Ironman Swim (and Others)

(Yeah, yeah, I've been TERRIBLE at keeping up with this blog lately. Going to try to turn over a new leaf. I've been using Facebook status updates the last few months to log workouts, but I realize that it's darn near impossible to go back and look at past ones. Facebook Search is FAILED.)

Today, I did my first 4,000 yard (2.27 mile) swim since April. And it was a pretty good one - I completed the near-Ironman distance in 1:21:43. This is more than 2 1/2 minutes faster than my previous "PR while wearing baggy swim trunks" - and I was swimming so well today that I might have been able to break my overall 4,000 yd training PR if I were wearing the swim jammers. Scary! (And imagine the possibilities if the pool had been wet-suit legal :-)

Here are my 500 yd splits:

• 1st 500 yds: 10:35.5 (warming up)
• 2nd 500 yds: 10:13 (better, switched alternating breaststroke/freestyle for the rest of the swim)
• 3rd 500 yds: 10:03
• 4th 500 yds: 9:48 (really cooking here)
• 5th 500 yds: 10:05
• 6th 500 yds: 10:13 (just over an hour for 3,000 yds - not too shabby!)
• 7th 500 yds: 10:27 (getting tired)
• 8th 500 yds: 10:18 (DONE!)

For future reference, here some other recent long swims (have to clear out my watch's lap memory). As you can see I've been steadily increasing the length for my long swims to get back in to Ironman distance.

Friday, 6/25/10 - 3,000 yds in 1:02:31 (almost two minutes faster than last Friday)

• 1st 500 yds: 10:20
• 2nd 500 yds: 10:17
• 3rd 500 yds: 10:22
• 4th 500 yds: 10:30
• 5th 500 yds: 10:31
• 6th 500 yds: 10:31

Friday, 6/18/10 - 3,000 yds in 1:04:28 (slower swim - I never like seeing splits in the 11:00's - but I'll take it after having taken 2 days off)

• 1st 500 yds: 10:47
• 2nd 500 yds: 10:58
• 3rd 500 yds: 11:08
• 4th 500 yds: 10:40.5 (alternating breaststroke/freestyle for this and the remaining sets)
• 5th 500 yds: 10:28
• 6th 500 yds: 10:27.5

Monday, 6/14/10 - 2,500 yds in 52:21 - not too shabby considering it was after the Collin Classic (58 mi bike + 2.5 mi brick run) + Sunday 11.43 mi run

• 1st 500 yds: 10:34 (freestyle)
• 2nd 500 yds: 10:51.5 (freestyle)
• 3rd 500 yds: 10:57 (freestyle)
• 4th 500 yds: 10:05.5 (alternating breaststroke/freestyle)
• 5th 500 yds: 9:53 (alternating breaststroke/freestyle)

Friday, 6/11/10 - 2,500 yds in 54:52 (a bit tired, this is at the middle of a long string of workouts that started on Tuesday)

• 1st 500 yds: 11:03 (freestyle, wow - so slow!)
• 2nd 500 yds: 11:09 (freestyle)
• 3rd 500 yds: 11:22 (freestyle)
• 4th 500 yds: 10:39 (alternating breaststroke/freestyle, faster - but still slower than normal)
• 5th 500 yds: 10:39 (alternating breaststroke/freestyle)