  I come in right on the 45 seconds so it's just touch and go.  I end up finishing the set of 4 about 3-4 seconds slow which is a bummer but I'll get there.  

A second workout buddy joined us doing the workout during the 50's.  The two of them decided to take the 50's even faster and do a set of 4 on the 40 second interval.  I swam a 150 pull while they did that.  I ended the workout with a 150 yd cooldown to hit 2400 yds for the day.  That's a little more than I would normally swim during a lunch workout but after surviving the monsoon I wanted to get my money's worth in the workout! 

My jeans were still a little damp from the puddles when I got cleaned up and headed back to work.  Thankfully though the rain had let up and it was barely a drizzle as I left the gym.  I was able to avoid any torrential puddles and so my shoes were much drier when I returned to work.  Apparently though one of the lunch crew decided to swim outdoors after all.  

Here's a quick list of some of my swim tips:

1) Variety - it's your friend.  Swim different strokes, swim different distances.  Don't just swim the same thing every time you get in the pool.  

2) Drills and Kick work will make you stronger.  Research different drills and try out new ones every so often.  

3) If there is torrential rain...roll up your pants! (oh wait, that's not a swim tip!)

4) TriSwim Shampoo and Conditioner is your friend...it will keep your hair looking and smelling great.  No green hair here! 

5) Push yourself - you'll never hit a faster interval if you don't try to.  Some days it might work and some days you might fall short but you've got to go for it or you will never succeed.  

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!