Lucky Saturday

My kid’s school pool is located right next door. Maybe, if I walk the long way, it is 500m from my house. Maybe. Point is: it is nice an close. Unfortunately, the hours aren’t the greatest. Open for lap swim Tuesday and Thursday evenings 7-9pm. And one Saturday a month for four hours (“Family Splash”), unless a swim meet is happening.

I’ve learned to live with this by using the tiny Russian pool at the embassy as often as possible. It distorts my time being 50 feet, 4 inches per length, but I’ve learned to live within those confines. After all, I completed my first 10K after training in that tiny pool. I’ve done as many as 330 laps straight in that pool. Left a little dizzy, but prepared for the Dart 10K.

I’ve started lifting weights again with the wife. I’m getting back slowly. I mean, really slowly. The program I’m following does everything for you in its app. All I have to do is bring it up and it’ll tell me how much to lift. The program allows one to input weights one’s already lifted in the past, but I didn’t want to do that. All I have records for are from two years ago when I was prepping for Issyk Kul. There was no way I would be able to do those weights again.

But what that’s meant was that I look like a weakling, especially next to my wife’s lifts. She jokes with me that I started the program on elderly grandma mode. But it’s true. I’ve “moved up” to squatting 27.5kg 5 x 5. Yes. You read that right. But I’m keeping faith that the program will have me stronger and lifting heavier before this summer’s double attempt in Kyrgyzstan.

Why does this matter to swimming? Well, as we walked by the pool office on the way to the gym, my daughter’s coach saw me and struck up a conversation. (I think I mentioned this before, but he and I went to high school oh so many years ago, as it turns out, only about 5 miles from each other!) He asked if I’d come to swim. I was confused as today wasn’t a Family Splash (Saturday mornings they conduct Learn to Swim classes). He brushed that off and offered “We’re here till 1pm. Get some laps in.”

What a lucky break! I had no intention of swimming, or rather no expectation of being able to swim. All I had on were my workout shorts; no goggles, cap or anything. My weights workout took less than 30 min, then I was back at his office, making sure I heard his offer correctly, and borrowing a couple pair of goggles. I managed to get a nice 5k workout in! (500 w/u then 1000, 1500, 2000 LSD.) The workout shorts kept riding up my butt and the goggles weren’t what I was used to, but I didn’t care. Such a nice unscheduled swim and a precedent that I hope is set. So much so that next Saturday I will just happen to bring my “quick swim” bag!

2 thoughts on “Lucky Saturday”

    1. Hey Kelley!

      I’m using Strong Lifts 5×5. I like it so far, but it’s only been 2 weeks. We’ll see how much I like it in a couple months when I’m hitting my personal bests from two years ago! 😉

Leave a Reply to ironmike Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *