During the month of January the US Masters Swim organization sponsors a 1 hour national race (i.e. swim as far as you can in 1 hour) which I participated.
I enlisted my daughter, Rachel, in a little pay-back effort to keep track of all my splits for each 100. I ended the hour swimming 4350 yards or just a hair shy of 2.5 miles (similar to an ironman tri-athlon distance). This was a good distance for me, so happy. Goal was to swim 100's at a steady pace below 1:30's and ended up clocking them off at a modest 1:24 per 100 in a very comfortable, long and steady swim. Could have easily kept on going.
Focused on breathing ever other side or rotating sides (not easy for me) to learn how extended periods of doing this lesson stress on my shoulders. It worked great, plus it was a nice distraction from going back and forth for an hour. As for the mental "blaa's" of going back and forth this was not what I expected. Once I got going, I was trying to track distance but simply gave this up and just relaxed and swam. I was comfortable enough to not look at the clock all but 3-4 times. This was good practice of "letting go, mentally" but I suspect much more of this will come in the months ahead.
We'll see how I stack up against others nationally when the results come out in March. I'll bet my coach, Marcia Cleveland and some of her fellow swimmers kicked my butt... They are very accomplished and this makes for good training goals although I am learning this is really just about "me".
On the fund raising/charity side, appears I have good interest from one national organization and keep working or organizing others. I would hope formalize these after I complete my successful 6 hour "qualifying" channel swim later this year.
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