Open Water Swim Workout

Swimming with my sister in the Comal River (I'm in the green cap).

Sorry it's been a little quiet recently on this blog. I've been in real need of a recharge, both in my PhD work and in life in general for the past month or so. I finally got it when I was on vacation with my family in New Braunfels, Texas last week. It was hot, but I loved every second of it. I truly treasure my family, and any time I get to spend with them is really happy for me. My sister is also a triathlete. She's super duper speedy (in fact she actually just got her pro card), but swimming is one area where our ability levels are about equal. We swam in the river together a few times last week, and the picture above was from us doing a set that her coach recommended. I thought it was great because too often we just get in the water and swim when it comes to not being in a pool. This was a great way to break it up a little and add some speedier efforts.

After a 15 minute warmup (upstream, though with the drought and subsequent low-water levels, the current was pretty tame this year), we did this set:
5x{2 min kick, 2 min build, 2 min fast}.
It was good enough to tire me out, for sure! I just set my watch timer to 2 minutes and when it beeped, I would stop, get her attention, and we'd switch. I highly recommend trying this out. Another good thing to do is something like 50 strokes fast/50 steady, 40 fast/ 40 steady, etc. until you get to 10, then ladder back up.

Happy swimming!