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Ever heard of a thing that accurately counts your laps for you?

I own a Garmin Swim

The Apple Watch Series 2 does wimming, but costs $350.

Years ago when swimming, I used something like this which mounts on a finger, and you tap it each lap.

When the latter thing broke, I setup 2 kickboards at the end of my lane. I quarter-rotated one every 10 laps, and then every 40 laps, rotated the other. That let me count up to whatever # I needed, assuming I remember to rotate every 10 laps.

My pace was generally consistent enough that I could also use time to double-check. Start a stopwatch, and if you swim 1 lap every 50 seconds, then 50 minutes = 60 laps, etc.

TheCatt wrote:I own a Garmin Swim

I see this tracks a lot of data for you... and it counts laps without your input... no tapping a button?

I already like wearing my dive watch when I swim, it has a timer dial, and I wear it all day anyway, so I don't need to think about it. I guess I could put this on my other wrist when I workout and swim. Or just swim. Not sure if there's any workout utility, there.

I see this tracks a lot of data for you... and it counts laps without your input... no tapping a button?

Yes. And it's mostly accurate. It's missed a few laps here and there, but not often.

Word. Thanks.

Had a hard swim this morning.... a large, round gentleman was using hand paddles, so I made sure to swim faster. I think at some point he realized what I was doing and sped up, but he couldn't sustain and fell back after three laps, or so.

The new swim mp3 player is working well, better than the old ones ever did. I never have to stop and adjust them or get the water that seeps into my ears, so today I swam 48 minutes straight, without stopping once. Laps are feeling good. 50 minute workouts this week, 55 minute workouts next week.

Been doing a full hour the last couple weeks, feels pretty good and I still do the last lap hard, and then recover within about 30 seconds. Today at minute 50 I timed my lap, I was still doing it in about 1 minute 12 seconds. Not too bad, for 50 minutes of fatigue, for a 45 year old swimming noob.

Thinking about setting up the gopro at the end of the lane so I can record my hour and then play it back at high speed and count my laps. My guess is I'm doing between 45 and 50 laps, pretty much nonstop. I will stop once or twice in the first 5 laps to adjust goggles and ear buds, but after that it's nonstop, w/flip turns.

I think I finally figured out something I was doing wrong.

In the catch when you are pushing your hand down your body.... I think I was stopping pushing about half way down. I realized if I push all the way to the end of that stroke, to the point where I "wave bye bye" to the water with my fingertips right before my arm comes out of the water, I can feel that "easy strong glide" that I accidentally hit from time to time, and never knew how to replicate. Now I know what I was doing wrong, I wasn't continuously applying power to the full stroke.

Wave bye-bye, with a wrist flick at the very end. and yes, push/pull through the entire stroke.

40 years of doing it wrong, it's hard to fix. But I'm working on it.

I had to go and mention swimming, and then today....

I got in the pool without a hint that my shoulder was going to be in a large amount of pain. I haven't had any shoulder pain since almost a year ago when I felt it on the bench press. Well today I began crawling the first length of the day and I felt it immediately... when I pulled that left arm up out of the water, ouch. I stopped at the end of the length and stretched it, and worked it. Started swimming back down, PAIN. I tried easing off the power, nope PAIN. It was when my arm is up out of the water and rolling forward, so easing off the power did nothing. I did a power breast stroke, no pain. I did a hard backstroke, no pain. My main workout style: PAIN.

I experimented for about 15 minutes, and decided to quit and just rest it, I guess... I started one more length down to where my gym bag was, and I'd get out down there. I got about 3 easy strokes and SNAP. I felt something kind of pop in my shoulder... then no more pain.

Must have a tendon or ligament or nerve that gets out of place, sometimes. Same thing happened last year on the bench press. I feel something give, and the pain is fixed.

Did a hard 45 minutes at that point, not a single twinge.

Weird. My knee does that from time to time. There's a weird ligament or tendon? that someimtes gets in the wrong place and has to PAINFULLY snap back.

Aww yeah, shoulder was great today, and actually applying power to 100% of my stroke has me gliding through the water. I timed my first lap, 80% power and 50 seconds, which might be shit, but it was about 65 seconds last time I looked. I'm smoking the usual guy the next lane over, doing about 1.75 laps for every one of his. He doesn't even try to sprint against me any more.

It's only a matter of time until an olympic coach passes through and sees me and says HOLY SHIT TOKYO 2020.

50s / lap is good. That's a 29min mile if you can keep it up, which is respectable. My best mile is around 26-27, I think?

Next time I count laps again... probably after Christmas when I get my lap swimming watch... I'm guessing 35 minute mile, max. I can't keep 80% power up for 36 laps, but I bet I'm at 65-70%, average.

Well fuck.

Today was just like any other day in the lap pool except there was some new old fucker wasting time in my lane, so I jumped over into the old people socialization area and made them stay clear. I was still out-swimming everyone in the pool.

Around lap 3 I realized I was counting.... so I said fuck it, I'll count.

Around lap 10 I realized that since I fixed my stroke, it was neat that on the big timer on the wall my lap number was staying synced with the timer. 10 laps, 10 minutes. 15 laps, 15 minutes. Usually I was much slower, so that was neat.

It was around lap 20 that my brain shut off, and I realized I was on pace for a 30 minute mile. I was pretty excited. I was thinking about making this post and how awesome it would be. At lap 26 I really kicked it up a notch, I was going for a 29 minute mile.

The sign on the wall says 35 laps for a mile, but I do 36 in case I mess up the lap count, and I try to be honest about it... and those last 2 laps I went 90% and really raced to touch the wall and look at my watch....

39 minutes.

What the fuck?

39 minutes.

Somehow I got into my head that 60 second laps was going to equate to a 30 minute mile over 36 laps, and I also forgot my mental start time on the wall timer (it is just a repeating 60 minute timer in big red numbers that you can see while swimming, I thought I started at 51, turns out it must have been 41). Unless I set my watch timer wrong, which would be stupid dumb... it's just a dial on the face and you line the arrow up on the minute hand when you want to start timing.

So yeah. I still suck at swimming and now I'm all demoralized and I might as well go to Wendy's for lunch.

Is a 39 minute mile awesome? Well, no. But how many people can actually do a mile swim? And, it was closer to 38, since you only need 10 yards of that final 50 yards you swam.

When I get back into swimming, 36 minute mile (doing 36 laps, 60s/lap) is my first benchmark. It's a good goal, it's certainly not a terrible pace.

Are you breathing every stroke?

Yeah, breathing is good, after 10 minutes I am on my stride and everything feels good. I just need to get a little lighter and a little stronger.

Tuesday I am going to go hard from the first lap, and see what happens. As it is, I settle into my distance-pace and don't really push hard.... but then at the end when I hit 60 minutes I am just done and not even breathing hard. The problem is just zoning out and forgetting to push. I'll try to push Tuesday.

You REALLY need to be doing sprints. Do some ladders or pyramids, mix it up. Just swimming long distances again and again is a very slow way to get faster.

Do 5 laps on 90s. Swim each lap as hard as you can, rest whatever amount of the 90s is left, repeat.

Explain that in greater detail, ladders and pyramids.