The Best Part Of Swimming Workouts

Are my cool downs. Not because it's the end of the workout and I'm almost done, but because I cool down probably in a really unconventional way. I take my goggles and my swim cap off, take my hair out of its pony tail, and spend five or so minutes being a mermaid like I used to when I was a kid. There is no better feeling, to me anyway, then water swishing through my hair causing my hair to swirl around itself. I'm sure that the rest of the swimmers, and the old guys in the hot tubs are thinking to themselves, "whats with the weirdo in lane three porpoise - ing through the water... but the water, especially underwater, is so peacefully serene it is my favorite five minutes in my day. I think, that no matter what sport or exercise a person is doing, you should find the fun in it... or the child like moments to really bring the "fun" back into working out. I'm sure that everyone who continues a sport that they started in childhood has one of these. Who says exercising has to be all business and no fun? I don't think we have enough fun in our lives - life tends to be so mundane- get up, go to work, come home, spend a few hours (usually watching tv) and then go to bed just to get up and repeat ... those five minutes I look forward to, and even when my alarm clock goes off and I spend twenty minutes debating whether or not I *actually* want to go work out today, my five minute fun time is usually what convinces me to get out of bed :)

Ive noticed an older lady that has started swimming lately. She wears both paddles and fins at the same time as she is swimming. In case you have decided to start a swimming regimen and think that you can "kill two birds with one stone" attempting this- please don't. She is totally negating the benefits of both of those items. The purpose of paddles is to strengthen your stroke and improve your stroke return. You can't do that when your kick is being aided by fins that are propelling you further than you would normally advance with one stroke. These devices should not be used together.

I didn't pretzel myself in Pilates on Monday. My Pilates buddy ended up not being able to join me on Monday, and I don't really want to go in there not knowing anything totally by myself (the classes are drop in and rolling- so there are never start and end dates- therefore there are tons of super experienced people in the class- EEEEEP- so we'll start hopefully next Monday instead.

In the meantime, Im still swmming every day getting ready for our Family Tri i 2 weeks.

I can't believe that summer is almost over :( School starts again for me in four weeks! -Heavy sigh-

~Millie