Swimming Speeds

[a_cubed]

Catching up on a bunch of blogging here. Sorry for the post-spam in your friend filters on LJ or your RSS feeds.

I seem to have levelled up in my swimming the last couple of weeks. I’ve hit a personal best three times in a fortnight and come pretty close to it a couple more. Unless there’s a problem (usually getting into the pool late during the 55 minute slot and having to stop at n:55 and either splitting my set or giving up partway through) I do 50 lengths (of a 25m pool). Mostly since I moved to 50 lengths I manage to do it in under 30 mintues, though sometimes if I’m tired (not enough sleep) or have done a lot of other moving around that day I’ve been over the 30 minutes or feel bloated because of swimming too soon after eating (anything less than 90 minutes and I’ll be a bit slow). Lately I’ve been hitting under 28 minutes even when I feel a bit slow and my personal best is no 26:38. I’m usually one of the fastest in the pool, though there are people slightly faster around sometimes. Some of them are faster on individual lengths but they take breaks whereas I just keep going through unless there’s a problem (either with overtaking or when a pair of goggles are losing their seal). The other day, though, there was a young chap who was almost twice as fast as me over one length. He was probably doing 5:3 or better. He was taking some breaks and when doing crawl was using a float between his thighs but even so he was impressively fast and it looked effortless. I was so envious. I may look like I’m putting in less effort that I am doing, to others who are slower than I am, I suppose, but this guy was just impressive. Still, I think 50 lengths in 26:38 isn’t bad going for a middle-aged guy.

Current Mood:  thoughtful

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Comments

[clarehooper.livejournal.com]

Dude, that's speedy. I usually do 40 lengths (of 25m) when I swim -- I haven't been making an effort to time myself, but I take around 26 - 30 minutes I'd say. (I waste a minute halfway through when I pause to hyperventilate before a length under water, but still!)