Zoning Out While Swimming

[ski diva]

Anyone have any advice on how NOT to zone out while swimming so you can keep track of your laps?

I like the activity of swimming laps and how it makes me feel when I'm done, but man oh man -- it sure is boring! I've tried doing a different stroke every fourth lap, and that helps a little. And SwampDog posted on Facebook that she uses the alphabet when she swims: one lap she thinks of all the A names she can, the next all the B names, and so on. I actually tried this today and was somewhat dismayed by how few names I could come up with for some of the letters.

Anyone else have any tips?

 

[Shannon D]

I try to keep my counting as simple as possible. I try to keep track of my distance instead of the number of lengths. Also, I count a 50 as one lap instead of a 25.

The other thing I do is if I know I want to swim a 750, when I get up to about 500 I'll start to think about how much further I have left and count down from there.

My biggest problem is when I'm doing sets. I'll forget whether I've done 3 or 4 100's.

 

[RachelV]

Yeah, I am hopeless at this -- last night I had totally lost track by the time I got to 150 meters. I like SwampDog's trick with letters, so I'll definitely try that next time. I also like that that will help keep my mind from wasting time thinking about useless crap. I actually really like zoning out when I exercise, it's just that when you're swimming there's something you need to keep track of.

 

[playoutside]

I have a very short attention span, so the only thing that ever worked for me was to mix up my strokes and swim sets. I could keep track of 4 free, then follow it with 4 back, then 4 breast. Then I just had to keep track of sets rather than laps.

 

[itri]

If I'm just swimming for distance, I usually figure that my end result will be +/- about 6 lengths due to getting lost on my number. I try to just repeat the number in my head as I'm going down the length. If I start getting off, I know I can't be *too* far off since I know whether it should be an even or an odd number based on which way I'm swimming.

What REALLY helps, though, as I realized this morning, is doing an actual swim workout instead of just swimming laps for distance. I pulled out the workouts a coach had put together for me and did one this morning, and I had ZERO trouble keeping track. I only had to be able to count to 8 at the highest, since the longest set I had to do at one time was a 200.