A little update to bump this thread. It's been just over a year since I started the thread and at that time, I had swum 40 lengths in 20:20.
I've been fairly regular with my twice-a-week swims, though I took some time off in the spring when I threw out my back, and then I took another 6 weeks or so off in the summer because, well, summer. About 3 months ago, I started trying to swim 3 times a week since I found myself getting up anyway to drive my daughter to early morning band/choir practices. I noticed a real improvement in my times and I started to consistently swim under 20 minutes for 40 lengths.
Today the pool was mostly empty, and I swam 19:30, almost 5 seconds off my PB. I guess my next goal is to go under 19 minutes.
Just discovered one of my friends used to be a big swimmer. He's in his 50s now, but when he was a teenager, he swam 2 hours a day and could do 30 lengths in 8 minutes. That sounds insane to me. But through the fall, we shared the pool with the local high school's swim club, and I was able to get a sense for how fast trained swimmers really are. Their stroke rate isn't twice as fast, but their speed is.
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