Wednesday, April 18, 2012

I'm a swim machine

I am really starting to get the hang of this swimming thing and I'm really starting to love it. I don't know what it is, but I've always loved being in the water. As a kid my parents could not get me out of the water even when I was freezing and had blue lips. I think the only thing that worked was when they told me it was lunch or dinner.

I've never been one for classes and told my parents that swimming lessons were lame when I was a kid so they pulled me out. I never actually learned how to do any of the strokes correctly but that never stopped me. I can tread water and float around all day if I need to. When I became injured in January and was told that I would not be able to run for about a month, I really didn't know what I was going to do. I needed something to keep me sane and also not gain back all the weight I've been pushing so hard to lose.

Thankfully Kim pushed me to try out swimming as that was her relief when the injury bug hit her and she really got me thinking about a triathlon. I thought, why not I've always enjoyed biking and swimming leisurely and when I can finally run should be no problem. I found a friend with swimming experience and met up with her the first 2 times at the gym to get some pointers on what I'm doing right and wrong. Which when I started there was alot of items to fix. I kept getting in the pool twice a week and now I can't believe how far I've come.

When I started this journey, I could only go 25 meters and I was completely gassed. It took me about 20 minutes just to do 400 meters. Now I'm upto doing 800 meters in about 23 minutes and I can go 100 meters before I need a little break. I began kicking furiously and as I've learned more about swimming it really is all about the arms and now I can swim better if I don't even kick at all. I just have to figure in how to keep my kicking small to match and I think I'm golden.

I'm planning on doing 2 small, local sprint triathlons and I'm really eager to get out there and do one. I have the distances essentially down in all the areas so I just need to keep pushing myself and getting stronger. Throughout all of this I've actually been losing alot of inches from my frame and a few more pounds. I only have 7 more pounds until my goal weight!!!

Now if only I could have this in my backyard.....that would be the life.

2 comments:

  1. No kidding. Having a lap pool like this in my back yard, would be a dream come true.

    Great job on your swim training and getting closer and closer to your goal weight.

    Swimming has so much to do with technique, it's great that you have somebody to help you out and give you pointers!!

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  2. I also LOVE to swim! And I'm with you; that backyard would be AWESOME!

    Sarah

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