Diving In

I'm trying to get back into the whole, eat healthy and exercise thing. Living in New Orleans can be hell on your waist line and the humidity doesn't lend towards wanting to do anything outside. BUT this August I decided to take the plunge (this is going to punny in a minute, trust me) and join a gym with not one, but THREE swimming pools. It has seriously been the best decision I have made for my health in a long time. What can I say? The Prodigal's son has returned home. Here is why I say that..

 To say that I grew up in an aquatic family would be an understatement. Just to give you some background on my family and their connection to large bodies of chlorinated water check out this blog I wrote a while back  Here's the Nostalgia. 

To summarize for you who are too busy or too lazy to click through and check out that old blog, my mom was a highly trained competitive diver through college and my dad was a comfortably good B team swimmer through college. It only made sense to get me and my siblings in the pool as soon as possible. I'm pretty sure I could swim an IM by the time I was 8. Unfortunately I was never quite as dedicated to the sport as either of my parents were . By 7th I discovered the wonders of team sports and pretty much abandoned swimming by my freshman year of high school. But guess what, I'm back.

Yup, I'm back. I'm back and I'm better (and more dedicated) than ever. It's really nice to feel competent when exercising. To know that you're pushing yourself because you know what you're doing, not because you're horribly out of shape and all you can manage is to get one foot in front of the other. When I'm swimming I feel powerful. I know how to get my heart rate up. I know what drills to use to focus on certain muscles and I know how sore I'm going to be the next morning based on the workout I plan. I know how important timed sets are and I love the feeling of slicing through the water and hitting those times. I especially love it when some stupid meathead jumps in the pool and thinks it will be easy and tries to keep up with me. Because guess what, swimming is not easy. And no, you can't keep up with me. 

Right now my goal is to average 10,000 yrds/ wk. I've been doing 2500 yd/day for four days a week. When I first got back in the pool I wasn't really focusing on yards, more on just getting to the pool at least four days a week. Now I am definitely in the habit and have started building intervals into my sets. And I feel great. When I don't swim I wish I had. I finally understand why exercising can be great. I guess you just have to discover your niche. Or I guess, in my case, rediscover.

Also, if you're a swimmer and want to trade workouts let me know. I'm always up for mixing it up.

Baby Alex at the pool

Throwing it back to pool days with my dad