Yesterday, I swam 1.67 miles in 1 hour. Projecting out, I think I'm looking at a time around 1:30:00. So it doesn't look like I'm improving. :(

I did figure out that I've gotten lazier swimming in a regular pool (not an Endless Pool), because I end up kicking less and don't take powerful strokes. I found that I went faster when thinking about stressful topics and when I was really cognizant of kicking hard and stroking in complete circles with a lot of force. Good to figure this out now.

The standard 5.0 mile loop with CL. Was still a bit tired from Monday's 10.8 miler, so I was a step or two slower than usual.

I'd read that the Vibram Five Finger shoe fosters a better footstrike -- more towards the front of the foot. This is supposedly a big benefit. Rather than shell out for my own pair, on Monday I'd consciously shifted my strike a tad forward in the same old shoes I'd always had. It made my calves sore. It felt kinda interesting, but not faster or obviously better -- not sure if I'll keep it up. Maybe its one of those tips that matters only to those speedy folks who run (as opposed to the jogging and trotting at 8:30+/mi that I do).

To set things straight with my hippo-fans, I'm still just swimmin' along in my mudhole. No running. Just swimmin'. But, Curt here is training for a marathon and has taken over this blog!

Not to be outdone with all this posting, yesterday I swam in a regular pool. Still slow. 1 mile in 34 minutes.

I am running and so can you! I'll be starting to delight the hippoland audience with tales of my running adventures. Working together, Ms. Hippo and I will share the joys of fitness with all y'all better than if we were working alone.

My deal is that I'm (probably) training for the Bay State Marathon on October 19th. I'm training with a buddy. Setting a time to meet him ensures that I get off my butt and run. Without him, on most days I would just sleep in.

On Monday, Gmap-pedometer said I did 10.85 miles, in about 1h41, for an average of 9:18 miles. Today was much more fun than last time I went long. My route.

This swimming business is going ok. Swam in a regular pool yesterday. Kinda an off-day.

0.9 miles in 34 minutes.

That puts me at 91 minutes, without waves and pushing and shoving. I think the Endless Pool at work pushes me to swim faster, so I think I'll spend more time on that.

Thanks for all your suggestions on training. Still trying to work out how I can make this training-business work.

Long swim with Aud today at the local public pool. Aud used to compete competitively and swims a lot (and really fast), so it was great to "train" with her. By train, I mean, she would swim in the fast lane, and I would try to catch up in the lane next to her but alas to no avail.

2 miles in 1:08 hours today, which includes pushing off the wall, so my new goal for the race is to complete it in less than 1:30, which will be a bit of a stretch.

My first long workout day. I went to a regular pool and swam for 1 hour.

The strategy in dealing with walls to slow down, turn and then resume in the opposite direction without pushing off. Unfortunately, because the pool was only 25yds in length, this plan slowed down my pace considerably, as by the time I would get crankin' I would reach another wall again.

1.5mi in 1 hour today. :(

I should try to find a longer pool. In the meantime, does anyone have any thoughts on how I can best simulate an open water swim in a pool? Any comments would be most welcome!

omg--6 comments! woo. Took Fri off and will ditch swimmin' today too.

The swimming treadmill at work is an Endless Pool. It starts shootin water at you, and you start swimmin' so that you won't hit the back wall. It's good for training, because it's really hard to adjust the speed, esp once you start swimming, so it forces me to just keep pace with whatever water it shoots at me.

There are 2 at work, but one of them is leaking water, so there's now a long line for the remaining pool. Because we're only allowed 30 min of use, I'll need to start training in a regular pool for longer time periods.

Man, this swimming-thing is hard. Like with a regular treadmill, the last 5 min are always the hardest, because I'm counting down the seconds, and they go by so slowly.

Tried 2.5 mi/hr for the first 6 min of my swim and croaked. So, I returned to the same pace as yesterday. 2.3 mi/hr for 30 min.

A couple of days ago I was feeling kinda bored and wanted to take on a cool challenge. I'd always wanted to swim in an open water race, the Escape from Alcatraz race in particular. However, given the somewhat recent oil spill and the fact that it'd be a freezing swim, I decided to look for other open water swims.

Hmmm...Hawaii, I thought sounded like a nice warm place, so soon I signed up for the Waikiki Rough Water Swim. This swim is along the lovely shores of Waikiki, requiring no wetsuit, but is also 2.4 miles. I hemmed and hoed about this race for a while, but now my tickets are booked, and I'm all registered. The only problem is that I haven't been swimming for recreation or for competition of late....

If you finish beyond 2:40:00, you don't even place...

Today was my first day in the pool in a long time, and it was an Endless Pool -- i.e. a swimming treadmill. What a weird feeling. At work, we're only allowed 30 min in the pool at a time, but apparently I averaged 2.3 miles/hour for those 30 min, so right now I'm feeling much better about my chances of getting on the board with a time -- any time less than 2:40:00. I think it's still a bit too early, though, to know what time to shoot for.