Huh, swim different....

So, first swim last night since August. I slacked off with the whole City of Toronto strike, and then started focusing more on my running for all the road races I was doing. Given that my first triathlon of the season kicks off in 5 months I figured it was time to get in the water again! The pool at the Swansea community centre (which is attached to the Swansea public school if that gives you any insight on size and quality here) was actually reasonably empty. The fast lane had 4-5 people in it, which was completely acceptable for me, we were all about the same sort of pace also which helped. The slow lane emptied out early and apparently I was the only one who noticed, so got an entire lane to myself for the last 15 minutes of the swim. It would appear that anyone who made a New Year's resolution to swim wasn't there last night, or has given up on their resolution already - the lifeguards looked very bored - one of them took to singing while watching us all swim back and forth... What I did notice on this swim though was that with the changes in my body composition swimming is different. The obvious change is a lack of buoyancy - my legs were falling... what's this, I have to kick?! You're kidding right!? I'm noticing my strength in my pull as well though, so I suppose it all evens out in the end! Either way it was still a good swim, but I still don't find swimming to be a high cardio exercise for me - even on the 50m sprints I threw in at the end of the swim my heart rate was only getting up to about 70% of it's peak. It's good to know though, as it should mean I'm potentially a bit fresher getting out of the water for the bike on a race... theoretically... we'll see!

I had my personal training session this morning also - lots of work on dead lifts... so every muscle in my body has given up working for the rest of the day now! I do have a brag though - our gym runs a challenge of the week and posts the results for everyone. I did this week's challenge right at the end of my session - yes, after all those dead lifts, and a whole routine of boxing drills. The challenge was a standing jump for height (then calculated out based on your height and body weight), then followed by a 500m row for time. My jump was ok - we all know I don't do up in any way shape or form, but here's the brag - I smacked the 500m row! My session is right at the end of the week, so pretty much everyone else has gone before me - the best time so far this week was 1:58 - I did 1:53. Pretty damn pleased with that - I don't think I've ever won a weekly challenge... too bad there's no prize!