Trying New Things

This has been a week of firsts. On Sunday, I swam my longest continuous time and distance. Yesterday, I received by first massage by a massage therapist. Today, I flip turned every time at the deep end of the pool while swimming.

I've already blogged about the long swim so this is old news. The massage occurred because of Steve. My left calf has been bothering me since I ran in New Orleans. It has bothered me enough that a run with Steve was cut short last Thursday, and after consulting with Steve, I did not run on Sunday or Tuesday as scheduled. Steve wanted me to see Andrea to work on my calf. Being a procrastinator, I did not immediately call Andrea. Fortunately, she called me to set up an appointment.

It didn't take long for Andrea to find the problem. It hurt, but not too bad, as she worked on the left calf. Afterwards, she had me wear the Normatec pants for fifteen minutes of additional treatment. The pants basically have a bunch of air bladders that are systematically filled with air to compress the legs, which is suppose to help circulate fluids through the legs. After the massage and Normatec treatment, my legs both felt better. The left calf was a little sore later in the day but much better today. I may need to add periodic massages to my schedule.

Finally, today was a 45 minute continuous swim. After practicing flip turns on Monday and Tuesday, I decided to do this swim with flip turns every time at the deep end and open turns at the shallow end. There were some ugly ones at the deep end but every turn was a flip turn. It is a work in progress but I am getting closer to trying flip turns at both ends.

Quick Update

It's been pointed out to me that it has been some time since I've blogged. In fact, there have been no entries since last year. In the next few days, I'm going to try to do some posts about my trip to New Orleans and Mexico.

As for training, it is going okay. Yesterday, I did a 4K swim. This was the longest time and distance that I have ever done for a swim. I felt good at 3K. At 3,300 meters, I started to feel fatigue in my arm and back muscles. The last 700 meters were a struggle to complete. However, I did it, and I'm looking forward to the next long swim scheduled for March 1: a 5K.

Today was another swimming day. I was scheduled for HR Masters but I didn't go because I stayed in Arvada. Actually, I have not made it to any scheduled Masters workouts. I don't feel ready to swim in a Masters group yet and the 5:15 am start time makes it even less appealing.

With no specific swim workout, I was inspired by watching Doreen work on flip turns after the swim yesterday to work on flip turns today. It went better than I expected, and I'm looking forward to working on them again tomorrow. At the next long swim, I want to do flip turns at least every other 5o meters.