This evening, I went up to the lake for my first swim session of the week, after the one on Monday got cancelled by weather.  I was really looking forward to the swim, because I had heard that the swim area at the lake, had been significantly enlarged since my last visit.

I arrived at the south shore beach area of Moraine State Park and I was not disappointed.  The park had indeed enlarged the swim area, and it was now about four times bigger than it was last week.  This meant that, even though the park was quite busy, there was plenty of room for me to swim. I would no longer have to dodge everyone else, who was there to hang out and have fun.  The photo shows what I had to deal with quite well; lots of open water.

My swim workout this evening was quite challenging.  After about 800 yards of warm up swimming, I had 15 intervals of 75 yards and 6 intervals of 100 yards, all of which were to be done at a ‘strong’ pace.  ‘Strong’ swimming is not ‘all out’ but it is still very hard work. 

I felt like I did the early intervals quite well, but towards the end, I could feel my swim form disappearing as my arms and shoulders got tired.  On the latter intervals, I would start each of them feeling like I was pulling a lot of water but by the end, I knew I was quitting on the back end of my stroke and slowing down. I just didn’t have the endurance needed, to swim strong for the whole interval.

I ended the session with a 200 yard interval at ‘fast’ pace and then 200 yards of cool down.  I was dying on that ‘fast’ interval; my form was terrible and my shoulders were ‘screaming’ at me.  The bottom line is that I just haven’t done enough swimming, to be in good swim shape.

There is really only one way to fix being out of swim shape … swim more.  Hopefully I will get to do that, over the coming weeks.