Swim milestone for real

I keep trying but I truly suck as a swimmer. (Previous entry: swim: freestyle.)

Finally, I feel I've achieved something tangible in the pool: I mile continuous. To help you understand why I'm so enormously proud of this tiny achievement, here is an underwater picture taken with my Olympus 720SW:

(Link to the video clip at the end of this entry.)

I am as horizontal as I can get. But my entire body is under water! I'm a sinker. As a sinker, I have to overcome a lot of extra water resistance. (Compare with a normal swimmer - who, when lying flat, has their butt and head poking up above water. Obviously, water resistance trumps air resistance.)

Another efficiency disadvantage of having to swim underwater (instead of normally) is that to be able to breathe I need to over-rotate and tilt my head a bit to get my mouth above water to suck in air. Basically looking at the ceiling instead of horizontally at the divider.

I only learned to swim a few years and have had trouble banging out the laps ever since.

Technique-wise, I've benefited enormously from advice since my first adult-learn-to-swim class. But progress has been painful slow. Definitely my worst "sport".

Some chronology of my sorry battle with the pool:

1. Needing to breathe every half stroke. Basically thrashing.
2. Swim noseclip era.
   Embarassed to say it took a while until I could swim without it.
3. Wearing neoprene long shorts to aid buoyancy.
   Hey, I was desperate!
   Managed my first 20 laps this way. Only years later, could I manage 20 laps unaided.
4. Bilateral breathing. Every 1.5 strokes.
   A breakthrough. No more thrashing but limited me to 100 meters max at a time before I ran out of breath.
   Managed my first sorta "swimmer's mile" this way with breathing breaks every 100 meters. (See previous post swim milestone.)
   Doesn't really count...
5. Breathing on the right side only.
   Another breathrough. 20 laps unaided finally.

That brings me to this past weekend. I finally achieved my milestone, i.e. 1 mile continuously. I swam 38 laps (76 lengths) or 1900 yds sans breaks. A mile is 1760 yds but I did extra to make sure I didn't miscount.

It was done in a 25 yard pool though. (Theoretically, I should be able to repeat the feat in the main 50 meter pool as well.)

Here is the previously mentioned clip from which the stlll was taken. (Warning: 640x480, 27.5MB.)

My next goal? To swim 1 mile without having the lifeguard come around and ask me if I'm okay :-)

A swim milestone

The word milestone is quite apt here.
Yesterday, I swam a mile. First time I've managed this distance.

Let's do the math. 36 laps of the 25 yd pool. 72 lengths. 1800 yds. That's the closest whole number of laps to 1760 yds = 1 mile.

However, I didn't swim the mile continously. I swam it in chunks of 100 yds (2 laps, 4 lengths). Not so impressive if you can swim properly.

However, you have to bear in mind that I am a truly terrible swimmer despite being a reasonably fit person in other aerobic activities. So despite stopping every 100 yds, this is an crowning personal achievement.

Normally, I last about 500 yds or barely 1000 yds if pushed (i.e. swim with someone). So when Harold, the lifeguard on duty at the MIT Alumni pool asked me how many laps I'd done, and I said 33, he said if you swim 3 more, you have a mile. And he helped me count down the last three laps.

A few tidbits:

• Truth be told, I was inspired to complete the mile by the story of Morris Halle swimming 1 mile each day. And he's 83.
• Curiously, a "swimmer's mile" is typically defined as 33 laps. Now, if you do the math, that comes out at 1650 yds. A wee bit short. So why is that? Turns out, 1650m is 1804 yds. It must have been based on a pool length of 25m/50m.
• Previous blog entry on swimming freestyle: here

Truth be told, I have a ways to go before declaring myself truly able to swim a mile.
MIT has a beautiful and huge 50m pool (at the Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center) as well. Uncrowded:

Depth is 7ft to 14ft. I am not yet capable of doing 100m without stopping in this pool. So I recover after each 50m length.