With client meetings in the back half of the week and more rain on the way, I decided to seize the moment while I could.  It has been almost a miracle of miracles week for my swimming pushing past 1,000, 1,400 and yesterday 1,600 yards.  Still, I was 100 yards short of a mile in the pool yesterday.  That didn’t sit well with me.

As I approached the pool my personal logic (often flawed) kicked in and said to me, “Well, if you are going to go for a mile, you might as well go for the whole 1.2 miles like you are supposed to do in the race in Canada.  It’s .2 miles more.  How hard could that be after you have already paddled a mile right?”  That darn Logic sounded so logical I could not disagree.  That’s the problem with Logic.

Before I set out to attempt a new distance PR, I realized that I had not posted any video for some time.  With an old tripod and a few of my daughters’ hairbands, I had my phone mounted and ready to go.  Here is the new swimming Tim Hackbardt below.  Feel free to check out the old sad swimming Tim Hackbardt original videos from back in October to see the before and after.  From pathetic to reasonable in five frustrating months.

Following my personal video session, I set out to accomplish the goal that Logic had set for me.  I set my Garmin watch to buzz me each time I completed 250 yards.  That way I could just keep swimming and not be checking my watch to see where I was on the goal.

I have found that endurance sports are like watching a film.  About halfway through your distance is much like the second act in a film.  It can just drag along.  At 1,000 yards today it was just that.  A long way from the goal, no other scenery to see than a tiled black line on the bottom of the pool, and no music to listen to like I might have with me on a run.

Fortunately, the watch kept buzzing and at 1,500 yards Logics idea of a logical plan was sounding more logical.  At 1,750 yards Logic whispered to me, “We got this.”  The best buzz was at 2,00o yards.  I blew past the 1-mile mark and all the way to 1.2 miles equivalent to my future swim at Ironman Canada. It was a good day.

Of course, there weren’t a few hundred people around me flailing their arms and legs like there will be in Whistler, but more than five months out my confidence is growing quickly finally.  The next big test will be an actual open water swim.  I’m not sure when that will happen though given there is more rain on the way, my coach is in Mexico on vacation, and my schedule is going to get more complicated over the coming weeks.

With the elation of hitting 1.2 miles, my adrenaline led me to believe I should follow it up with an 8-mile victory lap around the neighborhood to see what it feels like after 1.2 miles to transition to the legs.  I found the transition was easy, but the speed was very impacted.  Normally, I have been around a 9-minute mile. Today, that diminished considerably to a 9:41 minute mile.  Must have been a headwind.  Yeah, that’s it…a headwind…both ways.