Making a splash

I've started swimming again as an effort to raise my fitness levels. I'd started running during the pandemic, but as I worked my way up through the couch-to-5k I found that I'd get five to six weeks in then my left ankle or right knee would go, so I'd end up having to stop for a while. When we were on holiday, I was swimming pretty casually every day, but noticed that my ankle was much better generally. That gave me the gem of the thought that maybe I should start swimming more seriously, something I've not done since before university.

I ended up getting myself some prescription goggles (as wearing contacts under normal goggles isn't really that viable now I've stopped wearing my lenses regularly). I also spotted a set of IP8X (waterproof) bone conducting earphones, which are magic and work great in a pool. The final thing was to get the local council leisure centre pass for the year. Altogether, the plan was to have no excuses and a lot of good reasons to want to be actively out there swimming.

So far, I've mainly done breaststroke. Started at 32 lengths the first session which quickly became 36 then 40. I'm now at 48 lengths as a baseline (1200m) and will hold that for the next few weeks as I get my fitness up. I suspect that - at my current speed - I'll max out around 64 lengths if I can get there at the very start of the lane swimming session.

There are three different swimming speed lanes in the lane sessions, slow, medium and fast. I'm not quite fast enough for medium (most of the swimmers there probably pull a half length on me over two lengths) but I'm at the top end of slow (most of the time). Overtaking can be a challenge if it's busy, which makes quite an impact on pace. 

Anyway, hopefully I'll keep this going.

22 October 2023