Today was my second trip to the pool since I decided to take up swimming again, and I improved myself pretty easily. My last swim was 500 metres, consisting of 5 x 100 metre drills, three laps front crawl and one breaststroke. This time I did 600 metres, consisting of 100 metre drills, all front crawl. That means I was able to add 20% in terms of distance and I also stretched my endurance as I did not need the slower breaststroke lap. I reiterate that swimming is probably the hardest distance/endurance sport I have ever done. When you think about it you are pulling your body through an extremely resistive environment and you can only take in oxygen roughly 10% of the time. No wonder I am always panting at the end of drills.

Data

I love my Garmin Swim watch and it provides a great breakdown of the session.

600 m • 26:11 • 1:46 min/100 m • 34.1 100m/hour •

Source: Garmin Connect

Looking at those statistics is hard to believe that I used to swim for ninety minutes non-stop but that is encouraging. It is just a matter of time and pushing myself further each swim to attain that once again. This was only a 168 calorie swim. I used to burn 1000s! Still, with patience and application it should only be a few months until I can hit the heady heights I previously did. My main challenge regarding swimming is how boring it can be on occasion. Obviously I cannot listen to music or what have you so it is definitely a mental endurance challenge for me.