Swimming time

So, I know I said I would post tomorrow. I'm making myself into a liar. Well, not so much a liar, since I do hope to post tomorrow, but more overeager than anything.



Ok, onto what this is supposed to be about. I was reading through the first post and realized that my swimming time really, really sucks. I thought it was just bad in comparison to actual swimmers, since I was a lifeguard for the better part of the last 10 years and was surrounded by good swimmers.

But, I just remembered that I would swim a mile occasionally when I worked at the IU Natatorium and it took me about an hour to do that. 1 mile=roughly 1600 meters. This was, geez, four years ago? Has it really been that long? Ok, three and a half, since it's technically the beginning of 2009. So, swimming a mile took me 60 minutes to do before and now an 800 is taking me 40 minutes. That's an extra 10 minutes per 1/2 mile. If I were to swim a mile, it would take me 80 minutes now. That really bugs me, which is why I'm writing about it. I'm going to pretend that it has something to do with the Nat being one of the fastest pools in the world (no joke, look it up) and thus, the water is about 10 degrees cooler than the water at the gym. I know it really does have something to do with speed, but I don't think it would make a difference of 20 minutes per mile. I'm going to pretend it does, though. :)

I'm also going to pretend that it has something to do with the fact that I don't fit into my old bathing suit very well and have to keep yanking it up as I swim so that the little kiddos in the pool don't get a free show. I dug out another one of my bathing suits out of the laundry and washed it. It fits better than the one I've had to wear. We'll see if it makes a difference.



So...
Goal: swim a mile in at most an hour at the gym.
Deadline? Hmmm. How about by June.

That gives me three and a half months to shave 20 minutes off my time. I'm going to up the pace a notch on Friday and only swim 800 and see how long it takes me. I may be just pacing myself too slowly.