Swimming for fitness (part 3). Dive in!

[rightsofwomen]

Ohh la la....2nd thread filled up. Hopefully this Subject line will make it easy enough to find.

Everyone welcome.

I'm aiming to go on Thursday morning - if I post it here I have to go

coffee believe me I feel wobbly at the thought of it too!!! I have a big birthday this year and an Olympic distance triathlon is my reaction to it . I've swam in a lake before but no more than 500m. So this is a big step up. Open water swim sessions with the tri club don't start till May so I have to nail it in the pool by then.

Second swimming lesson last night - I'm really enjoying them. Would thoroughly recommend it for motivation and technique

Well, after seeing Frog's post about the swimathon I'm seriously contemplating entering the 2.5km...

Do it! Do it! Do it!

I'd love some lessons. Private ones are £60 for 30 mins. Ermm no, but I can't get to the group ones.

Oh shame re. the private lesson - £60 seems a huge amount. Ours are about £18 for 30 minutes privately but actually it's more fun to have a group one. It's also the cheapest way to access the pool very randomly - forgive me if I've gone on about this before - £31 for a monthly swim only membership, £41 for a gym/classes/swim membership or £22 for half an hour lesson a week and anytime access to the pool - go figure.

I am seriously looking at the 5km swimathon - is that crazy? I already know I can do 2km albeit very slowly so for it to be any sort of challenge it would need to be the 5km swim. However, there appears to be a cut off of 3 hours. It takes me 1 hour and 2 minutes to do 2km (see told you it was slow) - allowing for tiredness etc that should still be doable? Plus I have three months of training.

3k done tonight. My pool closes at 8pm but they start shutting up shop at 7.35, which is annoying.

I’ve been workin hard on my major faults - trying to rotate more, so I can engage the larger muscle groups; getting a nice bent arm catch (aiming for about 120 degrees) so I don’t push down on the water; and not dropping my leading arm when I breathe (I can do this on the right side but still notice a weak spot on the left).

I had shoulder pain during my first year of swimming and I think it was mainly due to the straight arm catch. I haven’t had any pain for a while now. Getting the right technique is everything, especially if you are swimming longer distances.

8pm?! That's no good. I often go at 9.30pm (night owl).

I'm all over the place with times at the moment, but forcing myself to switch to evenings. DH will be returning to work soon and I won't have the luxury of the slightly longer work day to go on my lunch break. I'd been working 8:30-5 and taking an hour to go swim, then eat lunch. But I'll have to do 8;30-4:30 to manage kid pick up from nursery and after school club. Will go tonight. My pool is dead quiet after 8 pm.

Everyone gets up super early here. Most pools open at 5.30am and they’ll be chockers at that time. Most people are tucked up in bed at 8pm! Makes it difficult getting a 1-1.5 hour swim in after DH comes home from work at 6.30ish.

Ooh, I’ve found my people! I’ve just started tri club swimming again after a long break. I’ve kept up varying amounts of recreational swimming and after 2 hour long sessions I ventured into the 1.5hr one in the 50m pool, I’m so proud of myself for lasting to the end - 3500m that’s more than I’ve done in one go in over 10 years!!

Arsenicinthesugarbowl, I was like you with front crawl, then I discovered Total Immersion and have never looked back. I'm slow - who cares ? I can go on for ages, length after length, so much so that I'm saving up to spend a week in the Med at a total immersion camp.

It was a total game changer for me. And it's impacted my breaststroke favourably too.

Didn't go last night, the roads were like a skating rink, wouldn't have been safe. It's better today, everything's been gritted now, so I'll try tonight. Frustrating!

1km breaststroke done this morning, in just over 26 minutes. I was really concentrating on my technique and knocked about 30 seconds off my last 1km, even though I wasn't aiming for speed! It felt great as well, such an enjoyable swim today

Happy swimming everyone!

5.30am Corrigans? Our pool opens at 6.15am and that is only on three mornings a week. Welcome DrWhy. No snow / ice for us at all MShip but I couldn't go swimming this morning as my husband is away. Well done Coffee. BuckingFrolicks are you Hissy in disguise?

Not Hissy in disguise! Does she recommend TI too?!

I have a major sore throat and headache and am staying out of the water for a few days, feeling envious of you all clocking up kilometers of lovely swimming.

Any one fancy joining me for this swim?
swimquest.uk.com/river-arun-west-sussex/

Frolicks Is TI a really good work out? It sounds like if you do it well it's not using that much energy.

Yes, Hissy is very keen on TI. She seems to have fallen off the thread though … Get well soon Bucking. Thanks for the link. I'm in West Sussex but I've always been a bit frightened of open water swimming so not sure I'll be joining you! 6.5km sounds far when I usually do 2km. Have you swum in a wetsuit before?

P.S. I forgot to say that when I went swimming on Tuesday I was determined to make up for swimming two lengths too few on Monday (60 instead of 62) so thought I'd do 64. I miscounted ˆagainˆ and ended up doing 66 lengths!

Orig not really a work out, but of course you can make it more so, if you go faster! I do breaststroke too, and backstroke, as the workout elements, but I'm working on distance atm, as my dream (and it's a way off!) is to feel confident about going on this trip: (the Kas trip -
see the video!) www.swimsolutions.co.uk/open-water-swim-camps/

Singing I have swum in a wetsuit but it's not my favourite! The Sussex swim is down river, so you have the river itself sweeping you along ,so nowhere near as 'far' as it sounds. So you could float on your back and still move along...

bucking can you explain the basics of total immersion? I'm assuming you have you whole body submerged but I don't understand why it's so different. Am I being dim?

You all seem so blasé about swimming 1k and more! I'm in awe of all you super duper swimmers!!! Hoping to go again tonight.

singing swimming in a wetsuit (a swimming one rather than a surfing one) is alright, your legs float so front crawl is easier I think. Breaststroke is definitely harder because there's less flexibility in the legs and they just want to float! The hardest thing about open water swimming (once you've got over the temp and being in with pond weed!) is sighting. No lovely line along the bottom to follow.

Can someone talk to me about open water swimming and wetsuits please? I'm supposed to be doing this 10k river swim in September - again downstream so am hoping it's not as hideously arduous as it sounds.

I started open water swimming last year so now regard myself as an expert !

Loved it. My first wetsuit swim was in an outdoor pool, second was a coached lake session, 3rd was a lake race and 4th a splash and dash race (swim and then run).

Happy to answer questions.

Then you are, certainly relative to me, an undisputed expert orig!

What is the best wetsuit for swimming in? I've never had one - only a shorty surfing one for the beach, which is not at all the same thing! I'm not even sure what I'm looking for!

I'm beginning to regret entering this but I feel I need to do all the training and preparation! I will try and do this 5km swimathon in April and if I don't feel confident to do the 10km river swim in September, which may well be the case, I'm just going to pay the £200 charity donation and not beat myself up.