Swim Smooth II - The Swimmingly

Today was Part 2 of my return to swimming at the Swim Smooth squad. A testing threshold Friday swim session. Always a bit of a test.

Like on Wednesday I wasn't too worried about the swim today since I wasn't putting much pressure on myself to perform. All this week my philosophy with swimming has been, 'get down there and have a swim'. If I fall in a heap I don't see it as a big deal, it is still very early days in my return to the pool. Of course the intent is to ease back before any heap falling occurs, but the main aim is just getting down there and swimming.

Given the lack of expectation, today's swim was another pleasant surprise. Like Wednesday the swim really went better than I was expecting. I am still a lane down on where I would usually swim, but today I decided I felt good enough to lead the lane. Obviously being at the front of the lane means there is no draft and so I knew it could be a bit of a test. On top of that the set turned out to be the classic Swim Smooth Goldilocks session, which is always tough. I consider it to be a bit of a nemesis actually. For those unfamiliar Goldilocks looks a bit like:

• 4 x 100m
• 200m - Baby Bear
• 4 x 100m
• 300m - Mother Bear
• 4 x 100m
• 400m - Father Bear

In today's version of Goldilocks the turn around times for the sets got 2 seconds quicker/100 as we moved through each bear. Solid effort.

Heading into the session I wasn't sure if I would be able to stay at the front of the lane the entire time since my endurance is still building. It definitely hurt a bit doing so, but I managed to survive the whole way through. On top of that I was really happy to see that my times for the session were very consistent. My splits for the 300m and 400m were exactly the same, despite the extra fatigue. Plus my times were a good couple of seconds/100 quicker than I have been doing. Probably about 5 seconds/100 off where I was pre-injury and about 10 seconds/100 off where I would like to get to. As always, still a ways to go, but all up a good confidence boost on my return to swim fitness.

With that session done things have been set up nicely for a good Friday. The day has been a fairly relaxing one so far. I am about to head to the gym and then after that I will be done diddly.

Back into the hills on the bike tomorrow which I am kind of looking forward to since at the moment the forecast is for some lovely weather.