Wednesday, March 26, 2008

One Thousand

These past couple weeks my body has been keeping me from doing the running and biking I enjoy so much.

The result? The pool has become my friend. I've caught myself more often thinking "man, I want to go swim!" more often than I've caught myself thinking "man, I want to go for a run!"

The result? Progress. Gobs of it.

One month ago my swimming was going pretty good. I was getting to the point where I could comfortably swim 50 yards, and could swim 100 if I really pushed it. One practice Treacy talked me into pulling 300 yard with her, and practice drafting. We would switch off every 100 yards. I had to stop every 100 for 10-15 second to catch my breathe. Doing 300 yards almost killed me dead.

Fast forward to last week. All I can do is use the pull buoy in the pool right now, normal swimming hurts my knee. So I've been swimming nearly every day with my friend the pull buoy. Last Friday I swam 500 yards non stop, which was my goal to hit by the end of the month. I was pumped!

Fast forward again. Saturday I swam again, matching my 500 yard record. Monday I broke out with 600 yards, mmmm, progress! Tuesday I worked more on speed, but still swam a 400 (4x more than I could a month ago!) Today I broke loose. I jumped in and warmed up. Then I told myself "Hello self! Time to swim 700 yards!" So I did. Then I kept going. 700... 800... 900... 1000!

I don't plan to stop this progress I'm making in the pool any time soon. I'm really enjoying myself in the water now that I'm seeing improvements. I'm going to keep at it, because right now what I need and what I enjoy are exactly the same thing.

-----------------------------------

On a completely different note, Marcy is a butthead (in other news: they just found massive quantities of water in the Pacific Ocean) and tagged me! Here are the rules of the game: Write your own six word memoir, link to whoever tagged you, and tag five people. There are more rules, so if you want to be a good boy or girl read them on Marcy's blog.

Here are six words that describe my waking hours (I had to say waking to cut it down to 6 words):

Eat        Teach          Learn
     Swim           Bike            Run


And I am using the powers bestowed upon me to tag: YOU!

10 comments:

Dave - Atlanta Trails said...

Man, you're making serious progress with your swimming. Congrats!

Marcy said...

See I knew you loved me!! LMAO Thanks for playing :-*

Lookin real good on the swimmmin homie! Real good!

nwgdc said...

wow, now THAT'S quite a swim! i just talked to my sis who was in town...she's got a bum knee and has been putting in massive time in the pool...and wondering if she's keeping her endurance up. you can feel proud that i'm using you as an example of the benefits of swimming! congrats!

Jess said...

That's submarine-style swimming! Nice job.

Nancy said...

WHoa - I better get in the pool before you are leaving me in your wake there too. :D I'm so excited to see you progress. I hated when you were just getting going and struggling but you have so damn much determination. Great work. Y.R.M.F.O.

You know, you can just say no to the butthead. :D But those are great words. I have no idea how to do 6 words that are me.

P.O.M. said...

Nice job on the swimming.

Nitmos said...

Swimming is my Achilles heel. I cannot consider a tri until I can at least finish one lap in a pool, right? Nice job!

Bill Carter said...

Doug

You have done an amazing job of taking your athletic talent and just kind of shifting it over to another exercise. I, for one, think that when you come back to running you will be just that much better.

Best of luck and get that knee better.

Nibbles said...

Swimming is such a technique-intensive sport, which makes progress seem all the sweeter. A thousand yards ... ten football fields ... amazing!! Congrats!

The Laminator said...

Swimming is one thing I can't do, so you've got me one-upped on that one. Feel better sonn!