What a difference YARDS make...

I've been having motivation issues when it comes to swimming lately. I don't want to get in the pool and I am definitely not going to swim in the ocean alone. When I work up the motivation to swim, I get to the pool, swim about 3,000 meters and get out, pathetic I know, but that's all I've been motivated to do lately and that has taken a lot.  I guess it's partly due to the fact that all the open water swims are basically done here for the year, I don't have any races that involve swimming (expect a little sprint tri in a couple of weeks) and it's pretty much marathon and building up the bike focus right now. So I've been swimming 1-2x week and calling that good, that's plenty enough to keep my swim fitness where it needs to be.

Anyways, I think I decided what my problem is.....
I'm a yards swimmer and always have been. So when we moved here almost three years ago (I can't believe it's been that long already!) and all pools were meters, I thought that was a bit crazy so I kind of just stopped swimming. It took me a while to get back into it and once I did LCM didn't seem that bad anymore. I certainly didn't want to race LCM, but finally I decided that it makes more sense to train LCM than yards for longer open water swims. Obviously, the ocean would be ideal. But I'm not a fan you live on an island surrounded by the ocean, get used to it!, I'll do it, but I much prefer being on the pool, swimming yards, so why not just swim yards all the time you ask,? well on this little island it's rare you find a SCY pool, or at least I haven't found one that isn't on the opposite side of the island from me.

Finally, I bit the bullet and start swimming LCM and it wasn't terrible. Over the past year I've been swimming a good amount, 3, maybe 4, but probably 3, times on a good week. So, now that all read most of the pools have switched over to SCM my hours in the pool have drastically decreased, again. I've learned that I absolutely hate despise swimming SCM, it's so depressing : you don't know what your times mean, it takes so much longer to get to the other side, you take so many more strokes per length, etc. Give me LCM over SCM any day. Which brings me to my current problem...pools switched to SCM now.

At the pool on Tuesday, I decided to swim SCY! I don't know why I didn't do this a month ago when the pool switched over to SCM or SCY. I had an awesome swim, super confidence boosting (side note: the old man in the lane next to me asked me how to kick and if he should bend his knees (think 2 year old child learning how to swim, kicking and bending their legs and not moving anywhere) because my kick looked much different from his....you think? You're wearing a flotation belt, fins, and a snorkel to get yourself down to the other end of the pool, I would hope my kick looks a little different from yours, I've been swimming competitively for 20 years (wow 20 years that makes me feel old)! I was very nice to him and helped him out for a little while and he was super appreciative. I think he even got from one side of the pool to the other (25yards) in about 3 minutes, instead of 5 after I helped him!)

With all that babbling I just did, I guess I could have just said, I am a little more excited about swimming today than I was at the beginning of the week. So from now on it's either SCY, LCM (if I can find one or am in the mood to drive to one), or the ocean if I can brave it.

Happy Swimming