First Three Swims in 10 Months!

I posted a few weeks ago that we had just joined a gym for the first time since March of 2020 (hmm.... what happened then?), and since then, I've had 3 swims.

ONE: Just over 2 weeks ago, I was literally "testing the waters" to see how my sore shoulder would hold up to swimming. And it went surprisingly OK! I swam 1200 yards total, and did 2 efforts of 200 yards each that were 3:02 and 3:04. I was REALLY happy with those times! I knew that they were faster because I only did 2 (and I did an easy 200 between them as well, so there was lots of rest), but the speed surprised me as much as being pretty much pain-free.

Still... just baby steps as to not over-aggravate something.

TWO: Then last week, we had just gotten back from a few days up north, and I had time to fit in a quick swim. This one was more humbling as I did 2x500 in 8:15 and 8:11 (a total of 1750 yards with warm-up, cool-down, and some kick drills near the end). I can usually get my 500s under 8:00 (and I usually do THREE), and in my best swimming days a decade ago, I could do 3x500 around 7:30. This was to be expected.

But still, the good news was that my shoulder wasn't flaring up!

THREE: Finally earlier this week, I hit the pool for some 200s. It was actually a bit shorter than last week's workout, but it was meant to be HARDER. I did a longer warm-up, then 4x200 in 3:10, 3:15, 3:14, and 3:09 (totaling 1700 yards with everything else). Those times were also expected: a bit on the slower side of average from past 6-8x200 workouts... so quite a bit slower considering I was hashed after doing just 4 of those 200s. I was happy with the first 3:10, and then I REALLY had to work for that 3:14 and 3:09! I was gassed. The bad news is that I felt my right shoulder "flare up" a little during a harder stoke in my cool-down, but then it felt fine the rest of the day.

So 4,650 yards of swimming in 3 weeks is nothing impressive, but I'm happy to be getting back at it. AND happy that my shoulder is mostly OK with it! Hopefully by the end of summer I can be up in the 2,500 yard range for a "normal" swim, but I have some work to do to get there!