Swimming with the fishes

No, not in the Sopranos way. : )

I've seen lots of forum posts about the benefits of joining a masters swim group. Now, I'm not going to say it isn't beneficial, but do the benefits hold true for the slow lane?

Jodi and I swam together on Wednesday at masters. We were lucky enough to have the lane to ourselves. I wasn't sure she'd really enjoy swimming with me, because I'm so much slower than her. She definitely pushed me to go harder than I normally would if by myself or if I was in the slow lane. After we finished, I felt like I had a good workout and I think she had a good one too. I forced her to rest more than she normally would have. Aren't we just the ying and yang to each other? : )

Today, I swam in the slow lane, which happened to be several lanes wide, because lane lines were missing. We're like the misfits of class. Some do their own thing, some kind of follow the workout and others do follow the workout but are hopelessly behind the rest of the workout group. The coach puts up an A and B workout with the intention for the whole group to stay together. At Lakewood, the coach would give us slow lane folks a C workout in order to keep the group together, but the CSU coach doesn't pay that much attention to anyone, let alone us slow folks.

Regardless, I am one of the slowbies that tries to keep up with the workout. Today, I did okay. I managed to push myself, maybe not as hard as I would have had Jodi or Matt shared a lane with me, but still more than I thought would happen when I woke up exhausted this morning with a killer headache. Actually, I had a really good swim. I felt like my form was there and I didn't get tired out. I'm still slow, but at least consistently slow. If I can maintain the pace I was holding today for the whole IM race, I will finish it in 1.5 hours. Factoring in draft, maybe faster. Yah, it isn't fast, but it will do just fine. I'll keep working towards that goal.

Maybe I don't benefit as much from masters as those that can keep up with the workout, but I do think I still derive some benefit from swimming with the other fishes. Thanks for sharing the lanes mates!