Hi guys! I haven’t gone into a whole lot of detail about my injuries lately. I will get an update up. But the short version is that I’m injured. I had surgery in May 2018, and spent 4 weeks with limited mobility, first on crutches and then in a boot. Finally, at my 4 week post-op check in, the doctor said I could ditch the boot and start swimming and doing yoga. Yoga is good and fine, and I purchased a month pass to my local yoga studio, but maybe now is the time that I work on improving my swim!
My background with swimming is pretty light. I have always been envious of my friends that were on swim team as kids or teenagers. I played in pools when I was younger. I could doggy-paddle. I was always a loser when it came to playing Marco Polo. In my early 30s, I got a tri bug, and I took adult swim lessons at my community center. I became a person who can swim. I’m slow, my form sucks, but I got it done. To date, my longest swim has been just under a mile, for the Pinehurst International Triathlon in 2012.
Since my last tri in 2012, I have kept swimming in my backpocket. I didn’t do any swimming at all for the 18 months I lived in California. From 2015 – 2017, while in lived in OK, I did try to swim, but only once a week, if that. I didn’t really have an gains while I was there.
Alright – so currently, all I am cleared for is swimming and yoga. So, it’s time to put some energy into swimming. But I need a plan! I scoured the internet (meaning I googled and looked at the first four to five pages of search returns). One big thing surprised me: I didn’t find a whole lot of ‘plans’ out there for swimming. Sure, there is the standby of 0 to 1650 – which promised to get you to a mile in 6 weeks, but there aren’t many variations of that. Not when compared to the plethora of options for runners with free plans to get you to a 5K, a 10K, a half marathon, a full, dang, and ultra – all the things. On the US Masters Swimming site, there is a plan for a summer program to get you a 2K swim, but you need to be a member of the USMS (which is 50+ bucks), and at this point, I’m not sure what it gets me (as in, what’s the benefit). There are various sits that list singular masters swim workouts – but they aren’t building me towards anything. And to be honest, I think I need to get up to a certain level before I can start knocking out the posted masters swim workouts.
I did find a 4 week plan published by Women’s Health Magazine that seems about my speed. So, here is where I’m starting: 3 days a week for 4 weeks, which should tide me over until the doctor clears me for more activity. It should also improve my swimming so maybe I can tackle those published masters swim workouts.
Where am I now:
- Most of my swims are 800 to 1500 yards
- I can swim a 100 yard crawl in about 2:10 (today’s fastest was 1:57)
- Not consistently swimming each week
I’ll check in with progress in a week or two.
Edited to add in: I just found this random plan – Swim Training for a Half Ironman – it may be a good thing to graduate to once I finish the four weeks above.
wonderjess 