Swim question – thanks Anonymous!
This weekend “Anonymous” posted a question in my comments asking about how I keep from getting bored while swimming. Thanks Anonymous, it’s an interesting question that I actually have gotten from a lot of people. I agree with Anonymous and find swimming to be a very relaxing activity. One of the primary benefits I get from training is that it’s “me time” – when I’m training alone (which is most of the time), I do my best to shut everything else out. Often I go into my workouts still carrying stress from my day, but most of the time once I get into a rhythm all that stress just goes away and I spend the training time concentrating on my training session or my overall training goals or concentrating on improving my form and exercising more efficiently. When I’m biking or running, I still have to concentrate on my environment, but when I’m in the pool, I’m able to shut nearly everything else out (except when there’s someone fast next to me and I’m play racing against him/her!). I think a lot about my form and try to feel the difference between one stroke method or another or one kick rhythm or another, I count strokes and laps and I play little brain games to keep my focus. I calculate percentages – as in percent of the current set completed, or percent of the training session completed; I convert the yards I’m swimming into meters or miles and compare that to race distances. My mind never goes blank, but I’m not thinking about anything other than the swimming, which I find relaxing. I do often lose track of the number of lengths I’ve swum, but I’ve found a few things that help. First, every time I go to the pool, I have a definite progam in mind – this breaks down the overall total number of lengths into smaller sets. If my main set is 5×400, I only have to keep track of 400 (16 lengths) at a time, which is much more manageable than trying to keep track of 80 lengths! Second, I keep a kickboard at one end of the lane on the pool deck to help keep track of sets. I turn it like a clock to indicate the number of sets I’ve completed – when I finish the first set, I turn it so that that the front of the board is at 3:00, when I finish the second, it goes to 6:00, etc. Even if I’m doing more than four sets, and my board is pointed at 6:00, I can usually remember if that was my second set or sixth set or tenth set, etc. Third, on my longer sets, I have a system where I count strokes on the first length of each 100 yards. It’s not foolproof, but I can usually remember whether I counted on the way down last time or if it was two times ago. Fourth, if I’m ever in doubt about how far I’ve gone, I just swim more. It’s rare that I think I might be off by more than 50 yards, and I’d rather do an extra 50 than short-change myself. Finally, I do it by time. I know my approximate pace for 100 yards and keep an eye on the poolside clock or my watch (which I can check on a flip-turn without slowing down too much). If I check and see that I’m a little bit off, I chalk it up to either swimming slower or faster, but if I’m off a lot and don’t feel like I’m swimming differently than usual, I know that I either swam too far or missed some lengths.
This evening I got back on the bike for the first time in a week. It was a nice ride with a 35 minute set in the middle where I rode hard and constant and tried to keep my heart rate in zone 3. Of those 35 minutes, I spent about 15 in zone 3 and the rest in zone 2. I find that I struggle to get my heart rate up on the trainer. I’m not sure if I’m better off spinning in a high gear or grinding in a low one. I’m not really able to sustain a high heart rate either way. I’m going to discuss it with John this week.
This is totally off-topic, but I had a strange experience this morning when I got back to the office. I opened up my office door, which had probably been shut since I left and right in front of my door was a mouse. He (it?) was just sitting there, frozen in place. He didn’t move when I walked by him and even when I made a loud noise near him, he just barely stirred. We’ve been having a mouse problem in our office and there’s one that I’ve seen a bunch in front of my office door running back and forth behind some file cabinets. They’ve put out poison and sticky traps, including some the furiture in my office. Obviously, he’d eaten some of the poison and was dying. What was I supposed to do? I’ll agree that rats are disgusting, but this mouse isn’t bad. He’s only a couple inches long and is fun to watch run around. But he was dying. I didn’t know how to kill him and I wasn’t about to just throw him into the trash. Our facilities people weren’t around and I didn’t want to call maintenace. I searched online to see if there were any suggestions, but couldn’t find anything. So, I scooped him into a small box and took him outside and put him in the bushes around a little park across the street. When I put him in the box, he barely stirred. I figure either he’ll get eaten or he’ll freeze to death. Is that better or worse than throwing him away? I think so, or at least I was able to justify it in my head. Hopefully, he’s long dead by now.
Bike – March 6
Time: 1:15
Average heart rate: 129
Indoor ride