swimming

Swim day. While the kids had their lessons, I went over to the deep pool and swam some lengths. I had less than a half hour, so I swam pretty hard. I managed 600 before I headed over to the nearly empty hot tub. I haven't done a hot tub post-swim in a long time. Usually I swim later, and by that time the hot tub is packed. Not only was the hot tub nearly empty, I had the entire swim lane to myself.

Tuesday I zipped down to the pool for a quick swim. In a half hour I managed to do at least 800M. It may have been more, but at one point my mind wandered and I lost count for a minute.

Of that 800M I did 200M using the kickboard. The kickboard is a lot of leg work, and very tiring. It also feels extremely slow compared to a front crawl.

The best part about the swim? Room. There were three swim lanes open, and I had a lane all to myself for most of my swim. Beauty.

Tuesday night was my swim night. I walked down to the pool after dinner, and what a perfect evening to be outside. The warm springtime air was energizing.

The pool was pretty busy, but the one open lane wasn't too clogged. It was pretty funny to watch the people taking scuba lessons though. Swimming along with a diver below me was pretty weird.

In total I swam 1000m. I even used a kick board for the first time for 200m of that 1000. Tiring swim, but good for the body.

Lat Tuesday I hit the pool for another swim workout. I am feeling pretty good in the pool, but now I want to work on my leg strength, so I think for my next swim I will grab a board and just kick for a few hundred metres. This particular swim though I manged 800.

After the swim I felt the delicious drained feeling. My body certainly got a workout. I've decided that I also want to learn how to do the flip turns. Of course, after seeing Rick Mercer try them, maybe I will hold off a bit

On Friday I managed to get onto the trainer for a hard workout. After a five minute warmup, I alternated pushing a hard gear at slow RPM's with a 1 minute recovery window. That sure got the heart rate up, but at the end of it, I didn't feel like I had done much work. I should have ridden longer, but unfortunately that was all the time I could squeeze in.

Yesterday, while in Nanaimo, Sue and I got out for a nice ride. We took the parkway trail from Mom's house and headed south. I pushed a pretty hard gear as much as I could. My goal is to build up my legs strength in training, then when the Tour de Victoria is on, I can run in a lower gear with higher RPM. We'll see how that plays out.

As we went through Colliery Dam Park, I thought my bike felt a little off. I glanced at the rear wheel and thought it looked a little low. Sure enough, it was going flat. We emerged from the park, and I set about fixing it. With no spare tube (I had to put the spare on my bike earlier), I patched the hole, and used my CO2 to fill the tire.

Thankfully the patch job held or I would have had to call someone for help. The weather for the ride was pretty nice too. I was glad the rain held off, and we even had some sun along the way.

Some time when in Nanaimo, I'd love to figure out some nice roads to ride on so we can get off the parkway trail. It's OK, but there are some brutally steep sections, and isn't really that scenic.

Last night I went swimming for the first time in a

while. The plans was for a family swim. One parent does a workout, while the other plays with the kids, then we switched.

The plan worked out well. The kids had fun, and both Sox and I got our swim in.

My problem was that I ate dinner too close to when I swam, and I didn't feel very good for most of the swim. Still, it felt good to be in the water, and I managed 700m.

Post swim, while sitting on the couch, the whole body tired began to settle in. It is a good feeling that I get from swimming, and from mountain biking (sometimes). I still feel some muscles this morning.

This is the start of my Tour de Victoria training for 2012. Woohoo!