So while keeping with my

Posted on May 13, 2005

So while keeping with my latest “keep fit craze” (actually that’s not very correct, it’s more like a “get fit craze” but let’s roll with it), today I went back to my old love –swimming.

Since I’ve been essentially a couch potato for quite a long time now, I decided to get back into it very gently. So I decided to try out the gym’s pool which is only 25m, instead of going for the pool I used to swim at, which is an olympic, 50m pool.

Also I decided to not do a real workout today, but just swim around in the three easy styles and see how I felt and what kind of shape I am in.

And the verdict was really fast to come by, so here it is, together with some notes and comments:

  • The shape I’m in is bad, of course, but not as bad as I expected. It took me almost half an hour to do a measly 1.000m, but I didn’t die doing it, so that’s not so bad;
  • I absolutely need a scheme to follow. If I just go to the pool and see what happens I will muck around and not do anything useful at all. I’ve felt this before, so this is only confirmation of what I already knew. It’s a good thing I kept a record of my workouts from when I was trying (already without great success) to take swimming seriously. I guess I’ll just have to print out some sessions and stick to that for the time being;
  • The 25m pool really breaks your rhythm when you don’t do your turns right. Of course for now it is more than adequate for me, but I need to build my resistance up to the level where I can swim non-stop (including decent turns at the ends of the pool) for a whole 500m or 600m, which where once my warm-up routine. When (if) I get back to that point I may get back to the big pool at Estádio Nacional in Jamor;