This was the second week of my “zero to swim a mile” plan.  It went much better than last week.  I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t steal an extra breath here or there, but overall it went pretty close to the plan.  One of the main issues I had was turning my brain off.  I find that I over think things, especially when swimming.  I’m busy trying to find the perfect number of strokes between breaths, trying to make sure I only have one goggle out when taking breaths and trying to keep an eye on my watch to make sure I get the yardage right.  One of the biggest things on my mind this week was that next week, I have to do double the yardage before I get a break.

This week I was scheduled to do the 200 yards before taking 12 breaths.  Next week I will have to do 400 yards before taking the 12 breaths.  I struggle with telling myself I can do things if I haven’t already done them.  That’s part of what this whole journey is about.  Making myself believe in, well, myself.  I’m getting there, but it takes time.  After I finished one of my sets, I decided to do an additional 300 yards straight.  This would help convince my brain that if I can do 300 tired, I can do 400 fresh next week.  It worked out well.  I was exhausted, but I did it.  I felt like I’d be good going into next week.

The pool had signs posted that it would be configured into 50 yard lanes Friday and Saturday.  In the lap pool, they can either configure it long ways or the short way.  It’s almost always the short way as that yields more lanes for swimmers.  The last time it was set up for 50’s I hadn’t been swimming much and it was very intimidating.  I got in and I swear the pool extended itself before my very eyes.  I was curious to see how it would go this time.  It’s tricky to turn around at the wall.  I certainly can’t do those fancy flip turns that the swimmers do.  It’s getting smoother but still nowhere near graceful, so this time, I was actually looking forward to it being set up the long way and having fewer turns.

Friday I left work looking forward to getting over to the pool to swim the 50’s.  The one thing I had not given much thought to, was that the set up would cut the number of lanes in half.  When I got there it became clear that I was not going to swim that night.  The lanes had at least 5 people in each.  There were arms and legs flying all over the place and coaches shouting at their students.  Both sets of classes took up every bit of space and I sure as heck wasn’t squeezing myself in between the preteens.  Oh well.

Saturday we headed over to the beach for some more open water swim practice.  I always have a hard time with the beach.  I have these high hopes that something’s going to click and I’m just going to dive in and start swimming.  Maybe I’d see a sting ray and not freak out, then some dolphins would swim up and  offer me a ride to the finish line.  Ok, maybe not like that but I am always hopeful.  At the same time, I am dreading it, knowing that it probably won’t go like my vision of grandeur.  This time was no different.  I was hopeful but nervous.

It went just about as expected.  Nowhere near my hopes but not quite bad enough to crush my dreams.  I had watched some videos of the race start last year to try to get an idea of how far out I would need to swim before turning and swimming parallel to the shoreline.  I decided I would practice getting into the water and heading straight out.  It didn’t go very well.  I spent a lot of energy and really didn’t get anywhere.  At one point, I turned the wrong way to breathe and gobbled up a bunch of salt water.

I finally made it out to where I thought I was close to where the turn might be.  Again, I was hopeful that I would turn and just start swimming the shoreline.  I even assumed I could crank out a few hundred yards.  After all, I do that in the pool, so why not in the ocean?  I guess there are a million reasons why not, because it didn’t happen.  I just kept swimming straight out and straight back to the shore line.  I’m really good at the part of getting back to the shore line and I have plenty of skill in getting the wetsuit off for transition.  After a few rounds of this, I decided I had enough for the day and we headed home.

Sunday we headed back out to the beach.  When we got there, we realized that the A1A marathon was taking place and almost thought we weren’t going to be able to park.  A little part of me was kind of hoping that was the case, but we found a parking spot and I got suited up.  It’s always a little awkward to hit the beach in the wetsuit when surrounded by a bunch of beach goers in tiny swim suits.  I get all sorts of looks, but I am getting used to it.  The water was really beautiful and fairly calm.  My plan was to walk away from the family about 100 yards, swim straight out, across the hundred and back in to them.

I headed out and hoped to just turn, but I ended up pausing a moment.  I remembered hearing that counting strokes gets people’s minds off the distance and thought I would give that a try.  Yeah, that did not work so well for me.  It made me feel really tired to get to 100 strokes.  Then, my brain started doing the math.  If it takes me about twenty something to do 25 yards in the pool, then that would be about 100 yards.  It was not helping me get lost in thought, it was driving my brain crazy and telling my body I should be tired by now.  I changed strategies.

I began practicing swimming straight out and back again, trying to find what depth I was most comfortable with starting to go from standing to swimming so that on race day, I would know what to do.  I got pretty far out and just stopped.  I wanted to practice handling situations that could occur.  I hear horror stories of people whose goggles get kicked off and they just can’t get them back on.  Or the person that gets swum over and pushed under the water and has to come back up gasping for air.  I played with getting my goggles partially off and back on.  Figuring out if I was better off laying flat with  my back to the waves, or facing the waves, etc.  That went ok, and I now have a plan if any of those things goes wrong on race day.

At one point, when I was experimenting with these possible challenges, I just floated there.  I really took in how balanced I could be in the wet suit.  It was very challenging at first, to just “be” there.  I told myself that I would remain there until I was completely calm.  Being where I know I could not reach the bottom and being able to become calm was big for me.  I was really pleased and had a moment where I felt like I could actually achieve this.  I may take a lot longer than most, but I am feeling better about my chances.  I went out a little deeper and saw the beginnings of the reef area, close to the buoy that divides the swimmer space and the boater space.  I saw a jelly fish and kinda made my way the other direction.  I saw a sting ray, and I didn’t freak out.  I took a moment to be grateful and to take it all in.  The dolphins never showed up, so I had to swim back to shore on my own – go figure.

I actually like swimming these days.  Contradictory to the title, I know, but as I mentioned in my last post this was the first week of my new “zero to swim a mile” plan.  Given my current circumstance (I’ll get into that more later), I figured I would document some details of my first week on this new plan.

Monday was day one.  I was supposed to swim 200 yards nonstop, then take 12 breaths.  Then I would do 4 x 100’s with 10 breaths in between, 4 x 50’s with 6 breaths and finally 4 x 25’s with 4 breaths.  I think my longest swim to this point has been 1,500 yards but I take a rest in between laps, and I certainly don’t count my breaths.  I was a little bit cocky in thinking that the 200 yards was going to be a piece of cake.  I didn’t give much thought to the fact that I don’t do flip turns, so I always pop up out of the water to turn around and go back after each 25.  I had to do 8 laps and the point is to do it as if it were the entire length, so no bigger breaths than if you were swimming.  No matter.  I was sure I’d be ok.

I wasn’t sure for very long.  I got to the end of the lane and popped up out of habit.  Dang!  Ok, I told myself to just make sure not to do it on the other end.  Alright, off I went again.  I did a little better on the next lap.  On it went, with sub par breathing technique and a turn at the wall that was hardly graceful.  Ah, finally!  Lap 8.  Right?  Oh crap.  What lap am I on?  UGH.  I lost count but at the end of the lap I looked at my time and it seemed accurate for 8 laps.  Oh well, hope it was.  I started to count my breaths.   I get 12, that should be plenty to catch my breath.  Ok, maybe I will take 1-2 extra cause I have no idea how I will do another 100 at this point.  I think I took nearly 20 breaths.  I did the first 100 and stole a few more breaths there too.  Dang, this is not going so well, I thought.  I gave myself a virtual slap in the face and pushed on.  I completed my hundreds and mentally I was relieved.  50’s, then 25’s.  I know I can do those.  I completed the set and was really thrilled that I pushed myself.  It was probably the hardest I have pushed myself in the pool, ever.  I had completed my 900 yards in about a half hour.  For a reference, I follow swimmers that do 4,000 in an hour, so I have a long way to go but it’s a record for me!

Tuesday came and I was excited to get to the pool.  I was going to push myself right away and not take more breaths than the plan stated.  I got in and went for it.  Sure enough I popped out a few times and stole an extra breath or two.  Sure enough, I freaking lost count of my laps maybe 4 in?  I’ll never know because I had to just call it a warm up and start over.  Silly me wasn’t using the fancy schmancy gadget on my wrist to count the laps for me.  I took a second to get that set up and headed off again.  I finished the 200 much better than I did the day before.  I took about 15 breaths when it should have been 12, but it was an improvement, so I was happy.

Wednesday was rest day, but I really wanted to go swim again!  I knew I should not, seeing as how sore I was and how hard I pushed the last two days, so I rested.  I was glad I did because my neck got really stiff.  Luckily, Darin has paid attention to how my sister works the muscles and helped me get the kinks out.  On Thursday evening we already planned to do the weekly Runner’s Depot 5k so I knew I would not get to swim.  Thursday night, I had a stiff neck, which Darin took care of again.  Friday morning came and I was stoked to get back to the pool!

All day, I thought about the swim.  I was sure that this time, I would be spot on.  The yardage, the tracking, the breaths.  I was going to nail this swim!  The problem was, that as the day progressed, my neck became stiff again.  I sit in front of a computer all day and by the time I realized how bad it had gotten, I could not turn my head completely to the right.  I tried to stretch it out slowly and calmly, but no luck.  I took some Motrin around 4pm hoping that it would settle in and help me get the swim done.  Part of me knew that it probably wasn’t the best idea to swim, but part of me thought it might work out the kinks, so I headed to the pool when I got off work.  This was it, I was going to do this 100% to the plan.  I set my watch and started off.  Right away, I had a hard time getting air.  I just couldn’t get my head in the right position.  I trudged on, thinking that eventually it would loosen up.  No such luck.  I finished the 200 in a lot of pain.  How was I going to get to 900?

I took extra breaths, I had no choice at that point.  I stretched and pressed on my neck at the wall of the pool.  I was almost in tears but pulled it together as to not scare the children’s class that was taking place in the lane next to me.  It’s often the case that I am swimming right along side a group of 7-14 year olds that could kick my butt all day in swimming.  It’s humbling, but not nearly as humbling as whaling in front of them would be.  I pulled myself together and squeezed out another hundred.   I took my breaths and headed out for the next hundred.  Part way through one of the laps I felt so much pain that I let out a sound under water and had to stop a second.  I don’t recall if I doggy paddled, swam on my side or what but I somehow got back to the wall.  I was in a lot of pain and thought it better to stop.  I got out and headed back to the locker room, all the while holding back tears.  It wasn’t just the pain, which was pretty bad, it was the fact that I wanted so badly to finish the plan as it was intended this week.  I headed home.

I thought about all our weekend plans.  On Saturday we were going to get up early and head to the beach for some more open water practice.  That would be followed up by a nice 8 mile run.   That didn’t happen.  I took an 800mg ibuprofen and was still in pain.  Thankfully, Darin went against my wishes and called my sister to come to the rescue.  She gave up her Saturday night to save me from my anguish.  After she worked on me for over an hour, I was able to finally move my head.  She warned me that I would be tender.  The knots didn’t get there in an hour, but she sure cleaned most of them out in that time.  I was hopeful that I could at least do some training Sunday.

Sunday morning, my right side was a little stiff and definitely tender, but I felt way better than I had the night before.  I was able to do an hour on the trainer followed by a quick mile run.  I was finally back on schedule!  The brick went well and I spent time icing and stretching my neck throughout the day.   I also spent a lot of the time researching the cause of my pain.  I am quite the qualified internet medical professional in diagnosing myself.  I have come to the conclusion that my pain was the result of three things.  The first, not taking my swimming serious enough this entire time.  This week I really pushed myself and my neck and back muscles are in shock.  This brings me to the second cause.  I don’t stretch enough.  This is also probably a result of not having taking the swim training as serious as I should.  I learned the stretch lesson the hard way for running and have now done the same for swimming.  The third, final and most difficult cause, is my swimming form.  I am way over cranking my neck to get a breath.  Breathing has always been a challenge for me.

Sunday afternoon I headed over to the pool.  My goal was go real easy and do my best to correct my breathing form.  I took real easy strokes and really focused on keeping one goggle in the water.  I screwed up here and there, which was to be expected but I did ok.  I was nervous that any minute I would end up cramping up again but thankfully that was not the case.  I still have a lot of work to do in these last 4 weeks before the triathlon.  When I hit the pool hard for my workout Monday, I will hopefully leave with a smile on my face rather than a crick in the neck.