Two days swimming 2000+ meters, must be time to write about swimming. My shoulders hurt, but not in a bad way. They used to hurt in a bad way after my 10 years off from playing basketball consistantly, then picking it up again. I went to the doctor and the doctors told me there was nothing wrong, get some exercise. Well, I took that advice, folded it up and put it in the drawer and stopped playing basketball again. Two years later, started playing basketball again, shoulders started hurting again, went to the doctor again, doctor said nothing wrong again, but when I told him, "Dammit, there has to be something wrong, my SHOULDERS FRIGGIN HURT!!", so he looked some more. Eventually he let me know I have multi-directional destabilized shoulder joints. Basically, when I do something fast, or with pressure with my arms, my shoulders pop out of the socket and then pop back in. It usually happens with someone who has a dislocated joint for a bit, and the tendons are all stretched out. Solution: Exercise. I did some stability exercises in physical therapy, then folded that up and put it in the drawer again. A year later and very fat (260 lbs for a 6'1") I decided to change my life and get fit. Swimming has been the best exercise for my shoulders because I can go as fast as I want, while not pushing hard enough to pop my shoulders. I get sore from doing big workouts, but have not popped them enough to be more than a little uncomfortable for more than 24 hours. Anyway, here I am, doing 500+ (because i am not sighting so well) in about 15-16 minutes apiece, 4 times in a row with about 60sec rest between. I am hoping to get them down closer to 10 minutes by the end of the summer.
I commented on another blog about reasons to do an Ironman race, and I thought I might mention it here as well, in case you missed the other post. I had a poster on my wall when i was in high school, of one of the IM Kona starts from the 80's. It had all the IM distances, and I looked at the poster and wondered what those people must be thinking. I wonder now what they did to get to where they were. They did not have fancy drinks or gels or gu or anything. I ran 4 miles last night in 37 minutes. That is 9:15 per mile. I do not think I could string 6.5 of those together to make a marathon at this point, much less do that after swimming over 2 miles, and biking 100+ miles. I am having troubles thinking I can put my 56 mile bike after a 1.2 mile swim and then running 13 miles. - in September! The swim I can do now. I will not struggle with that one. The bike is going to be hard, but not impossible. Volume on my long ride this week is 40 miles. 2 day volume for thursday and Friday of this week is a total of 65 miles. I think at the end of Friday's 40 mile ride I will have a good idea what my time will be. If I am riding at my pace for the 40 then that should be my average time for the 70.3 distance at this point. I may be able to improve it some, but that may give me an idea.