Wet Behind the Ears

What to do with dodgy knees?  I think we have by now established that I am currently running at the absolute limit of my knees endurance. I had originally had in mind that on the non-running days I would continue to get some form of exercise by walking.  I had formed the habit some time ago (and lost it again) of walking up Mt Oakey every day at lunch time.  This is pretty close to exactly an hour round trip from my office and is very satisfying as you can walk along some of Canerra's wonderful network of bike paths through these lovely green belts even though you are in the middle of suburbia.  I could quite literally walk out the door of my 22 storey office building, wak 100 feet, cross a road (on a pedestrian crossing) and be on the path. Up to the trig station, do the Rocky dance and walk back down again. 

But I can barely walk at all between sessions.  I shuffle along in these half strides trying to protect my knees.  What to do?

Well, I went to a swimming lesson at the local pool today.  Yep at 40 I decided it was time to learn to swim properly. Many of you know my parent's house has a pool and I'd certainly spent a lot of summer days in there, but to be honest I can't really swim.  So I enrolled in a swim class this morning (at least I hope I did as there was some issue of them inexplicably giving my spot away while I was IN the class!)  Hopefully they will call me with good news on Monday.  There are 17 more weeks of class to go ( I missed the first 2 weeks).  So I am  hoping that every Sat morning will see me learning to swim.  After the class I spent another 15 minutes flapping randomly up the slow lane for a little bit extra.  Worked up quite an appetite too!

I was having trouble with water getting in my nose but I think I may have finally figured out was I was doing wrong.  I was breathing out my nose and I think that might have been hampering the formation of a decent seal.  In any case after 15 or so more minutes I finally managed to actually complete a 25 m lap without stopping, inhaling a lung full of water or having to stop to regain my composure.

While I wasn't hurting my knees while swimming I sure was using them cause they were stiff afterwards for about an hour or so.

My aim with the swimming classes is to become proficient enough just to swim laps. 

So here's another 'SMART' goal.

Swim Goal #1: Swim 50m freestyle without stopping by the end of Feb