Wednesday, March 14, 2007

The first swim

I hit the pool at the YMCA last night instead of today because we are expecting strong storms in Houston all day today and tomorrow, and I knew the pool would more than likely be closed since it is outdoors. I swam a total of 500 meters (20 laps at 25 meters per lap) by alternating each lap between breast stroke and freestyle. I suppose I surprised myself because I never stopped, and instead of pushing off the wall each time, I merely turned around and went back the other direction each time. I figured by doing that I'm truly swimming the 500 meters and not getting the benefit of a push-off which obviously will not occur in an open water swim. I did not time myself because I would not have known how good or bad I did anyway. I figure I'll give it another week and then start timing myself once a week or so. After the swim, I went in and worked out on the machines, then rode the stationary bike hard for about a half-hour. I did finally figure out how to get my heartrate up, and I'm not sure why this makes a difference, but using the stationary bike where I have to sit straight up rather than the one where I am sitting down reclined makes a huge difference. On the straight up one, I can get my heartrate up to a bit over 140 after about 20 minutes of hard pedaling, but on the one where I recline, the same effort barely gets me above 110. I'm not sure why that is, but I won't be doing the reclining one any more.

4 comments:

Jess said...

That's a nice workout you got in.

But in more important things: basketball.....I filled out my bracket the other day. And I have UNC going pretty far. Not as far as my Terps though. I'm quite a fan of whatever CBS analyst said the Terps are this year's Florida.

Needless to say I'm looking forward to tomorrow

Unknown said...

Great Job, when will you be in the Ironman?

Faithful Soles said...

Gripper, my plan is to do a half-Ironman in early 2008 and then a full Ironman probably in the fall of 2008. I do not have a specific one picked out yet, just totally depends on how my training is going.

Unknown said...

i'm not a good cyclist at all so take my comment with a grain of salt, but i'm told that you get more oxygen in when you are upright. maybe that is why you can get your HR up, because you can breathe better.