swimming for fitness

[HoppityFrogs]

I've started swimming to get fit, does anybody else swim for fit? Can we encourage each other?

It's £4.60 for each adult swim and £7.45 for a swim and sauna at my municipal pool, so it's not cheap. The direct debit monthly swim is £30 but that is swim only, no gym or classes

That's expensive, or maybe ours is cheap.

Our local council centre is £23.50 a month, or £33 if you want to be able to use the other centres locally. It works out better for me to buy a block swim ticket of 12 swims for £40 as I can use that across the group, and I'll go to the lido or whatever in the summer

Very envious that you have a lido, I didn't think there were any left.

It's not in my town unfortunatly, about 15 miles away, but is huge, lovely, and filled with natural brine. Theres another 25 miles away which is really beautiful, and 50m long.
We also went to one in Plymouth this year which was filtered sea water

Ooh my people!

Got heavily obsessive into swimming this year, joined a swim membership, have SwimTag which is good, and have just won an eBay Poolmate watch for £11! It's old, but it'll do until I swim a mile and will treat myself to the swim watch I really want 😊🏊

So, the mile is my first goal. Open water will be my next.

Another swimmer here. I go 3 times a week and swim around 5k (in total, not each visit) at my local pool. Love it but it isn't great for my dyed hair. Have recently started using Philip Kingsley Swimcap and that seems to be helping.

Swimtag is great - will take a look at Poolmate watches as hadn't heard of those.

I had & sold a poolmate (swimmovate?).
I don't (can't) swim in a standard stroke way. The swimtag results explain this: Swimtag thinks I'm doing mostly freestyle with a spells of breast-stroke.

Actually I only do front crawl with 4 lengths of pseudo-backstroke when the goggles are bothering my eye sockets too much & I need a break (can't do actual backstroke). I never do breast-stroke.

Actually, on that note, Which goggles do you have & would you recommend, or how does one find truly comfy ones. I have brand new Athena ones (£17) that sit badly on my eye sockets. I can make them work, but I struggle to fit them so they don't to sit right on bony parts, not pleasant.

I have a Garmin multisport watch which works really well on keeping track of my swimming. Googles, I have Aqua Sphere Eagles as I need the prescription inserts, but they are really comfortable, and aren't in your eye sockets which I prefer

I love aquasphere goggles, they don't fog. As much. I figured if they're good enough to be sold as triathlon goggles, they will be good for a pool.

Have a fabric hat, to keep my hair in, but it gets wet, so at some point I do need to look at shampoo/conditioner to help protect it.

I'm booking myself on a Total Immersion workshop in October. Super excited! 😊

I don't care about fogging... it's just the fit on my face. I'm reading that Aquasphere can leave horrendous suction cup marks, tbh. But then maybe they all do!!

I'm eyeing up the Michael Phelps line of goggles right now.

I did 40 lengths yesterday and 30 today I use swimtag. I go at 7am then come home by 8am so dh can go to work. I also log my swims on fitbit

I pay £28 per month membership of local pool.

Single adult swim here = £4.60 (swim pool near work) or £4.90 (preferrred pool near home). So I need to very consistently swim minimum once a week to know I am quids in on my £19/month membership. I will actually aim for swim 2-3x/week after the weather gets worse, b/c I don't like cycling much in bad weather.

What is the cost of pay as you go swimming where you guys are?

Anyone a West Midlands wild swimmer? I'd really you give river swimming a go if it isn't too far away. Wild swimming in the West Midlands seems a bit thin on the ground though.

My swim membership is £20/month vs a 4.50 single swim

I have spent the summer taking my son every weekend, and swimming at least once a week sometime twice. Have even managed to rope others in with their kids!

Basically we go to a session that has a family swim session shared with lanes. The boys play in their section for about 40 odd mins while their mothers (us 😊) train. Then the pool takes the lanes out and chucks floats in and opens up a slide. So we play with them, so they're happy and we have a leisurely cool down

Now the school's back and life is normal again, My swimming lessons elsewhere will start too. So I'll aim for 2x a week on my own outside of the lessons.

Am going to try to fit the swimming with friend on Saturdays if son has rugby tournaments or do a bit of a rush from one to the other on the days he doesn't.

I'm in Worcestershire Geeklove

I'm just getting over a running injury so took up swimming to maintain my fitness. I go at 9.30pm just for 1/2hr and do 1K. I'm not a very good swimmer but am getting better.

I love going late, when the kids and house are mostly sorted. The pool is usually pretty empty (I often have a lane to myself, especially towards the end of the session), and don't have to worry about what I look like afterwards cos it's straight home. I can do door to door in an hour which helps me with my motivation, because I can run a very long way in an hour and I want swimming to be the same amount of effort (not to spend loads of time getting ready, driving to the pool, showering etc).

The best thing I did was buy a boy short swim suit so I don't need to consider my bikini line (a tenner from sports direct). I also have a hat and goggles which really helps.

Like many runners, I try too hard with swimming, but I'm learning it's more about technique that being super fit.

CMOT I'm in Coventry :( it's a bit of a hike hence my wild swimming needs to incorporate into family days out.

Hello, can I join please? I took up swimming again (not seriously swam since school) in May after bursitis stopped my running. I hated it at first but it has got a lot easier and I've just decided it was worth getting swimming membership (£26 in West Sussex). Our pool opens at 6.15 three mornings a week so I've been going then (before husband and children are up!), twice a week so far but planning to do three now that I've got the membership. Our pool is adjustable so for the morning lane swimming it is 33m and then they divide the pool up into two pools later, 25m and 8m. I now do 40 lengths of 33m (so 1.3k / 0.8 miles) and was so pleased with myself to manage it in 30 mins this week! I'd love to know more about Swimtags. They come with swim membership but I don't really know what to do with them! At the moment I manually log my swim on Runkeeper when I get home. In case you are interested I've just got this fab spray from Proswimwear called SwimSpray. It wasn't cheap (about £8 I think) but it really works to remove the chlorine (I was suffering from itchy skin and dry hair). Basically it is vitamin C in an aerosol.

I really can't do the mornings avocado, though I did today. Not 6.15am though - 7.15am! I am not a morning person. Sounds like you're doing well for a runner...ha ha
I just looked up Swimtags. Don't think my pool does them. Would be fab though. I can't really justify upgrading my running Garmin to a fancy waterproof one, so counting it is for me. I manually log mine in Strava.

I seem to spend most of my days with wet hair!

I have to drag myself out of bed rightsforwomen but then I've ticked the exercise off for the day (it was the time I used to go running to so I'm used to it – and at least in the winter it will be light at the pool then unlike running by streetlights!). Like you I got a boyleg swimming costume (from Proswimwear) and I feel a lot more confident in it. Never been very good with the bikini line thing!

This is the stuff I mentioned, although I've been reading the Boots Sun and Swim reviews and wondering if I've been had! www.proswimwear.co.uk/swim-spray.html

Does anybody just go by themselves? I love swimming but I'd be a bit self-conscious about being billy-no-mates at the pool. I'm also not good enough at swimming to join some sort of team.

I actually only learned to swim last year (age 30!) and it's great but I've only swam with my DH and he doesn't like it as much as I do so he'd never want to go every week like I would want to.

I want to start swimming properly, I'm a confident but slow swimmer. Need to build my stamina and fitness up a lot!

The pool I'm looking at joining only has lane swimming in the mornings, would lane swimming be ok for a slow, need to stop occasionally swimmer like me?