Feeling sick in the pool

I'm swimming at a new 24 hour fitness now which is a bit closer to my house and the pool is a bit nicer, except for one thing.  The one thing I don't like about the pool is probably the one thing that 80% of the other people who use it really like.  It is the hot water that pours into the pool from a certain vent in the deep end.

This vent really doesn't spew its evil purpose until about 5:45 AM.  By this time, I've been swimming for a while and am really warmed up when the torture begins.  I've gone past this part of the pool quite a few times already without a problem so I'm kind of surprised by the sudden nausea.

There is something unpleasant about going from cool to hot water while swimming.  Maybe it is just a reaction because I've been warned about what hot (or warmer) water in a pool can be from.  So maybe my nausea is just because my mind assumes I'm swimming through a huge cloud of pee.

So, after about 10 minutes, the little vent stops the madness, after a few more minutes, the pool returns to more of a consent temp and I get my swim back together.

Why am I sharing this?  I'm not really sure...you tell me.

My stomach noticed how absurd things really are

Last Friday I had one of those swim sessions that is designed to takeaway all confidence...not in swimming but in counting.  It was a 4200 yard morning which isn't bad except it was

1000 Yards Warm-up - Concentrate on form and smooth easy strokes
4 X 500 Yards at steady nice pace - 2 minutes rest between
1000 Yards IM pace
200 Yards Cool Down

So I really can't count that many laps and have a crazy commitment to error on the long side rather than short.  So, if I don't remember what lap I'm on, I will go back to the smaller number. 

Everything is going fine on this great Friday morning.  I was able to get out of bed at 4:30 AM and make it into the pool by 4:45.  The pool was empty and my warm-up was going great.  In fact, all the swimming went fine except the more I swam, the more my stomach started to feel uncomfortable. 

At first it was only a bit of churning feeling.  Then it become more of a oughtutht feeling as I flipped for my next lap.  Finally it became a humphughtth with a bit of gurguthuhhh.  I had only about 400 yards left but I quit flipping for my turns.  I just went to the end, gingerly turned around and started swimming again.

This worked great and I finished my main set and started the cool down.  I just did my open turns and before I knew it was was just about to hit the wall for my final turn and without thinking, I flipped.  My stomach instantly told me that I had done one flip too many.  I started to feel that little fluttering deep in my gut.  The flutter started to become a gurgle.  I was about 10 feet from the end of the pool and I quit swimming and walked and prayed.  I wasn't so afraid of throwing up as much as where I was going to throw up.  I climbed out of the pool, walked in a trance to the men's room.  I made sure I kept of receptacle close by.  By the time I showed, went to work, finished work and went to bed, the nausea had passed.

Now I did a bit of thinking about my problem.  I worried that I would puke during Vineman.  Until I started to think about how many flips I had done that morning.

WU -   38 Flips
Main Set 4 X 18 = 72 Flips
1 X 38 Flips
Cool Down 6 Flips

Total 154 Flips

Now imagine you are taking a 2.5 mile walk and every 25 yards there is a comfortable mat designed for a somersault.  Do you think your stomach would feel good on your 150th flip?

So the point of this long pondering is that swimming longer distances in a pool is absurd.  While my mind can not count laps, it seems to have a really good grasp of how many times I flip. 

The good news...Vineman doesn't require any flip turns...I hope.

My trivial dilemma

I tend to forget to give context so here you go – I am not coached.  I think for two reasons.  First, I can’t afford it.  Second, I’m not sure I’m coachable.  More context – as long as I’m physically and mentally well, I will follow my training plan as close as possible.  Finally – I’m using a plan from www.beginnertriathlete.com.  I pretty much like everything about that site.  I use the logs and race reports and like the forums.

Now the dilemma.  This mornings swim was a 50 minute swim and called for 1 x 2500 yards.  What a horrible thing to read before going to sleep (I have my workouts emailed to me at 9:00 PM).  I have no problem with the distance.  That is my typical distance.  I just had a problem with the fact that there was no warm-up or cool down.  I had no chance to stand at the end of the lane concentrating on my watch.  I also had no chance to talk to the people around me and make comments about the water temperature or the clarity of the water. 

So I get to the pool and start swimming.  I also start counting my distance.  I was at around 1500 yards when I checked my time and discovered that this workout wasn’t going to take me 50 minutes.  I was in a quandary.  You see, on my workout logs, I have a handy bar chart that shows what my planned volume for that week is supposed to be.  If I swim 43 minutes rather than 50, my whole week will appear as a slacker week.

By the time I had hit 1750 yards I was in full contemplation rule.  Is it worse to swim more than 2500 yards or swim less than 50 minutes.  By 2000 yards I was contemplating about what I would do if bike and run specified both time and distance.  Thankfully that isn’t the case. 

By the time I hit 2400 yards I decided that I was going to do a cool down for the final 5-7 minutes.  But then I wondered whether I would be breaking the spirit of the workout which was a 1 X workout without any warm-up or cool down.  So I just kept swimming until I hit 50 minutes.  I ended up going 3000 yards.  Nice and convenient. 

I think I chose correctly when I reviewed my log this morning.  Nothing told me I went too far and I noticed that my time was adding up nicely. 

I love trivial dilemmas.  Now to bigger questions – how can I incorporate more Nutella into my diet?