FazerFX’s BodyBlog

For about ten days now, I’ve been doing water therapy to help my injured spine heal. Exercise consists of 20 minutes in the pool using a pair of fins to propel myself around while keeping my arms & head on a flotation board. I refer to this exercise as "Fin-Swim" and normally do half the time on my stomach, which does place strain on my lower back and seems to be causing my erectors to get stronger. The other ten minutes are spent on my back, with my spine getting stretched out while my biceps/forearms contract and get pumped from holding my hands behind my head.

     Since I’m a bit driven to achieve better physical performance, I’ve wanted to add time to my therapy sessions from about day two. Running out of lung power at the 20 minute mark, I was at least happy to see that I’d gone from doing eight 50 yard laps to completing twelve circuits. A fifty percent increase in output was nothing to sneeze at, and I managed to bag 16 laps a few days later. As Fin-Swim sessions piled on with laps hovering at 14 and above, I was not adding minutes to my routine and this was bothering me more and more.

     When I hit the water yesterday, there was only one other person in the pool. This young man (college age) was "Freestyling" at a  good clip and stopping now and then for drinks from a water bottle sporting the logo for the Iron Man race held in Tempe, AZ. After a few non-stop circuits on my part, I came up to "Mike’s" end of the pool while he was checking his times. "Hey! Do you know if this pool is about 20 meters?" I called out. Mike responded that it was actually 25 yards from one end to the other. Pretty soon, I stopped keeping track of total laps, choosing to focus more on time while keeping "25 yards" going through my mind.

     After 23 minutes of Fin-Swim, I was pretty well spent. I had kept a consistent pace with no big bursts of speed or power, but the fuel in my tank seemed about gone. As I was playing with the idea of stopping at 25 minutes and just calling it a day, I noticed that Mike was doing little relays, four to six laps at speed, with short breaks for water/time-checks. I quickly chose to focus on the other swimmer while continuing to kick, much like when I’m looking to bike faster or get to work quicker by "locking-in" on "targets." Without calling out to Mike, I was pretty soon racing him in stealth mode and even managing to pass him. When the young man stopped for his breaks, I took the opportunity to slack a bit and catch my breath. With about 2 minutes left to a full half-hour in the water, Mike and I kicked off from the same wall. Again, I did my best to at least keep up with my imaginary competitor, sometimes drinking his wake, other times splashing water on him with my fins. Whether he noticed me shadowing him or not, Mike suddenly chose to speed up and I just had to follow.

     Water splashing, waves forming, Mike pushed hard, staying about 2 yards ahead of me. Whether the other swimmer was seeking to improve his time or whether he knew I was out to beat him, I didn’t know and it didn’t matter, we were really moving. Though I was starting to get water up my nose, though I could feel my breath laboring, though my legs were starting to fail, I kept at it as hard as I could. Those last two minutes seemed to stretch on forever and yet there just wasn’t enough time for me to quite catch my opponent. In the end, though I came in "last," I managed to get my 30 minutes of Fin-Swim and even did an extra 30 seconds (return lap). So, thank you Mike! Thank you for helping me push myself to be that little bit more, which is what I want and no less than I deserve!

Fazer

-I spoke to Mike after the race, getting his name and thanking him for the motivation.

-All laps of this Fin-Swim session were done on my stomach.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 at 9:39 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.