Ways to spice up.....swimming (OT)

Alright lads, I'm hoping to do the Belfast Marathon this year (May) but just so happen to be the 3rd most injury prone person in world behind Kieran Dyer and Michael Owen. I'd been progressing well and had gotten up to 8-10 milers and running an average 20m a week. My trainers were getting a bit old but I'm a poor student, so didn't bother replacing them and am now suffering from ITBS (inflammation of the tendon that links your hip and knee).

Anyway, I don't want to lose the fitness I built up and thought I'd do something fairly low impact - swimming. I used to swim when I was a lot younger and reckon I could probably knock out a kilometer/mile without too much fuss, my only issue is that I find swimming mind numbingly boring!

Has anyone got any decent tips for how to distract yourself/pass the time and if not, anything that they'd recommend doing whilst I can't run?

 

If your doing it for charity put me down for £20.

 

i-Pod?

 

Swimming might be boring but it's a great way of getting fit and staying fit.

I'll chip in with a few quid if it's for a charity.

 

I used to swim a lot and found the best way to keep going was to keep to a certain pace such as (25 seconds for a 25 metre lap) and just keep plugging away at it for a set period of time. Next time you swim, try to get faster and maintain that pace.

Alternate your strokes as well so start with 10 lengths of freestyle, 10 of backstroke and 10 of breast stroke. If you can do butterfly then you're better than I ever was.

 

Yeah, I do that - but in sprints. So I give myself say, 30 seconds to do 25m AND rest, then after the 30 secs is up i do another length and rest. Keep going, you slow down so your rest gets less and less. Stop when you don't make it in time. Its a nice little exercise to get the heart going.

I also like mixing it up with some breathing exercises. For example, for front crawl - breath every 3rd stroke, then 5th stroke, then 7th. Repeat.
You can also throw in some floats - use leg floats to work on your upper body (really good exercise this one).

Trying different strokes in a medley is good too - do say, 100m front crawl then 100m breaststroke, 25m single arm butterfly with your left arm, 25m with the right and a final 25m full butterfly.

 

I'm a great holiday pool butterfly swimmer i.e. I can do about 5 strokes of undoubted Olympic quality, gliding effortlessly over the water, epitomizing everything that is both powerful and graceful in one fluid movement, then by the 6th I'm out of puff and look like a toddler throwing a tantrum at the bottom of the pool!

I'll have a bash at the length timing thing, seems like a good shout!

And yeah, I'll be doing the run for charity, although haven't decided which one yet (was thinking maybe something football/Uganda related) but I'll let you know closer to the event!

 

count backwards from 50 , when you get to 0 strokes ..pee.

 

Get a water proof I-Pod. Music always helps me pump up.

 

We all thought it was football formations?

 

The thing with swimming is to set yourself little targets, and just keep going to them. I always just roughly double whatever length I've got to, e.g. Start at 100m. Feel ok, go for 200m. Feel ok, go for 500. Then 1km, 2km, 5km, etc. until knackered. I've not done it very often, I usually get to 2km before I can't be ****ed. I also hate that every pool is in metres, not yards.

 

lol well I used to jog, but every so often I'd pull a muscle and I eventually lost my interest.

I'm basically just doing 2 mile walks every night now.

 

I thought about this, but I just got a new set of trainers (stupidly too late to stop the injury) and I'm also saving up for flights to Holland to visit my soon to be born niece/nephew, so can't afford it at present and once my leg is better I won't be going near a pool again!

 

A donald duck rubber ring with matching arm bands?

 

And a mankini.

 

I thought City tied to him up to a long contract?

 

Go swimming with Daisy Lowe?


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That would do it...

 

Daisy Lowe for my 2000th post

 

Daisy Lowe and a Mankini just doesn't work, extra large bermuda shorts would be better!