100s in the Pool!

I've now done 7 swim workouts in the last 8 weeks after not having swam a stroke for 18 months. I figured it was time: I was ready to crank out some 100s in the pool!

I didn't want to jump to this TOO quickly after getting back to swimming as the speed (and therefore potential to throw decent form out the window) made me concerned I could hurt my shoulder. But after no shoulder issues in any of these previous swims, I was ready to do a shorter 100s workout of 10x100 with 0:30 rest between.

I was in Cooke 15 at the U of M, which is an old "deep water pool:" it's 7-10 feet all the way across, it has no ledge to stand on along the wall, and the wall is very high on either end of the pool so you can't even really hold on to the top (but there are 2 handles to hold on to). Here's an old photo of Cooke 15, and you can kinda see the big wall at the other end that sticks up 2 feet from the water:

What I'm trying to say is that's is a brutal pool for doing harder/shorter intervals. It was hard to rest. But that's not a complaint - I'd happily do 100s there again.

I felt really good in my first one, and it was 1:26. Nice!

Then #2 still felt OK, but was down to 1:28.

Then #3 was 1:29.

And #4 was 1:30.

"OK, this hurts now, but you've got to stop bleeding time!" I fell into a rhythm and swam the next 5 within 2 seconds of each other: 1:26-1:28. And I was able to drop a bit more time on the final split. Here were my 10 splits:

1:26.54, 1:28.70, 1:29.94, 1:30.96, 1.28.00, 1:28.07, 1:26.28, 1:26.75, 1:27.12, 1:25.41

= 1:27.78 / 100 average

I didn't know what I could do going into this workout, but I was hoping to keep the average under 1:30. So that's not bad! (For me. I think.)

I looked back in my training log, and it's been 24 months since I did 100s. In Novemeber of 2019, I did MORE 100s (15x100 instead of 10x100), and I finished with a 1:26.47 average that I noted was "FAST!" So I'll see if I can keep the speed up while I add more and more 100s to the workout. :)