swim a mile

My goal is to swim a mile. I am currently swimming about 1/3 of a mile three times a week. Once last week, I swam 1/2 a mile but it was a bit too much too soon. I am going swimming tomorrow and I am going to try to swim 1/2 a mile again.

This week we started swimming for softball. I’m an assistant coach, but I still go swimming with them when the other assistant is there. Tuesday was the first day and I went 20 laps. Today I went 24. My goal is to increase up by four laps everytime and hopefully end up doing a mile nonstop. Then I can call this one complete. Goodluck to everyone.

It wasn’t a continuous free water mile, but I did reach my goal of swimming 36 laps in a row with little to no breaks between laps. I cleared the goggles with water a few times and made all sorts of swimming fox paws, but I swam pretty much straight through 36 laps. About 75% freestyle and 25% breast stroke.

Emily (the masters swim instructor) had us swim a 1650 doing something like this:

11 lengths – freestyle
10 lengths – freestyle, breast stroke
9 lengths – freestyle
8 lengths- freestyle, breast stroke
7 lengths – freestyle
6 lengths- freestyle, breast stroke
5 lengths – freestyle
4 lengths- freestyle, breast stroke
3 lengths – freestyle
2 lengths- freestyle, breast stroke
1 length – freestyle

66 lengths total. Then I added on 6 more lengths to make it to 72 total. Pretty awesome little system.

There’s a sign on the wall at the pool where I swim that says 36 laps = 72 lengths = 1 mile. I’ll take a picture next time I’m there. I want to swim 36 laps in one go. I’m thinking it’ll take me less than an hour. Oh, and I can swim a combination of strokes or I wouldn’t be able to finish.

Didn’t think I could do it but my kids taught me how to swim for a long time in the deep end of the pool…

I am 34. I swam a lot when I was younger, doing triathalons as well, but mini ones of course like 200m swim, 5k ride, 1k run.
So I started trying to swim when I hit around 30, having not done it since I was 17 really. I was able to eventually work up to 32 laps (1/2 mile) 3 times a week.
I slacked off for a few more years, last Summer I got back in the pool at the local YMCA. I was able to get back to 32 laps each session, with the goal of doing 64 (1 mile) regularly. Last summer I weighed in at 257 lbs. I am now able to swim 64 laps non-stop 3-4/week and my times vary from my personal best of 27 minutes to 33 minutes.

My current weight? 222 lbs! That’s 35 lbs. I’ve lost and swimming has been the key. The pool opens at 6am so I make sure I’m in there by 6:10am so I have time to do my swim then get home for breakfast and get ready for 8am work.

Sometimes I go in on the week-end too. The last time I swam on the week-end I did 130 laps non-stop in an hour! That’s just over 2 miles.

For those just getting into it, don’t give up and keep swimming!

OK, I started a new job [graduate] and thought it time to get fit again, I’m 23yrs, 6ft2” and do surf as a hobby so I was quite a strong swimmer to begin with, but after not having done any exercise for over 3 years whilst at uni and very little surfing it was a tough journey for me to get fit again. I first went swimming back in November last year and and started off taking it nice and easy, doing a length [25m] every minute doing breast-stroke, for about 2 weeks [went twice a week] I felt sick after I was that unfit, but slowly I worked it up and now I’m just about beginning to feel fit again, I now do a full workout in the pool, doing 6 sets of 10lengths [250m] and make sure I swim every length in under 30 seconds, then have a two minute rest and re-hydrate and do the next set and so on. Then I do a final set of slow lengths at 45seconds per length for a warm down so I swim just over a mile and do it every day of the week now! ...Today I thought I’d switch the routine and just went all out and did all 64 lengths non-stop and did every length in under 30seconds. It feels great to be fit again and I look forward to going swimming every day and try to improve my times and I’m aiming to get it down to 25s per length [i.e. 1m per second] by the end of this month! After that its on to much more aggressive workouts!

I’m done with Week 2 of Ruth’s program, and already I feel my endurance has improved, I feel I’m breathing easier, and most importantly, it’s becoming a really relaxing high that I sincerely look forward to! Next week I go from swimming 900 yards per workout to 1250 yards, but I feel confident. This goal is a lot more doable then I originally thought :)

...after probably almost a year of saying I wanted to do this! I have a free membership to the gym at the grad school I’m attending, so it’s time to start it up. About to head out for my first session. I’ll be following the plan prescribed by Ruth Kazez, which seems really doable and well-paced:

http://ruthkazez.com/ZeroTo1mile.html

work up to swimming one mile nonstop, three times a week.