The 1st step in any good planning is to figure out where you are.

My coach, being a really good planner, needs to know where I am with my swimming.  So today’s swim workout was geared to finding my baseline.  Kelsey tells me that this will be my “cruise time”.

Today’s cruise-finder workout:

• warm-up (my choice – as long as it includes a include 4 x 25 build @ :15 rest (which means I start out easy and increase my speed so I’m sprinting by wall touch.)
• Cruise-finder: 5 x 100 fast with 2 seconds rest after each 100.
• cool down (my choice)

My cruise time is: my total time, minus 8 seconds, divided by 5.    8:35/5 = 01:43 /100y

The high school swim coach was nice enough to time me this morning.  He commented that I was exactly at 4:00 at 250y, then I slowed, and then picked my pace back up.  His observations coincided perfectly with how I was thinking.   Just after the half way point, I started to worry that I might not have enough in the tank to finish.  Then that thought led to a bunch of other concerning thoughts.  When I touched the wall with 75 yards to go, I noticed that I wasn’t focused and put my attention back to the task at hand.

My thoughts on today’s workout:

1. I always feel like I’m swimming so much faster than I really am. 🙂
2. I really don’t know what I am capable of for the swim.  I know what “all-out” is for running, but no idea for swimming.  I don’t think I’ve ever gone all-out.
3. Focus and positive thinking is really important under water.
4.  I wish I could do flip-turns.
5. I wonder how fast I can get?