Long swims getting real boring (Page 2)

I'm swimming along like a manatee this morning just enjoying the water.  The jocks in the lanes next to me are trying to become the next Michael Phelps and generating some waves for me while they swim butterfly and do drills.  I plod along swimming my freestyle every lap while thinking about yesterday and today and next year and a glimmer of light flashes from the bottom of the pool.  On the next stroke it was gone.  I swim another lap and there it was again! 

I wonder what it could be?  A diamond maybe?  Maybe the facet of a diamond caught the light just right?  Why would a diamond be on the bottom of the pool?  Hmmm, maybe it fell out of someone's ring.  I thought it over.  I could get the diamond and turn it in at the front desk and either I'd be someone's hero for having recovered a family heirloom or I'd tell them if nobody claimed the diamond in 4 weeks, I want it back. 

I swam a few more laps.  I realized I could only catch the light on my 3rd stroke off the far wall.  I thought about it some more and thought it was probably just some piece of trash.  If someone lost a diamond in the pool they would surely come back and scour the pool from end-to-end till they found it.  I looked at my watch and was keeping a good pace and did not want to mess up my interval time by going off on some wild goose chase to the bottom of the pool looking at trash.

My mind went out on the road to an old plantation house that I had drive by for years.  It was a beautiful old southern plantation.  There was a historical marker on the road by the plantation but I'd never had time to stop and read the marker.  Then one day I was riding my bike by the plantation.  I debated stopping.  I didn't want to mess up my ride time.  I was training and keeping track of my pace and stopping to read historical markers was not part of the training!  Finally one day I decided to stop and read the marker.  I learned that the Belle Mina Plantation was build in the 1800s and was originally called Belle Manor or beautiful house but the southern folks, with their southern accents called it Belle Mina.  I could almost hear them. 

And so I resolved from now on, I'd stop and smell the roses!  I'd never get so caught up into time and intervals and mph and pace that I couldn't stop and deviate from the 'plan'.  I swim, bike and run becuase I enjoy swimming, biking and running and really don't like to always think of swimming, biking and running as "training". 

So what was the shiny thing at the bottom of the pool?  Just a piece of trash.  But it coulda been a diamond.....

:-)

thinking about other things...channeling....plantation houses....endurance.... yada yada yada. I have heard it all over the years, and the one thing that is different now than in the long competitive swimming training of my youth is that i have a hell of a lot more on my mind than than i did when i was a kid. I used to get through 8 - 9K workouts without flintching. Now, as an adult / business owner / member of society - i cant get through 200M without thinking about - payroll, or did i miss a meetingh today, or the fifty other trials my staff brings to me on a daily basis.
My answer - swimP3. All of the above coaches and fellow practioners of masacism, may dispute my reasoning. Let me just say this; I train and race, to get further away from the start quickly; not so much to get to the end first. Getting in the water, putting some music in my ears or even an audio book, allows me to, for all tense and purposes, add a fourth element to my tri life - escaping my real life. Try it - and it tucks nicely up in your cap. (hint, hint)  

Break it up by doing a ladder.

100
200
300
400
500
500
400
300
200
100

10 seconds between each set.

Voila, you have swum 3000 meters.  For me, this takes one hour.

I only plan to swim 4000 meters twice during my IM training.  They will both be in open water.

Actually, you don't want to ask me.  I can run on a treadmill for up to 5 hours, staring at blank white wall, thinking about the rhythm of my feet and breath.

I never learned how to do a flip, so my head comes out of the water at each turn.  People watching really helps.

Um, no. I just don't like doing sets over 200 yards. I'll do several sets of 200, no problem. It's not even necessarily a boredom problem. I just don't like them. It's hard to explain. Come see me on descending sets day. I'm too tired to be bored. ;-)

You must have different types of folks at your WA classes than at my gym...   Besides, my gym kicks the lap swimmers out of the pool so that the three WA folks can float around on their noodles...

If you don't want to get bored, focus on your stroke during your swim. Learn about stroke technique and apply it to your swimming. Also sometimes you can just swim your guts out. The biggest problem you will have there is that you might lose count.

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