But wait there's more

I had a very nice swim this morning; I worked on long strokes and keeping my stroke count down. After the weeks of having the plague, I’m finally starting to feel strong in the water again. So I swam and swam and kept swimming until I’d finished my laps.

My usual practice is to take off my goggles and enjoy the view for a few minutes after I’m done. You know, catch my breath before getting out of the cozy water and into the 50 degree air. While doing this, the local master’s coach stopped at the wall as part of his intervals. Seizing the opportunity to mess up his workout, I asked him how many yards he’d done since we’d been swimming about the same length of time. It turns out he’d done 1500 in the time that I did 1000. Really not so bad actually.

But then he pulled a quick one on me. He said, let’s do four 50s at a 1:15 interval, except that he did 75 and I did 50. Basically, it was a way to show me how team workouts would help. I had no way to weasel out of it so I said, “sure, what the h3ll”. And like that the red hand hit the 30 and we were off.

I finished the first 50 with about 30 seconds to rest while Bill (the coach) was waiting at the other wall. As I came into the wall for the second 50 I heard something. Yep, it was Bill catching up to me. He just out-touched me and he pointed that out. Hmmm, next one we’d be at opposite ends again so I coasted into the wall though I still had about a 25 second rest. Which I knew I needed because I didn’t feel like losing again.

The clock hit 15, and I took off. As I did my turn, I saw him coming into the wall the other way, I figured I had about a 7-8 yard “lead” on him. Could I hold him off? Well, I’d rather give up breathing than lose twice in less than five minutes so I just put everything I had into it and out-touched him by about a quarter of a body length. But, the point is I out-touched him.

I went back into my “whew, I’m finally done” repose with my goggles on deck before he pointed out that I might want to swim a few more laps to warm down. He then said that we’ll do it again tomorrow and keep going until I can work up to ten 50s at 1:05. At that point, I have to join the team. Sure seems fair to me. I have a feeling I can do ten 50s at 1:15 OK, but it might be hard to lose that extra 10 seconds rest that is needed for the 1:05 interval.

It never ends.