When is a warm-up not a warm-up?

When its a Bilby's tri club swim session! I finally plucked up the courage to go along to a bilby's swim session. Also, because I had said to H earlier in the week that I would show up. All day various flimsy excuses for not going flashed through my mind however I resigned myself to the fact that I would be there at 6.30pm.

I introduced myself to the coach, Tony, and then asked which of the two lanes was the slow lane. Silly me! Slow lanes! Well, he did point one out as the slower lane but there were several people swimming in that lane who I knew from my previous swim squad and they were anything but slow. Hmmmmm.....

Okay...get in the water....adjust the goggles....look at my watch...suss out the other swimmers.....re-read the instructions on the whiteboard....can't put it off any longer.....c'mon just get going. Swam 100m and then we stopped. Now what? Oh no, 200m of backstroke. I'm not a great swimmer but freestyle is my best stroke so that gives you some idea of what my other strokes are like. And they swim bloody fast - even upside down! I had someone constantly swimming into my feet so consequently I was swimming harder - lactic acid set in like concrete in my arms and legs, I was seeing spots before my eyes, my heart rate was almost flatlining, I was swallowing a lot of chlorinated water and I was not, I repeat, NOT having fun. This was followed by a 200m set of kicking without fins using a pullbuoy as flotation. Now I suck at kicking without fins and so everyone else took off down the lane and I brought up the rear...a long way behind. Finally another 200m set of freestyle - never was I so happy to be swimming plain old freestyle.

Up to this point I was questioning my sanity and asking myself why I couldn't be like normal people and be content with sitting in front of the TV knitting a scarf, reading a book or doing a crossword. H would come over at the end of each set and offer consoling words and a smile - I would grimace in return.

Then something truly wondrous happened in the main set - I could breathe, my arms and legs were working again, my heart rate was returning to something resembling normal and I could keep up with the others. In fact I was starting to enjoy it. It seemed everyone had settled down now and weren't hell-bent on getting from one end to the other in the shortest possible time. I had said at the start that I would only swim for an hour (the sessions go for 1 1/2 hours) and was surprised when it was time to get out. I'll be back, H is forgiven and I will be better prepared for the warm-up session next time!

Stats:
Session - (warm-up) 100m fs; 200m bs; 100m kick; 200m fs; (main set) 3 x 100m on 2.10min; 3 x 200m on 6.30min; 500m on 11min.
Distance - 2km
Time taken - 1 hour


Wednesday morning - easy run
Distance - 6.9km
Time taken - 40.35min
Av pace - 5.53min/km
AHR - 140; MHR - 206
Calories - 367

It was cold - about 6* and I wasn't dressed for it. I was wearing a top with short sleeves and didn't really warm up throughout the run.