I've got a long way to go...

... to get back to my speedy swim times from June! Last night was my second swim lesson and we did time trials - these are supposed to be benchmarks to see how much we improve over the 12 weeks. Unfortunately for me, my times were at least as bad as when I started last September, or at least that's how it felt. Definitely worse than at the end of June. I'm almost too embarrassed to post the new times...

Almost... We did a different trial this time 'round. Instead of 50m, 100m, 200m - we started with 3 separate 100m, followed by 3 x 50m - with a 1min+ rest in between each. I don't remember all the times, so here is what I do remember:

1st 100m - 1:53; 2nd 100m - 1:57; 3rd 100m - 2:03 (just kept getting worse, ugh!)

1st 50m - 0:53 - I think, and I honestly don't remember the last 2. I think I ended up over a minute on the last one...

The 50m were hardest because my thoughts were along the lines of "oh, it's such a short distance, I can just give my all - I survived hard labour, med-free, for 3hrs; I can do ANYTHING for 1 minute!" Yeah, well, even contractions don't last that long before getting a break (except when you don't get the break)... For all three 50m trials, the first 25m up felt amazing, then about 1/2 way back my arms felt like dead-weights and I could barely swing them around for the next stroke. It was an incredibly frustrating feeling. Almost as though my arms had popped out of the socket! Thinking about it now, I can still sense the feeling. Reminds me that I've got a long way to go to get back to my previous, speedy form! Problem is, this time I'm only going once a week. I'll post my end-trial results in about 10 weeks!

SO Excited!!

Tonight was my last swimming class until the fall... I'm not excited about that, BUT I am excited about the progress I made! At the beginning of this 12 week session, our instructor timed us on 50m, 100m and 200m swims for our benchmark to see how we improved by the end. Tonight was our 'timing' night. If I had just posted my initial times, unless you're a swimmer, you likely have no idea if they were slow or fast. But wait until you see my before and after!! (This is almost better than a before and after photo display! Although I'm sure there is some change there too, I didn't think to take photos...)

Distance	10wks AGO	TODAY	IMPROVEMENT
50m	0:51	0:46	5sec!
100m	1:55	1:40	15sec!!
200m	4:17	3:43	34sec!!!

Ahhhh... basking in the glory of having the best improvement in the class. :-)

I set a goal for myself at the beginning that I wanted to be at least as fast as the 20-something, university student/swim instructor in the class by the time we finished. I always felt so slow next to her and tonight we were paired up during our timed laps. I couldn't wait to see if I would be able to keep up. The first set, 50m, we finished exactly the same! She improved on her time by 1sec, so that means I was 1sec faster than her original time! And I would have beat her if I could do the damn flip-turn at the wall too!

Then it was our turn to swim the 100m... I focused on trying to get a faster turn at the wall and it paid off - I BEAT her by 3 seconds!! And then I learned I had beat my previous time by a full 15 seconds!! I was over-the-moon.

Finally our 200m - I didn't win this match up, but I was only 2 or 3 seconds behind and I'm pretty sure I matched her original 200m time, which is all I was looking for anyway. Plus I swam 34 seconds faster than my original time - 34 SECONDS! That's more than half a minute in a sub-4 min distance!! MAJOR improvement!!

It's funny how when I SET A GOAL, a specific, measurable goal, I reach it. I can't think of one goal, one that I REALLY wanted, that meant something to me, that I've set and didn't reach. WOW! That's powerful stuff... Have you set any goals lately?

P.S. I've recently fixed the comment option so name/anonymous posts work now - leave a comment below with your goals!