Today marked a milestone — the first day that I swam two miles in a single workout. For the past month, my goal workouts have been 10 sets of 300 yards, for a total of 3,000 yards or 1.7 miles; about two weeks ago, I vowed to convert the last set of 300 to a 400, and then when that felt fine, to do the same for the second-to-last set, and so on. Today was the day that I aimed to move up to three sets of 400 at the end, for a total of 3,300 yards, but at the end of that, I still felt good and decided to add an eleventh set, also a 400. That put me at 3,700 yards total, or 2.1 miles — and that felt great. (It also feels good that I passed the two-marathon mark at the end of last week.)

This week also made me remember the whole slow/fast pool thing from the swimming meet pools of my childhood. I normally work out at a pool that’s in a college gym just next door to my hospital, but the whole gym is closed for three weeks for pre-schoolyear maintenance. That put me in my local pool this week, and after a few laps, I realized that the pool feels just plain slow. Part of it is certainly the lane lines that are anchored a little above the waterline at the ends of the pool, allowing pretty big waves to make their way from lane to lane; I’m sure that there are other reasons, but swimming there is definitely a little more of a struggle. I’m anxious to get back into the college gym pool to see if my suspicions are correct.