Real Swimming Prep

I've mentioned several times that since I developed a stress fracture in my foot, I've wasted no time getting into the pool. It was time for a change. And swimming has definitely been that! I miss being out on my favorite trails, especially as the leaves start to change. But I have to say, swimming has more perks than I expected. For example, I can eat lunch and then go swimming without getting so much as a  stomach ache. If I ate even a banana just before running, I would often have actual acid reflux. But I guess swimming doesn't jostle all that food around the same way. I wouldn't eat a whole pizza before swimming, but I don't have to schedule my life around my work outs.
Also, the weather doesn't effect my work out. Thunder storm? Snow storm? Super cold? No problem, I swim inside. There has been one notable exception to this, of course. The week before we left for Indiana, the pool at UWO and the other large aquatic facility near us both closed for maintenance, so I decided to try the Thames Park Pool - a 50 meter, outdoor pool also fairly close to our house. Luckily it was pretty warm that week, and the Thames Park Pool is totally great. It seemed like every triathlete in town was there because their usual swimming spot was closed and the atmosphere was really friendly and nice.

For my birthday I received two Amazon gift cards and I spent them both on pool toys:
a new TYR mesh bag with pockets so that my wet stuff can breath; swim paddles (for pulling drills); a new pair of Speedo Vanquisher goggles; and, not shown, a new Speedo and a new TYR swim suit. I love everything except the goggles. For some reason I have trouble finding goggles that don't leak - and yes, they are super tight, and yes, I push them into my eyes to make a vacuum seal. For some reason water still gets in during my flip turns. It's not a huge deal and I want to just find away to adjust them properly. It's still nice to have goggles that aren't 15 years old.

I had a little shoulder pain last week, so Massage Therapist Sam suggested that I back off the distance and add some stretches to my warm up. The pain is virtually gone, but I did ease off on the over all distance. It's not like I'm training for a race or something, so I decided to take it easy. I just need to get back in shape in time for Triathlon Club to start. 

I've had a lot of luck with this site: 100 Swimming Workouts and I'm especially a fan of their intermediate work outs. I like this one with the 25 meter windsprints and the 400 IMs. I enjoyed this one that focuses on breast stroke and freestyle. This site also shows the total distance of the work out so it's easy to plan how much or how little you want to do. I gradually increased my distance with work outs like this one until I reached one that totaled 3000 meters. But then my shoulder was unhappy with that and I reduced to between 2000 and 2500, 3-4 times per week. Between the reduced distance and real stretching (and a whole new level of pain in my massage therapy sessions), my shoulder is doing fine and I've been able to start building distance again.
It will be nice to have some real structure once the Triathlon Club starts so that someone else can come up with the work outs. Until then, it's nice to be back in the pool. As my high school swim team used to say, "Fast girls have good times."