This morning I went swimming.
I had decided some time ago that I was getting a bit too soft, now that I’m living about an hour away from Kung Fu, and I can only do it for a couple of hours a week, not enough to balance the fact that I have a sendentary job and love food. I could never decide on what I wanted to do, hell, I even considered joining a Wing Chun class in my neighbourhood, or training at the Amsterdam branch of our school (which I really don’t want to do, because my sikong and I don’t get along too well, and the people there are not my kind of people.) But now I’ve settled on swimming, which should be good for both my stamina and my strength.
I hit the pool at 7:46, did 40 laps, and was out by 8:16. Exactly 30 minutes. I know that I did lap 21-30 in 8 minutes, and lap 31-40 in 7. I’m not too sure on the times of lap 1-10 and 11-20, but it must be something similar, since I took a 30 second break after the first 20 laps, and another 30 seconds 10 laps after that. On average, I did a lap in 43.5 seconds. A lap is 25 meters. That means I managed a relatively consistent speed of about 2.07 kph. I doubt that’s any good, because there were quite a few people faster than I.
I consciously didn’t want to overextend myself, since it’s been a while since I went swimming. That point was driven home quite accurately when I went through a pretty emberassing moment as I was lifting myself out of the pool, which took way more effort than I thought it would. Once out of the pool and under the showers, I could really feel how much effort it had taken. What was interesting was that my stamina was adequate and even surpassing some of the other swimmers, but my technique is probably ultra-sloppy, and the strength that it requires is probably also lacking, especially upper-body strength. I do remember at a certain point getting stuck behind a slower swimmer for a bit, whom I could keep up with quite well just using my legs.
Anyway, looking forward to some more.
I’m quite impressed actually. Doing 40 laps with just two short breaks after some time of not swimming is good. I mean I’m pretty sure your time is quite standard, but the fact that you kept more or less the same speed through it all is worth complimenting. Not that I ever had reasons to doubt your stamina before ;)
I might not have your amount of stamina, but i’ll gladly race you:D
When I passed my swimming-diploma’s, after 3 week, all 3, the Dutch Junior Waterpolo team aksed me to join them. I refused.. I wish I didn’t do that:(
But yeah, I would like to either come, or just swim with you some other time:)
You’re probably a hell of a lot better swimmer than I am, that’s for sure. Whenever you sleep over next we’ll go swimming in the morning. :)