Events started today with Tri Smart's swimapoolza at the Core in Lemont. This is the third year I have done it and I have enjoyed each one. You get to choose to swim 100x100 yards, 100x 75 yards, or 100x 50 yards. The intervals go off every 100 seconds. Two years ago I did 100x75 and I felt great the whole time. Last year I started off doing the 100s, but after 67 I had to move down to the 75s. This year I went back and forth with what I was going to do during the week, but when I woke up this morning I decided on the 75s. REALLY GLAD I DID!!!!!!!!! MJ, my awesomely good friend and coach told me yesterday that this was suppose to be fun and do what I wanted to do to have fun. That is great advice for me because there are time when my ego needs to get checked and realized that I do these kinds of events because I have fun, not to prove anything (well sometimes I have to prove something to myself). The reality is that I am not a professional athlete, nor am I going to be a professional athlete. I compete and do events because I have fun with my friends. We laugh, we encourage each other, today we got to catch up on what was going on with each other a little bit.
I got to the Core at 7 to have with some set up stuff. MJ went over the gist of things for swimapoolza and then we got in the water. The way this works is we do 50 of whatever distance you chose, take a 15 minute break, and then do the last 50. The pool is a six lane pool, so there were two lanes of each distance. I made up my mind and got in the lane I wanted to be in. Soon to join me were my friends, Sara, Jenny, Maxine, Liz, BFF (Jim) and a few others. Sara and I were laughing right before we started because the lane next to us was chatting amongst themselves. They were swimming 100s and planned to swim them in 1:15. Oh boy, like I said REALLY GLAD I CHOSE 75s. I might be able to a 1:15 100 out of my rear end one time, but to do the 100 times, no. So we started and I started to lead. I lead the first 25 of the first 50 we did. We'd get to the wall and chat a little bit with each other, then take off for the next interval. Sara lead the second 25 of the first set of 50. We had a pretty consistent pace the whole way. Then it was time for the 15 minute break. During that time we took a picture of everyone there and shared some stories of the first 50 intervals.
Now the break was over and we got back in. I went in front again. We lost some people from our lane to go swim the 50s and then as the second set of 50 was going we gained some people that were doing the 100s. I lead the first 3 and then one of the guys from the 100s asked if he could lead, sure go for it. He lead for a while and then a guy who came in from the 100s asked if he could lead. That was my oh boy moment for the day. I felt bad because I kept swimming up on this guy. I would wait at the wall before taking off, on my turns, anything, but I kept catching him. Finally when we got to start number 85 I asked if I could go back in front, so I lead until 90. With 10 left we had 8 people in the lane, so we decided to take turns leading the last 10 and wow did those go by. After we finished I was a little out of it and figured the showers were going to be packed, so I just say out of the pool, probably looking a little pathetic, but none the less, just coming back into my own. I chatted with my friend Sue for a little bit.
