gasp, and a surprise

Date	Place of exercise	Duration (min)	½ lap breast stroke, ½ armless backstroke	Start time
3 Sep	Ridge Pool	32	5 laps; 10:40.82 5 laps; 10:08.48	7:50
4 Sep	Ridge Pool	35		8:05
5 Sep	Ridge Pool	38	5 laps; 9:48.79 5 laps; 9:37.81	7:51

On the 5^th I had an interesting experience.  As usual when I begin a new bit of timed exercise, I begin with a comfortable pace to set myself a goal that is attainable, and not outlandishly difficult. So the goal for the “½ lap breast stroke, ½ armless backstroke” was set at 2 minutes.  Obviously, 5 laps at this pace would be 10 minutes. 

As you can see above, I failed in my efforts to achieve this not-too-lofty goal on the 3^rd.  During the first 5 laps, I met the challenge on the 5^th.  After getting out of the pool and doing some arm exercises and such in an effort to heal my shoulder, I got BACK in the pool for another 5 lap, effort.  The first lap was completed in 1:51—well under the 2 minute mark.  I swam the next three laps comfortably, but not stressing myself, confident that I was on pace for less than a 10-minute complete circuit.  After 4 laps, I leisurely looked at the time—to my dismay, it showed 8:13!  I would have to totally bust my butt trying to finish in less than 1:47.  Was it even worth the try? 

“Yes,” I quickly decided.  I will give it my all.  I immediately, pushed off from the edge and began the quickest breast stroke of my life.  My head was popping up and down like a bobbing cork in a turbulent sea. 

“Fooo, hah, fooo, hah, fooo,” I exclaimed. The breast stroke is really cool in the fact that you don’t really have to think about breathing. At one point in each stroke, the head goes above the water. We kick out the air below at another natural movement in the stroke. This makes it different than the crawl during which we must turn our head at one point during the stroke in order to move the mouth out of the water. 

As I turned around at the other end and kicked off, beginning the arm-less backstroke, two glasses of water found their way into my mouth.  I sputtered and gasped and moved my legs out of reflex. Now I had to decide immediately if I should simply cough it out and stop the effort, or maybe I should cough it out and keep going.

“Keep going!!” the puritanical Catholic in me says.  So I cough several times, let it go, cough some more.  I put the experience out of my mind and start my legs moving like pistons.  At the end, I am again surprised, this time quite pleasantly, to see that I have succeeded in the 2-minute lap.  Not only 2-minutes, but 1 minute and 24 seconds!  The biggest thing that this tells me is that I am constantly sandbagging my way around the pool.  I could definitely swim much faster.