Cally Pool
Cross Training - Swimming
50 lengths/1.25km in 40 minutes
Ah chlorine: the perfume of champions!
It's been a while I must say - in fact, this is the first time I've done lengths like that in a pool since the third year of university when Caroline and I used to haunt the Barbican centre pool on weekday mornings. Back then I used to manage 50 lengths, so that was my target for this evening's session. Am I as fit as I was 8 years ago?
Well, yes, but that's not difficult given I was a slacker student back then, whose main interests were lying in bed and dodging lectures (two hobbies which, happily, complimented each other).
The set up was simple enough. The pool was split into lanes - slow, medium and fast. I slipped into the medium lane which seemed to occupied by slow swimmers to embaressed to swim with the old ladies to my left and fast swimmers who couldn't cut it in the lane to the right (and, presumably, also got some kind of kick out of ploughing down the middle of the lane at twice the speed I could manage).
My technique was awful - I splashed all over the place, no doubt annoying everyone else in the pool with my lanky frame and awkward motion. It is not the first time I have looked an idiot for this cause and I doubt it will be the last.
All in all it was a pretty mediocre experience. Swimming is monotonous. When you are running, you are out in the fresh air, you can listen to music, see the cityscape change around you, watch a multitude of people coming and going about their daily lives. In Cally Pool, the only thing you can see are the wrinkles on the feet of the person kicking in front of you.
Still, it was a good workout and, according to the Cool Running calorie counter, burned a nifty 500 calories. I can certainly feel it in my arms as I write this. It was also forgiving on my knee, which is still quite painful. I doubt I will do it often, but swimming as a training option is here to stay.
In a shameless attempt to add wit to this entry, I Googled "swimming quotes" and was suprised to find there are plenty out there and from an array of sources including Mark Twain, Bob Marley and former US President Lyndon B. Johnson. I'll leave you with my favourite, from American humourist Jack Handy. Hats off to Jack, this one is a winner:
50 lengths/1.25km in 40 minutes
Ah chlorine: the perfume of champions!
It's been a while I must say - in fact, this is the first time I've done lengths like that in a pool since the third year of university when Caroline and I used to haunt the Barbican centre pool on weekday mornings. Back then I used to manage 50 lengths, so that was my target for this evening's session. Am I as fit as I was 8 years ago?
Well, yes, but that's not difficult given I was a slacker student back then, whose main interests were lying in bed and dodging lectures (two hobbies which, happily, complimented each other).
The set up was simple enough. The pool was split into lanes - slow, medium and fast. I slipped into the medium lane which seemed to occupied by slow swimmers to embaressed to swim with the old ladies to my left and fast swimmers who couldn't cut it in the lane to the right (and, presumably, also got some kind of kick out of ploughing down the middle of the lane at twice the speed I could manage).
My technique was awful - I splashed all over the place, no doubt annoying everyone else in the pool with my lanky frame and awkward motion. It is not the first time I have looked an idiot for this cause and I doubt it will be the last.
All in all it was a pretty mediocre experience. Swimming is monotonous. When you are running, you are out in the fresh air, you can listen to music, see the cityscape change around you, watch a multitude of people coming and going about their daily lives. In Cally Pool, the only thing you can see are the wrinkles on the feet of the person kicking in front of you.
Still, it was a good workout and, according to the Cool Running calorie counter, burned a nifty 500 calories. I can certainly feel it in my arms as I write this. It was also forgiving on my knee, which is still quite painful. I doubt I will do it often, but swimming as a training option is here to stay.
In a shameless attempt to add wit to this entry, I Googled "swimming quotes" and was suprised to find there are plenty out there and from an array of sources including Mark Twain, Bob Marley and former US President Lyndon B. Johnson. I'll leave you with my favourite, from American humourist Jack Handy. Hats off to Jack, this one is a winner:
"If you go parachuting, and your parachute doesn't open, and you friends are all watching you fall, I think a funny gag would be to pretend you were swimming." ~Jack Handy
posted by Jonathan @ 11:37 PM
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