Hiatus and 2018 Swimming Goal

I notice I haven't posted anything about swimming in about a year and a half.

This is mostly because I haven't done any serious swimming for about that period of time.

First was the San Francisco Sharkfest Failure of 2016.  I went all the way across the country....

... and totally bailed on a swim.  I may analyze that here, later.   It does drive this year's goal, though.  I need only to think positive thoughts in the water.  Screw speed. Forget anything else, but showing up consistently, and only thinking good thoughts when in the water.

See, I'm prone to thinking black thoughts when there is nothing to distract me.  Bad enough, so why did I take a year to try to work on it?  I could have worked on it in 2017, couldn't I?

I lost my infant granddaughter (she just stopped breathing during a nap) in February.  I could not face that blue line with nothing but my own brain.  I couldn't force my thoughts away from... well, anyway, I'm not going into horrific details.  I even bought a treadmill because I had a hard time leaving the house and the only exercise I could force myself to do was walking (running is evil) on that damn thing while listening to audiobooks.

At least I didn't sit for a year, I guess. 10,000 steps is good for something, anyway.

So this year, my real goal is that if I'm in the water, I'm only allowed positive thoughts.  It might seem like a weird goal, but it does seem that the thing that holds me back worst as a swimmer is my own damn brain.

Today's workout was a good baseline for where I am as a swimmer now. Clumsy, certainly, as I've been out of practice.  Slow, absolutely, for the same reason.  It took me forever to warm up properly, but when I did...

...It was awesome and it felt great.  You know how when you're working out and the adrenaline kicks in and it's all WOAH POWER! That was nice.

Thinking about this video was a nice way to have a good tempo, too. (Yes, I know.  Emotionally I'm still about twelve)