I got back into the water right after Christmas, so it’s been about six weeks that I’ve been at it. As expected, I jumped in with a ton of enthusiasm but tried hard to maintain that balance of “Don’t get too carried away” and “Eh, you’re fine if you ease off– you’ve got nine months to go!”

All in all, it’s gone pretty well. My best week was three weeks ago when I did the long swim I had planned (a little over four miles), along with swims of 4,000 yards each of the other four days I had planned to swim. My mileage was ramping nicely!

But then the next week, I felt REALLY tired. Listening to my body, I skipped the first couple planned swims that week and got going again later in the week. Still, I was sluggish and just grinding out the yards, albeit at lower totals (mid-2,000s).

I figured it was a step-back week, and it probably was, except that it spilled into the next week too. Maybe I was too quick to let myself off the hook, but I ended up missing a couple days of swimming that week too, and the distance was still down. Remarkably, just as my spirits were starting to dip, the end of the week yielded a naturally fast swim, and one that lasted for nearly 3,000 yards. Just when I thought I had laid off too long and needed to reset the mileage clock, I had found my form again.

I think what these opening weeks have taught me is a couple of things–

1. There are going to be big swings in attitude and how I feel physically, and I’m going to have to go with the flow. This is something I’ve always been acutely aware of from past distance training, but experiencing it in swim-only mode feels like I’m learning the lessons all over again.
2. I’ve modified my ramping plan to allow for a more gradual step-up in distance, and also to purposefully use upcoming travel as step-back weeks in order to recover. Right now I have week-long trips planned in March, April, May and July, and while I may actually be able to get some swims in during a couple of the trips, generally I’m planning on using those as lower mileage, mental break weeks.

I guess we’ll see how things go from here, but I’m feeling good coming out of these early adjustments. The mantra right now: Consistency.