Swim Report: 100 100s

Finally a new blog post! This past Sunday was the epic swim – 100 100s!! You can read the Team Rabbit rap here, but here is a little more from my perspective.

I picked Carol up at 8:30 and we headed straight over to LeeRECenter, as planned. Carol noticed the sign said the pool was closed for a swim meet. WHAT? We had not considered that because the last two years on Mother’s Day the pool was wide open! Sally had texted us the same thing so we headed up the hill to meet her. We decided we’d head over to the Mt. Vernon Pool. No problem, right? We tried to call and text Kathy to let her know the scoop. We got no response, but as we were driving out we passed her coming in! We turned around to meet her and let her know what was happening. She followed us over to the Mt. Vernon pool where Sally was waiting…

Unfortunately, the Mt. Vernon pool was pretty crowded. Sally opted to head over to the FedEx pool where she got in an AUsome 7000! Way to go, STUK! Anyway, there were all kinds of folks in the lanes.

Swimmers, water walkers, lessons, people using kickboards. We finally had an opportunity to jump in with one guy and asked if we could circle swim. He was not happy but agreed. We then proceeded to circle swim in reverse! It was weird, but maybe because I’m left handed it didn’t bother me.

The plan was 100x100s just like last year: 9x100 freestyle on 2:00 then a 100IM on 3:00, basically.

Eventually the lane next to us opened up a bit and he moved over. After that we happily swim in regular circles (counter clock-wise) till we got bumped from the lane due to swim lessons. Kathy had already departed by then as she was going on vacation. It was so great she joined us for some epic swim fun!

We hopped out and looked around trying to figure out what to do. There was one open lane at the end, next to the diving well! We jumped in! We think it was closed but we were not bothered for the most part till we were all done. I say for the most part because a short time after we started after a scuba class was taking place in the diving well! So at times one or two would drift into our lane. But they stayed below the surface and did not bother us. Carol did get tapped with a fin at one point and one person waved at me. Otherwise it was good entertainment for us! It was especially fun watching them try to swim through the weighted hula hoop without catching their tanks on the hoop!

Carol and I had decided to take turns leading each set of 10. She led odds, I led evens. We took a break at the half way point and another one at three quarters. During the swim I kept my mind occupied with various counting patterns. Always the number we were on, and adding each length. Like for number 42: 42-1, 42-2, 42-3, 42-4. It was great when I could make a math problem: 42-2 becomes 4-2=2! The 100 IMs got harder as we went. We actually skipped the first because we were reverse circle swimming, and so to stay even we skipped the last. We stayed pretty consistent with our splits during the first half but slowed a little during the second half. But for some crazy reason for the last five 100s I somehow picked up the pace. I think I was just ready to be done! Then at the end I opted to do a 100 flop - which is like backstroke with a double arm pull. So all in all it was 101x100, for 10,100 yards! This means I swam 5.74 miles – when calculated using 1,760 yards (which equals a true mile, not a swimmer’s mile of 1,650). I/we think next year we need to swim 100 meters by 100 to up it a notch!  

My typically sore shoulder is a little more sore than normal. But I recall it was like this last year, too. I think I am ready for the Great Chesapeake Bay Swim! I do have two open water swim (OWS) opportunities before that with the Jim McDonnell Lake Swims (the 1- and the 2-mile) and the RockHall Sprint Triathlon! Yikes – I have not done a Sprint tri in while! September 2010 to be exact! The swim portion is 750 meters. Short but good OWS practice!

In other news, my sons came back from a nice visit with their dad! My older was on vacation and my younger had just finished his third year of college. (Wow!) My younger used to be a runner… I say used to because he ran for 10 seasons in high school: 4 seasons of spring track, 3 seasons of cross country, 3 seasons of indoor track. He pretty much hasn’t run since his last meet his senior year. With the exception of a 5K when he first got to college for the free T-shirt!  I’m excited because he has agreed to run a race with me this summer! Well he won’t run WITH me as we will run our own race, but this is great! The race is the =PR= Run with Dad 5K. I’m calling it the Run with my Son!

Next Up:  Jim McDonnell Lake Swims!

Happy and Healthy Training!