I went for a swim this morning.  I really enjoy starting my day with a swimming session.  I did 2 x 100 warm up, 1 x 1500 main swim, 1 x 100 cool down.  I had the bright idea to use my Garmin 310xt to count laps, get lap times and average lap times.  So during the main swimming session (1500 yards), I hit the “Lap” button on my Garmin every time I did a round trip (every 50 yards).  Everything was working fairly well.  I hit the lap button after touching the wall.  Since I can’t do flip turns, it was a bit of a clumsy move.  However, I was getting it done.  Now I had a way to count my laps.  The only problem is that my Garmin’s battery went dead around 300 yards into the session.  Drat!!!

The good news is that it did count my laps and gave me average lap times.  My 50 yard average was 55 seconds (which gives me 1:50 per 100 yards).  I am not sure if that is good or bad because I don’t know what a good time is for 100 yards.  I wish it would have worked for the entire swim because it really does not tell me if I can sustain that time on a long swim.

I am built for power, not speed.  Especially when it comes to running.  I am the “slow” athlete.  So it would be nice if I can become somewhat fast in something.  Maybe I can work on the swim.  About 16 years ago a friend of mine who was the same age as I am now used to swim every single day.  He was dedicated and consistent.  I remember thinking that swimming was such a great exercise for an old guy.  Now I am that old guy and I find that I enjoy swimming.  I must admit that after my body took a beating from the marathon training.  The non-impact training that swimming provides works well for me.  I guess it is because I was never an endurance athlete.  Up until a couple years ago I was that meat head weight lifter gym rat that you see in your local gym.  I was actually pretty good at it.  During my military days I actually competed and won lifting contests.  I could never go back to that sort of training.  I may get flamed by the lifters, but the only thing weight lifters can do over other fitness enthusiast is lift heavy stuff.  It is not really an athletic workout.  I perfer P90X and Tabata style workouts.  I still like to lift, but now I enjoy mixing it up with cardio and endurance workouts like, well, swimming, cycling and even running (which I don’t do so well).  I think it is a much more athletic approach.  Besides, I don’t know how long my body could have taken that heavy lifting.

This video is nuts! Actually, it’s about nuts.