So I am slowly making progress, and after a “slow” month of January, I’m finally averaging the 5k/week I was aiming for.

A couple of tricks I’ve found useful to get there:

• First, actually making it to the swimming pool is the hardest part. Sometimes I might just not be in the mood. But here is the trick: to actually have a slot, one needs to make a reservation in advance (and pay 2.5 or 3€). That’s actually a good thing: I can buy my slot the day before, when I’m fresh and/or motivated for whatever reason, thereby removing the decision when I’m tired the next day. Plus the paying helps making a commitment: if I don’t go in the end, I am just throwing money away…

Once in the swimming pool, I aim to do 50 “pools” (lengths), which adds up to 1250m. Any less and I would have to compensate at the next session… I have been using two things here, in fact:

• I just do 2 pools, then another two, and so on and so forth. “Two more” is easy, “46 to go” is more daunting. (Of course, once I’ve done 46 I do count the remaining lengths). I’m no psychologist, but somehow it feels easy that way.
• I choose to go to classes, instead of going on my own. Now that’s good because the classes I go to are (quite) a bit challenging, and force me to use different swim styles, and I can ask for help correcting my mistakes. It’s also 3€ instead of 2.5. And the classes I go to, are special in that the lanes are reserved for it and we have very few people per lane, I often get a lane for myself, so I can “push it”. Finally, in these classes, the coach usually makes a training plan that in fact rounds 50-60 pools. So objective completed.

In essence, I’ve set a system to help me reach my objective, and I just focus on the next step, the next session. And somehow I’m managing to average 4 sessions a week and my 5k/week.

The end goal, the 200k by next Christmas, well… I’m more or less on track, at least for now.

Here is February so far, swimming sessions report: