100 x 100 Swim Challenge

I participated in the 100 x 100 swim challenge hosted by the Henderson's Master Swim Team and the Las Vegas Triathlon Club on 1-10-15. I regularly train by swimming laps but have never swam anything longer than 2500 meters. I had ran 6 miles just before this so I knew that I was not going to try to swim the entire 100 x 100 (10,000 yards). The swim coach hosting the event told me to set a goal and aim for that. She suggested swimming my age. I am 39, so I set my sights on 39 x 100. 

So I jumped in and prepared to go!

I have never done anything like this and didn't know that many people bring little items to help count their laps. Most people seemed to bring two cups with coins in one and the other one empty. As they completed 100 yards, they would move a coin to the other cup. That would have been a great way to keep track of my laps. I will definitely do that the next time I participate in a challenge like this. I decided to keep count by swimming forty laps (1000 yards) at a time. 

I began my swim at 10:00 a.m. It was a beautiful day for a swim! I was placed in a lane with one other swimmer so we just divided the lane and didn't worry about swimming in a rotation. That worked well since I was faster than my lane mate and didn't have to worry about passing her. After I finished my first set of forty, I stopped for a short float break to drink some water and chat with friends. I only spent a few minutes doing that and quickly started my second set. My normal swim workout is eighty-eight laps so I knew that this second set would be fine since it was within my normal amount. I finished those laps and took another short break. 

At the start of my third set, two more people joined our lane so we began swimming in a counter-clockwise rotation. The two new people were closer to my speed so I only had to pass them every once in a while. This pattern seemed to work well. I was still feeling really good as I was now in new territory having never swam this long before. I even began thinking about changing my goal to swim 50 x 100. I finished the third set and took another short water break. 

I began my forth set and began to feel my stomach cramp up a little. I wasn't sure if it was hunger or over-use. It wasn't bad so I continued to swim. I decided to round up to make my swim a full 4000 yards and completed a final set of 1000. I finished feeling good, not exhausted. I'm sure I could have swam longer but I decided to stick to the coach's advise and to not over swim which could cause injury. Nobody has time for that!

After I finished, I realized that the stomach pains were definitely hunger pains. I was hungry and needed to eat! I chatted with a few friends while I packed up and dried off. It was a really great experience and I look forward to trying it again next year! My final numbers were 4000 yards completed in 1:21:44.