Finished up a 4 swim week yesterday. Did some broken 200IMs. Was finally swimming back to my pace prior to Covid-19. On a down note I had a mole removed and it came back basal cell cancer last week. Gonna have some additional skin removal in a couple weeks. My gym is scheduled to open the weight room friday so things are getting close to normal but you need a reservation to workout.

I thought it would be cool to swim the length of Lake San Antonio the times I did Wildflower (1996, 2007, 2010, 2015) but each time I obviously felt that I needed to save my body for the half IM!!!

Hey is it 12 weeks from my last swim yesterday. During those 12 weeks, I ran 83.3 km per week average, plus bike and rowing machine. I ended up with 1000km of running in 12 weeks (my biggest total ever) and 17 hrs per week of training (when adding my bikes and rows).

I figure I would wait till I hit 1000km to swim again as some sort of "sent of to exile" thing.

So as of today's the water is 64F at my friend's house on the Ottawa river. This is what it looks like from their place:


So I will report back tomorrow (hopefully it works out this evening).

As for your 10km swim let me know the target date. Even with a 12 weeks layoff, 4-6 weeks should be enough for me to do a 10km swim from the dock at my friend's place....I'll just do 500m out and back 10 times so I don't need support, just water bottles on her beach.

Also if you don't know, Global Swim Series is organizing 1, 3.8km, 5km and 10km swims. Just upload your gps time to the web. It's almost as good as a bunch of open water races, because you're just racing solo after a while with a kayaker nearby.

3000LCM (all pull) as 15x100 @ 1.45, 1000 moderate, 500 WD

Ahh...swimming in a pool.

Very nice that your LCM pool is open. We got an announcement from the provincial govt that pools can open on Friday, but our city has laid off all staff till June 30th, so it likely makes no delta. I scored a goose egg on my plan to swim yesterday. Work stuff went well into the evening. Hope is to head out today!

7.5 mi run, 1400m indoors, then taught some swimming lessons at a friend's backyard pool

6 x 100 on 1:50
6 x 100 on 1:45
100 on 1:30
100 c/d

---

maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Well I finally get to put an entry into one of these threads....one hour random open water swimming in a wetsuit. As much as I hate wetsuit swimming, it was just awesome to be back in the water.

So today:

53 min run with 12x400m at the track
60 min "fartlek" swim (for lack of a better explanation...some hard, some easy).

I felt completely uncoordinated in the swim. No hip rotation, no shoulder flexiblity, bad timing in all 4 strokes....it was a mess, but I will take it. Back in the river tomorrow. Plan tomorrow is 60 min run before work and I have a 2 hrs and 45 min mid day appointment with myself during which I will ride 30 min to the river, swim 60 min, ride back 30 min....or I will wake up tomorrow and my shoulders will say "If you plan to swim 60 minutes you'll be doing 30 minutes of dolphin kicking because we don't support being active for that long".

I gotta get ready for the ST virtual 10km with Hillary....what's the date????? For the first time since Covid19 lockdown I feel excited about life again.

Pool re opened after 12 weeks.

1000 free in about 15:30
400IM kick
600 alt 100br/100bk
400 FR

Been doing lots of cycling the last 3 months ( and riding faster than I have in years) but shoulders and chest felt fused in place. Good to be back in the water. Hope the strength and feel comes back in 4 to 6 weeks.

Yesterday, the local YMCA started taking reservations for lap swimming. I logged in and got myself a lane for day one. This morning, I tried on my jammers since it was 14 weeks ago that I last wore them. This afternoon, I was in the local sports apparel store buying a new pair of jammers, one size larger :(.

---

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Good to see all the pools opening up. Looking forward to getting back to swim fitness with all of you ST fishies.

Yeah it is really good. Funny, it actually feels a little warm compared to what I have been used to over the past 10 weeks or so. I am still trying to swim in the bay, and hope to right through winter just as a challenge.

The thing about swimming in the pool at the moment - it's done by booking online. 45 minute sessions on the hour, 20 in the pool each session.

Initially bookings open at midnight for 2 days in advance i e you could book at 12 a.m Monday morning to swim on Wednesday. They then changed the time to 6 a.m, and have since changed it to 8 a.m....and now the keeps crashing..

1.6km in cold, but glassy water. Beautiful once the face went numb...

Slowly starting to build some comfort and return to fitness (my 8th swim in the pool since they reopened a few weeks ago)

300 w/u
3 x 100 - 50 kick / 50 sw (front kick w/ fins/snorkel)
3 x 100 - 50 kick / 50 sw (kick on back w/ fins)

3 times through:
4 x 25 sw - 70%, 75%, 80%, 85%

400 pull @ 70%
4 x 100 sw @ 80%, rest 25-30s
2 x 150 pull @ 75-80%, rest 25s
4 x 50 sw @ 85%, rest 20s
4 x 25 sw @ 90%, rest 15s

100 c/d

10.5 mi run 1:38:29
700m straight swim

---

maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

First day back was about the disaster I expected. Little power, zero endurance. I knew is was going to be rough when my SPL on the warmup 200 pull with paddles climbed from 12 to 16. That was the longest continuous effort I did. After a layoff, I prefer to build power/speed first, then start working on endurance, so the rest of the short workout was 50's and 25's. Even with generous intervals and short sets, my pace was off ~6 seconds/100. Only got in 1200 yards total in my 35 minutes in the water.

---

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

First step is the hardest, keep persisting....!

First day back in a real pool. As of a week ago, the neighborhood (20yd, no wall or bottom markings) wasn't really tenable anymore. Water temp had crept up into the mid to upper 80's, and families were showing up as early as 8am to get pool time in by themselves. Went to the closest YMCA to me, which is an outdoor pool, and it's also in the mid-80's (but at least I can feel the jets blowing cool water) with a current/wind meaning different stroke counts depending on one's direction. Anyway, I've been lucky to be able to swim some the last 2.5 months so I haven't lost any swim fitness. Hopeful that next week, when summer camp starts, I can swim in the AM when the water and air is cooler rather than late PM after my wife gets home.

300 easy
8x50 drill
intended to be 500-4-3-2-1-1-2-3-4-500, the second half pull, 30-45s rest after each. Didn't have time to get the last 500 in before my 45-min session was over, had only time to get a 100 easy before the top of the hour.

3300scy total

500 - 5:43
400 - 4:32
300 - 3:21
200 - 2:12
100 - 1:03
100 - 1:05 (pull, small paddles)
200 - 2:13 (pull, small paddles)
300 - 3:19 (pull, medium-large paddles)
400 - 4:21 (pull, big boy paddles)

---

-----

Those are very good times.

I had similar experience last week on my first day back. 20000 yds later some improvements. Curious about your approach: I’m swimming mostly 500s, low intensity, to let my body (shoulders) acclimate. I feel like if I tried power stroke right now I may break something. Curious what the consensus is on this topic, relative to age of swimmer (power vs endurance on restart).

I did like Gary on my first day back two days ago. Open water in wetsuit. I just did "fartlek" which was hard short bursts followed by easy doing all four strokes and some drills in all 4 strokes. My fitness is there from all the running, rowing machine, weights and biking I have been doing (mainly 14-18 hours per week every week for the last 12). I don't think swimming easy and steady will help me. I have plenty of aerobic fitness already. Holding "technique" (whatever I have) going easy is a bit irrelevant. Its when we go hard that it all falls apart, so going short and hard with super easy in between I THINK helps me more to get to going moderately hard for long later.

I am treating this like winter bike training going into summer Ironman training. Winter spent on hard FTP and intervals and then get outdoors and go moderately hard for long.

I also did a bunch of kick (dolphin and regular on my side) and the next day my legs were totally shot for my daily run.

I'm a competitive swimmer first, triathlete second. I find it easier to get into decent 100 free shape than 1650 free shape. The steeper success curve keeps me motivated. And even when I'm training for "distance swimming," I take a somewhat unconventional approach of mostly interval sets of 75's and 100's over longer swims. I could see why my approach wouldn't work for many, especially those who are AOSers who's sole or primary reason for swim training is triathlon.

---

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Second swim work out since pools opened Monday

1000 in 15:40 (normally I would go ~13:40)
400 IM kick
600 alt Bk/Br
400 pull (paddles and bouy)

Just trying to get the shoulder and neck muscles functioning again. It feels like it will be a long road back.

To

No pool yet, but I have access to open water.

Morning 45 min tempo run, evening 30km bike commute to open water swim. 60 min in the water, but huge waves including whitecaps. The wind surfers and kite surfers were having a blast!!!! I ended up just doing random stuff in all 4 strokes doing some hard, some easy. Hopefully the next swim is more flat water. I doubt we will have pool swimming any time soon even though technically our province can open up pools on Friday. My city laid off staff till July 1, and now they will have difficulty getting staff back as many are on government emergency response wage benefit and they can actually make almost the same doing nothing at home. So incentive to go back early and potentially face the virus is low.

Another 3k LCM in a pool today, all done with a pull buoy.
Main bit was 4x400, trying to keep stroke count the same, but increase power.

Might try the bay tomorrow, depending on the weather...

I just ordered a 3mm Xterra Volt Wetsuit as the water is reasonably warm. I may cut if off below the knees too to reduce the floatiness so its more in line with just swimming with a pull buoy. I will try to swim daily now and get out to the open water.

11 mi run 1:45:20
600m swim (straight, cooling off)

---

maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD