Tough love

Tonight was the first swimming benchmark in our schedule... we had to swim 300 yards non-stop. From now on, every few weeks we need to prove to our coach we're on a schedule that will see us swim a whole 1.2 miles in June. When I started swimming in September I couldn't even make it the width of the pool (about 15 yards) let alone a simple length of 25 yards.

I had been thinking about the 300 yards all day. It didn't help my anxiety that our coach sent us a rather terse reminder this afternoon of tonight's goal. Someone called his email "tough love." It was only a couple weeks ago that I finally figured out I had not been inhaling enough air when I went to breathe which had me gasping after just a couple laps. I was determined to make the 300 yards but knew it was going to hurt.

Well, actually I thought it was going to hurt. Once our 300 started I concentrated only on my breathing and made sure I got a full breathe with every stroke. I felt relaxed and was not at all tired. I was going slow but I didn't care. I was up to the challenge and made the 300 yards quite easily. Needless to say I was very happy. I was energized the rest of the practice and finished strong. In the end I totaled 1650 yards... almost a mile!