Wednesday, April 23, 2008

My new swim coach


Today's workout consisted of an early morning swim at Lifetime Fitness. Typically, I try to do around 3,000 meters but I had a pretty important playoff match tonight so kept it to 2,000 meters. Up until the last week, I had not been swimming all that much. Mainly, I was used to having a coached workout and missed having someone there at the pool giving me a daily workout. I guess I am not all that creative when it comes to making up my own pool workout.

Last week, I discovered a new tool online that is just what I needed to fill the void. It is a website that gives you a daily workout designed for your ability level - - and it is free! (http://swimplan.com/) You put in your pace time for a 500m swim and customize it for the type of swimming you do. For example, if you want to do all four strokes or just freestyle you can indicate this on the program. You can also customize the workout to add equipment to your swim (i.e. kickboard, pull buoy, etc.) The workouts are generally 45 to 60 minutes in length but you could easily double the main part of the workout to increase the distance. Definitely my new favorite swim website!

On to tonight's tennis match... The match tonight was playoffs for the Ultimate Tennis League (www.ultimatetennis.com). This is by far the best tennis leagues for singles matches. It is very well run, consistent playing levels, the site is user friendly. I highly recommend it if you live in one of the areas where they operate.

Tonight's match was the second round of the playoffs. I am the 35 seed, my opponent was the 7 seed so on paper it should be an uphill match for me. In Ultimate Tennis, you usually do not know your opponent, you just call each other set up the match and you meet for the first time on the court. Our introductory conversation when we met tonight went something like this... opponent: "oh the last time I played here I was in the finals for my ALTA junior team" SIGH.... As someone who has only been playing three years, this is usually not a good sign. The match tonight was tough as I expected, I was down 0-4 in the first set, came back to win that set 6-4 and then the next set 6-4. She was an excellent player so I was thrilled that I was able to come back and win. A victory for everyone who started playing tennis in their thirties! So now I am in the round of 16 in the playoffs, 3 more rounds to get to the finals! :)

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