What Are Those Suits You're Wearing?

This morning I met Laura for a wetsuit swim at one of our least favorite pools in the city, the McBurney Y. I actually think the pool itself is pretty nice, but it's always really crowded and people are bad at seeding themselves properly into the correct lanes. We also tend to wear our wetsuits there as the pool is a little on the cooler side and I always end up getting yelled at by the woman in the locker room about having too much water dripping by my locker. The good news is that today was our last swim there for 2010!

I cut all my fingernails off in anticipation of this wetsuit swim. That always makes me a little bit sad. I was also a little bit bummed that we were doing this swim today since I did order a new wetsuit for Alcatraz (I need one with sleeves instead of the sleeveless one that I have) and it won't be here until Friday. This is what my new suit will look like (source):
However, I probably won't have my hair all done when I am actually wearing the wetsuit, unlike the model here. When we were putting our wetsuits on, a woman in the locker room started chatting us up and asked us what kind of suits we were wearing. Then she asked us all sorts of other questions. I seem to be a magnet for people chatting with me recently.

When we were all suited up, we headed out to the pool deck. I think I spent five minutes just staring at the pool trying to figure out what lane to put myself into. I got fooled because when I got there it was just before 7:00 AM and the Master's Swim Group wasn't in the pool yet, but when I got out to the pool they were swimming and taking up two lanes of the pool. That made it harder for me to find a spot.

There were two lanes circle swimming and the rest of the available lanes were being split by people, so there wasn't room for me there. I decided to get in the Medium lane that was circle swimming. I did 100 before I got super annoyed at everyone in the lane. After that, I just stood at the end of the lane trying to figure out my options. I must have had a homicidal maniac look on my face because the lifeguard yelled out to me that I could move over and split one of the slow lanes so that I'd have space to myself.

I did about 300 total in warm-up and then did the same thing that we did on Sunday at Terrier. I did 100s but did them fast/easy/easy/fast. I think I was averaging about 1:40 for the 100s. Then I'd give myself 20-25 seconds rest and do another one.

At some point, I was interrupted by a weird guy in a red swim cap and boxer shorts. He had been in the Water Walkers lane and I noticed him because he was mostly just swimming around underwater, not doing any "real" swimming. All of a sudden, he jumped into my lane and forced us to start circle swimming. I wasn't really having any of that. I just watched him swim underwater and then do some really slow breaststroke. I must have given him the stink-eye because he only did that one 50 and then moved over to Laura's lane (sorry, Laura) to cause some more trouble.

After he left, I went back to my same routine. A couple minutes after 8:00, a woman came to the edge of my lane and asked if we would start circle swimming. At that same time, Laura was at the end of her lane and said that she was ready whenever I was. I just wasn't in the mood for circle-swimming with slow people, so we got out and hit the showers.

I have to say that the pool at NYSC isn't anything great and it's really short (only 18 yards), but there is something to be said for knowing that you have 30 minutes of uninterrupted swimming while sharing a lane with someone else. You can do your own thing and not have to worry what anyone else is doing, which I like.

Today's wetsuit swim was a lot better than a couple weeks ago. Last time I felt like every time I kicked, my feet were above water and today I really concentrated on having a solid kick and trying not to be quite so buoyant!

My time today while swimming isn't so great, but that's because I time everything, including me being upset while just standing at the end of the pool and all the rest times. I never really worry about that. Somehow I never really remember to start and stop my watch all those times and the truth of the matter is that swimming pace really isn't as interesting to me as running or bike pacing is.

Swimming
Time: 36:48
Distance: 1200 yards (0.68 miles)
Pace: 54:06/mile
Calories: 318
Maximum HR: 161
Average HR: 146

Do I Even Like Swimming?

Last night I spent a good amount of time working on my half-Ironman training plan. I was going back and forth on how I wanted to keep track of my workout and I finally decided that I would put everything into Ontri manually (I already log all of my other workouts there) and then I would also be able to keep track of what I actually do. So, the plan and the actuals will be in one place. I only mapped out the first 9 weeks so far (of a 20 week plan). Here's what Week 1 looks like:


The only complaint I have is that Ontri uses a Sunday through Saturday week and my plan is a Tuesday through Sunday week, so it's a little bit off, but once I get started it won't make a difference. What I've realized is that this is a lot of time that I'll be spending swimming, biking and running. Especially biking. The good thing about finally getting organized on this is that I realized that I don't have to start "really" training until April, which gives me two weeks after the half-marathon to ease into things for triathlon training. I thought I was going to have to start the day after the half-marathon, so I feel a lot better now.

This morning Laura somehow conned me into going swimming with her in our wetsuits. We met at the horrible 14th Street Y and donned our suits. As we were getting into them another woman in the locker room asked us if they were as hard to get off as they are to get on. I actually thought that we got them on pretty quickly all things considered.

And then we walked out to the pool. On the way out I asked Laura if she had a plan for today's swim and she said no. That made me feel better about not having a plan either. Even though I had one in my bag plus I had practically memorized several options last night from the half-IM training plan, I just didn't feel like being organized about my swimming.

Part of the problem with this pool is that it is always really crowded. Today was no exception. I couldn't figure out if I should swim in the fast lane or not. I decided just to take my chances. It turned out okay. The swimming mainly went like this: I'd swim 100. Stop. Be annoyed at how many people were in my lane. Stand there and wait for people to do their flip turns. Swim 100. Stop. Be annoyed at how many people were in my lane. Repeat 12 more times.

At some point after only swimming 200 or 300 yards, I realized that I'm not even sure I still like swimming. After all this running I've been doing, it's hard to switch to other sports. I think part of it this morning was the whole wetsuit thing. Running is so simple and doesn't involve a lot of gear, but this morning was a sharp contrast to that. And even if you have to share the road with bikers and other runners, it's not quite the same as sharing a lane at the pool. I'm pretty sure I do still like swimming, it just took me a while to remember that I did.

I will say that I completely forgot how floaty wetsuits are. I felt like my feet were out of the water when I tried to kick, so I'm not sure how effective kicking was in general. Luckily I've got months before I really have to wear a wetsuit so there is plenty of time to try this again and work on my kick. Hopefully somewhere when it's not so crowded.

All in all, the swim ended up being fine. Not my best, but not my worst either. I'm not too worried about the time since a good portion of that was me standing around being irritated. I'm hoping at the very least it was a good recovery day for my legs!

Swimming
Time: 32:13
Distance: 1400 yards (0.79 miles)
Pace: 40:28/mile
Calories: 287
Maximum HR: 171
Average HR: 142

The Difference Between Slow, Medium & Fast

This morning I met Laura for our last swim at the other 14th Street Y. Neither of us really like this pool that much. The past two times that we had been there it was really cold, which didn't make it any better. The pool is also generally fairly crowded and today was no exception. It's a seven lane pool and four of the lanes were open for lap swimming. Two of the other lanes were taken up by a master's group and the last lane was for water walking (whatever that is). The lanes that were open for lap swimming included one for slow swimmers, two for medium swimmers and one for fast swimmers.

I decided to start in one of the medium lanes. I wasn't quite sure I wanted to hang with the big boys this morning in the fast lane and there were also quite a lot of people in that lane already, so I decided to go with a less crowded medium lane. It didn't take long before I got really frustrated with the lane that I was in. There was a girl alternating between doing drills and swimming breast stroke, which I don't think is anyone's fastest stroke.

I must have passed this girl about 10 times (without exaggeration). On the tenth time, I really wanted to ask her if she thought that she was in the right lane since everyone else was passing her as well. Instead, I decided that I'd just suck it up and move over to the fast lane. Now, I had already realized that my arms were still exhausted from Sunday's lifting workout. And I'm just tired in general these days. I think I'm in need of a day off (or at least a day to get another hour or so of sleep in the morning), but Drew's sister will be visiting this weekend and I'm not 100% sure I'll get in long workouts over the weekend, so I need to stick with it this week.

When I moved over to the fast lane, I thought my arms were going to fall off my body. I don't really think I was swimming that much faster, but I always feel more pressure to go at a good speed. I think it's all more mental for me. After doing about 400 yards in the fast lane, I decided to slow down and give my arms a rest and move to the other medium lane.

That medium lane was only slightly better than the first one. I'm not sure if people just have no idea how to seed themselves or what the deal is, but if you're doing drills or something else very slowly, there is no need to make the rest of us suffer. I actually still had a pretty good swim despite all the obstacles. It was rather boring as the pool situation wasn't really conducive to doing a lot of drills or short sets. But, this is what I did:

1000 yards freestyle
600 yards alternating breast & free
150 yards kicking

Swimming
Time: 40:40
Distance: 0.99 miles
Pace: 41:04/mile
Calories: 435
Maximum HR: 174
Average HR: 155