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December 13, 2007
Best Average
This morning was masters swim and I have to tell you I got a little lesson in "best average".
The workout started off simple enough - the first 10x100 were varying drills mixed with some hard swimming and some easy. Then came the next 10x100 which were supposed to be done at "best average" on an interval that would give us 40-60 sec rest. Holy cats(!) I thought, that's a lot of rest! This isn't going to be so bad. Hey, I wonder what best average is anyway?
Because you see I don't now what a lot of swimming terms mean. After some thought I decided best average for 10x100 was probably something like the fastest you could swim for 10x100 without dying and slowing down but without holding back and speeding up. Of course I had no idea what that number might be for me but let's not get ahead of ourselves here.
Coach strolled by our lane and told us to swim the 100s on a 2 minute interval. Cool.
So off we go and I swim the first one in 1:14. Now this is really fast for me, especially knowing I have 9 more to go. But I was feeling good and the 45 seconds rest felt like an eternity. I can do this - no problem!
Let's go ahead and fast forward to #5 where my whole body is tingling and all of a sudden 45 seconds is going by a lot faster than previously thought. I'm definitely laboring now and wondering how I thought this was somehow going to be easy?
Coach is really encouraging us to keep it up and I'm still swimming 1:13-1:14s. This is good, very good, hang on just a little longer!
We get to #7 and now I'm having to treat each one like it's the last one. Survivial mode we'll call it. I've been in this place SOOOO many times on the track, so, so many times. But as a relatively new swimmer who is still trying to figure out what the workouts even mean, I haven't been to this place very often in the pool. I know I need a little dose of this every once in a while to push myself to a new, higher level in swimming.
My lane mates and I are all encouraging each other - almost there! (meanwhile down a few lanes there are some crazy real swimmers doing their "best average" 100s in something less than a minute!)
And finally, the last one, in 1:14 high and I am done! Tough workout for sure (arms are still feeling it) and now I know NEVER to underestimate the best average workout, even when a large rest interval is involved!
And so it goes. I still have an hour on the bike tonight which will be done on the trainer considering it's about 34 degrees, raining and pitch dark right now. Let's hope for some good tv to watch!
Posted by beth at December 13, 2007 5:09 PM