Swimming 1 Abel 0
July 9th, 2008 | 3 comments
While running the other day, I tweaked a muscle in my left calf. Though rather painful, the injury wasn’t very serious. It would simply require a week of no running to heal.
In the meantime, I had to find a replacement cardio activity. Yesterday, I decided to give swimming a try. I figured I had strong arms, legs, and lungs, how hard could it really be to swim for 30 minutes? Besides, when Marathon Girl is working through a running injury, she can swim non-stop for an hour or more without a problem. If she can be Super Woman, why can’t I be Super Man?
I forgot that there can only be one adult superhero per family.
Thirty minutes after I started, I dragged my wet butt out of the pool completely exhausted.
It would be nice to insert a story here about how far and fast I swam and that was the reason for barely being able to exit the pool under my own strength. But I can’t.
Here’s the sorry truth: I ended up swimming 20 lengths during the 30 minutes with a short break between each length.
Yeah, it was that difficult.
Swimming is nothing like running or strength training. I worked muscles I didn’t even know I had.
When I got home last night Marathon Girl asked how my swim was.
I told her.
She did a good job keeping a straight face and telling me I did a good job for not having done any serious swimming in 15 plus years.
Today my shoulders are very sore (in a good way) and I had to take it easy on my weight exercises that involved those muscles.
Even though it was a very tiring and humbling experience, I’ve decided to swim once a week in place of a scheduled cardio or strength training workout.
At the very least, I hope to be able to keep up to Marathon Girl if we ever go swimming together.
Entry Filed under: exercise
Marathon Girl’s sounding more like a triathlete than a mere marathon runner….
Ali
I agree! They say it’s the cardio exercise that burns the most calories/hour. I used to be a competitive swimmer, and whenever I get back in the pool thinking I’m going to be swimming a length without taking a breath and flip turning myself around lap after lap, I leave the pool exactly like you did. Totally different large muscle group requiring oxygen.
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