Swim the Haw River

I hurt my knee running back in April. I was up to 20 miles a week, so the injury was pretty disappointing. Nothing cracked or popped or broke; it's cartilage damage from my kneecap tracking to the outside (tight IT band, weak VMO) (the VMO is a muscle, I've learned). I've been doing PT for a few weeks, and it's getting much better.

But I still can't run on it, and it has been hurt since April.

Fortunately, in April, I had just joined the Y. (Finally--I had wanted to for years.) That meant I could swim instead of run.

It was fun to back in the pool. It had been years since I'd swum laps. I found an old Speedo in a drawer, got a new cap and goggles, and joined the oldsters for some fun lap swimming.

After two months, the pool director told me about their Swim the Haw River challenge. Every time you swim, you can log your laps on a chart on the bulletin board. If you swim the equivalent of the length of the Haw River by December 31, you are in a drawing for three free months of Y membership.

That means 3960 laps by the end of December. I got a late start, but as of today I have 1512 done. That leaves 2448 to go, or an average of 100.4 laps per week until the end of the year. It's very doable. I usually do 120-150 a week, which will leave me some wiggle room.

I break up the pattern I swim in. Sometimes I swim sets of 500 (yards--which is 10 laps), sometimes I do sets of 100 while alternating strokes, and sometimes I swim faster or slower.

The one thing I don't do is kick board, because of my knee.