Time Management

Yesterday I had to choose between swimming or running as I only had about an hour to devote to exercise. I am lucky to be self-employed so I can be a bit flexible with my work hours. I have been teaching Business Law at UPEI on Tuesday nights from 7pm till 10 pm so Tuesdays are always a bit stretched for time. CARI was closed yesterday morning because of the storm so I went at 5pm for a 45 minute swim. There was only one lane for lane swimmers and the rest of the lanes were in use for a Bluefin Swim practice. When you swim next to a competetive swim team you realize that you are not as good a swimmer as you think.

I have been getting swim programs from a web site called "Swimplan.com" It is very easy to use. You provide some information regarding how long you want to swim (ie 1 hour) and how fast you swim. (your time over 100m) The program spits out a workout with a warm up, some drills, a main workout and warm down. For an hour, it gives me a program of about 2800m. That is a fair bit of swimming and I don't usually get through it all. I try to do a minimum of 2000-2400 in the time I have which is usually around 45 minutes. I am finding that the program is a bit repetitive but you can print off a couple of programs and pick and choose. Yesterday, I did 2000 m: 400 warmup doing 100s alternating between swim and pull. Then I did 8 -50s fairly fast with a 10 second break in between; then 400 pull; 8- 50s again fast with 10 sec. break and then 400 pull. I needed to be out of the pool by about 5:45 to get showered, get home, get something to eat and get to UPEI by 7:00pm. I made it but not with any time to spare.

This morning we had our wednesday morning swim lesson with Dave Campbell which I look forward to every week. The participants are supposed to be me, Corena, Darcy and Ellen. Darcy and Ellen did not show and we may have to give them a hard time about their commitment to the lessons. Scott MacKay, who is on the UPEI swim team joined us as well. It was great to have him for motivation. It was a great class today. We did a drill where 2 of us had our feet tied together and we tried to swim in opposite directions and pull the person. Dave is also trying to teach us the butterfly which I find very difficult. I am not very flexible which seems to be an issue with getting my arms out of the water. In general, I am pretty happy with my swimming. My regular critcism from Dave is that I do not extend or reach far enough to maximize my stroke.

The weather outside is great today. My plan is to run about 10 k after work at 5 pm.