Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Drinking water and swimming

A while back a high school friend on Facebook posted something about the 21 most annoying things for swimmers. One of them was this

From: tumblr
So, I've been swimming since I was 7 or something. And now I'm 35, and I can honestly say that water is not part of my swimming routine. And honestly, it's not part of most people's. When I got to my master's swimming workouts there are not many water bottles there.

But still, it got me thinking. I am pretty psychotic about my water. I sweat A LOT!

After every run, and for the sake of saying it I mean any run that is a workout, I drink water immediately after. For any training run when it's more than 90 degrees I take water with me. For any run longer than 40 minutes in hotter than 80 I take water with me. And for any run longer than an hour I take water with me.

For every single bike ride, period. I take water with me.

So I'm not sure why in 28 years of swimming I haven't gotten in the practice of taking water to a swimming workout has got me pondering. To put an end to the pondering, I just took some water to swimming a few times. And, not too surprisingly, it's hard to remember to take a drink. Also let me break down the latest swimming adventure.

400 warm-up
I could have taken a drink after this, but let's be honest, it seems a little silly.

4x100 kick @ 1:55
I'm no kicking stud, so this is really a 400 straight for me. No drinking.

4x100 drill/swim @ 1:40
Good place for water after this. Not before, because the lane mates don't care I suck at kicking.

4x100 choice @ 1:35
Good place to take a drink after this, but I miss it.

7x300 free @ 4:20
It pretty much sucks for me to see 2,100 yards in a single set of 300s, so I get a little psyched out. Though, honestly I should be able to make these right around 4:00 pretty easily. The people in front of me are lane vets (I just moved up) so they plan on coming in around 3:50, too bad for me I fall for it and end up keeping up for the first two, then (thankfully) slowly fade away. The side effect of that is that during my 15 seconds of rest I just pant. The last thing I want to do is put water in my mouth and try to breath through my nose during my rest time. I steal a swig at the start of the fifth one (which I just turned into a 250) in an effort to look more than just lazy, because missing a 50 for water is WAY more acceptable.

100 cool down
"Waters all around!" Except all I can think about is not moving. I'm tired, and it's time to go to work.

So there you have it. If you see me swimming and I have a water bottle that doing more than holding the pool deck in place then I've figured out how to drink water and swim at the same time. Otherwise, I too, do not understand why a swimmer needs water while swimming :)

3 comments:

Amy said...

I am the only one at my practice without water. The again it can be hot here. One girl even brings coffee. She's crazy. I am pretty sure I would be closer to barfing if I drank water. I still don't eat or drink before the workout. But today was a sprinting session and I did actually think to myself - my mouth is dryyyyyyy. The coach says (about 10 times a week) "drinking water or swimming down!"

Unknown said...

What does that mean? Drinking water or swimming down?

There are some people who bring water to my workouts too, I just don't see how they can breath and drink at the same time :)

Christopher Hawes said...

When I swam in high school, over 20 years ago, no one had a water bottle, and we were rarely "allowed" out of the pool to get a drink during practice. If you got out to get a drink, people, including the coach, gave you a hard time for trying to get out of doing the whole set. I would go home and drink a ton. Now I keep a water bottle when I swim and I do get thirsty. I sweat like crazy when I bike and run, so I typically drink lots of water, before, during, and after workouts. Like a lot of things, whether or not you drink a lot swimming depends on how your body takes working out in the pool.