Tag Archives: swimming

*Note to self for next time I’m unmotivated to take the time to drive to the pool, suit up and swim: The stationary bike is NOT the same. Don’t even pretend, because you’re just lying to yourself. The cardio workout isn’t as good, even when you’re really pushing it. It won’t do anything for your arms, not to mention your abs. Sure, you can read the whole Washington Post during a workout, and that’s nice once in a while. But it can’t be your staple. Suck it up and get in the pool.*

Two years ago, near the tail end of Steve’s second deployment, I found peace in an unlikely place: In a polluted body of brackish water surrounded by a groping, clawing, wetsuit-clad mob.

Getting ready to descend into a wetsuit-clad mob at last year's swim.

That was just the first quarter of the race. It was my first Chesapeake Bay Bridge 1-Mile Challenge, known as the “Baby Bay Swim” by those hard-core souls who do the companion 4.4-miler. It was my substitute for road races while I recovered from a serious hip injury, and even before I got to the good part of the race, I was hooked.

The good part of the race, of course, is when you realize you’re no longer clawing other swimmers for position, and when you catch a glimpse of the stately, imposing Bay Bridge looming over you as you take a breath. It’s when you get into the rhythm of whatever currents or swells you’re working with that day, and you stop fighting the water and start working with it. It’s when you realize and appreciate the beauty and awesomeness of what you’re doing, and feel a rush of gratitude along with those endorphins.

This A. Aubrey Bodine photo of the Bay Bridge captures how I feel during peaceful moments of the Bay Bridge Swim.

Motivating me this morning: I just signed up for my third annual Chesapeake Bay Bridge 1-Mile Challenge! Registration opened at 6 a.m., just a few days after my recently reinjured ankle kicked my lazy butt back into the pool. It’ll be the fifth open-water swim of my adult life (the horrible, zig-zaggy affairs from high school don’t count), and I can’t wait to truly start training for it.

The other things motivating me this week:

• Your wonderful comments on Friday in response to my call for motivation to actually head to the pool, tackling 4X800 meters (yes, meters — my new pool is Olympic sized!) with some sprints thrown in at the end. Through encouragement, ego-boosting, guilt-tripping and suggested retail therapy, you not only made me head to the pool; you made me *want* to head to the pool. I’m going to need lots more encouragement over the next few months, so keep the motivators coming!
• Necessity. In a perfect world, swimming would be a motivator in and of itself. In actuality, nothing motivates me to swim like the inability to run. Since my ankle somehow looks *more* swollen and purple now than it did last week, my motivation to swim is unusually high.
• New ideas for meals that will fuel my workouts and not upset my stomach during those workouts. Quinoa and steel-cut oats have already become staples of my diet. My most recent adventure: homemade faux-Larabars. Stay tuned for photos and recipes!

What’s motivating you this week? Let me know by posting a comment below.

I woke up yesterday morning dreading my scheduled swim. 

So I revisited an idea I’ve been experimenting with recently: outright bribing myself.  At the grocery store the other day, I’d spotted a box of Celestial Seasonings Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride Herbal Tea, but held back from making what I saw as a frivolous purchase. But I’d acquired a Celestial Seasonings coupon since then, not to mention a task it could serve as a worthy reward for.

Here’s the workout that earned me the sweetest cup of tea ever:

All freestyle is done with a pull buoy.

1,000 warmup: alt. 250 free, 250 back

Pyramid set, freestyle, on :15 rest, moderate pace that you can maintain (goal is to hold your pace the whole time): > 1×50 > 1×100 > 1×150 > 1×200 > 1×250 > 1×300 > 1×250 > 1×200 > 1×150 > 1×100 > 1×50 (1,800 total)

4×25 sprint freestyle on :45

4×25 no-breath freestyle

My body felt so good and loose and happy afterwards, I didn’t even need the tea (though you’d better believe I drank it, anyway)!

Some advice from Ryan Hall fueled my swim today.

I continued my weeklong experiment in tracking how my thought patterns affect my athletic performance during today’s swim, during which I got some help from the guy in the next lane, my high-school teammate’s dad and Ryan Hall.

Since swimming is undoubtedly more of a time commitment than running, with its requirements to drive to the pool, suit up, work out a bit longer to get the same benefits, dechlorinate, drive home, etc., I find it even harder to stay motivated to do it. I also find it really hard to stop feeling guilty about the items I could be crossing off on my to-do list during that time. Today, I renewed my efforts to squelch that thinking, since it’s a proven motivation-zapper for me.

But I truly was physically tired today, and keeping my brain in the right place was tough, even once I got in the pool. Here’s what didn’t work: Obsessing about how tired and slow I felt (it’s simply shocking that a steady cadence of  ugh, ugh, ugh, failed to motivate me).

What did work:

Reminding myself to swim the lap I’m in, to roughly paraphrase Ryan Hall, who once said he reminds himself during half-marathons to run the mile he’s in. Whether it’s a set of 200 IMs, like today, or the seventh mile of a record-breaking marathon, it does no good to think about how tired you deserve to be because of what you’ve done already, or how much still lies ahead.

Reminding myself that, as is the case with every other athlete on earth, my slow is someone else’s fast. Over a huge IHOP dinner after a disappointing swim meet in high school, my teammate’s dad shook his head in amusement as we bemoaned being seconds — whole seconds! — off our goal times. “Think about all the houses we pass on our way home,” he said. “Then, think about how many of the people who live in those houses can come close to what you girls can do.” This is true for everyone who attempts an athletic feat. No matter how slow you feel like you are, to someone else, you’re a rock star.

Believing in positive reinforcement. A runner-friend a few weeks ago raised the point that, we, as athletes and as humans, tend to give more weight to negative comments than positive ones. So when the young-ish, fit-looking guy in lane next to me  smiled and said, “You’re amazing! I wish I could swim like you!” I decided to obsess about this lovely and random compliment the same way I’d obsess about a puzzling e-mail from an editor. I plan to consider this from all angles, mention it to friends. Heck, if things go well, I might even keep myself up tonight thinking about it.

Here’s the amazing part: These mind games played out in my performance in a measurable way. I timed myself on a 1,650 with a pull buoy, and came in right at 25 minutes. Not my best, but a far cry from “I’m too tired to do anything of worth today.”

Has anyone else tried this stuff with similar effect? I’m fascinated.

Don’t you love those days when you drag yourself to the pool or the track,

The Chris Greene Lake Cable Swim powered me through my workout yesterday. Even its logo, shown above, makes me wanna swim!

content to slog through whatever workout you have planned, only to find you had way more in you than an everyday slog?

I had one of those days yesterday, when I headed to the pool in a state of inexplicable exhaustion for a 4,500-yard swim to get ready for the 2-mile Chris Greene Lake Cable Swim, which I committed to doing, oh, about an hour ago. I tend to sign up for open-water swims when big running events are in jeopardy because of some sore spot. In this case, it’s my IT band and the Marine Corps Marathon. Even though the race is a long way off, and my ITB is actually feeling OK at the moment (knockonwood!), I needed an immediate reason to kick my own butt in workouts while I’m laying low running-wise.

To that end, I got in the pool yesterday kind of dreading my planned 4,500, which started with a 1,500 warmup. Then, something really cool happened: Without making a conscious effort to do so, I visualized — daydreamed about, really — the lake swim. I imagined how cool it will be to feel the sun on my back and to see the other swimmers around me. I thought about sitting on the shore after, pleasantly sore and tired after swimming the crap out of the race.

I turned my 1,500 warmup into a timed 1,650 (24:40 with a pull buoy, thank you very much!), starting what would become my first 5,000-yard workout since last summer, when I was training for a 2.5-mile ocean swim in Jacksonville, Fla.

Here’s how the rest of the workout went down:

5X400 IM (2,000 total)

4X300 free, six hard strokes every 50 (1,200 total)

4X25 sprint

4X25 no breath (yes, I do this 8X25 set at the end of almost every swim now. Thanks, Mer!)

Motivation came late to the party, and without any kind of conscious invitation on my part. But it’s the kind of party guest that’s always welcome. I just wish it would come early sometime, to help set up the bar, you know?