February Fitness Challenge

February can be kind of brutal.

With the novelty of New Year’s resolutions slowly wearing off, winter dragging on, breakups on the rise…it’s easy to spend the month moping in cold darkness.  Enter: February Fitness Challenge.

Every year US Masters Swimming holds a February Fitness Challenge where swimmers track how far they can swim during the month.  A number of people on the team I coach participate, which means writing slightly longer workouts than usual.   Results are released nationally so, in addition to personal records, participants can see where they fall within their age group.  A general goal for many swimmers is 100,000 yards (almost 57 miles.  Some of the results are ridiculous).

Because I am starting to train for a triathlon and swimming is far and away my strongest leg (and because I did the hour long Postal Swim in January and feel as though I have filled my quota for winter swimming challenges) I personally will not be devoting all my time this month in the water.  I will, however, attempt to swim about 15,000 a week (nearly double what I did last month) and will be tracking my combined mileage on the bike, running, and in the pool, which I don’t normally do.

This is a nice event, especially for people who generally don’t like to compete in their sport.  Setting any kind of goal for this month, swimming or not, is a way to stay in the swing of things until the warm weather rolls around.  Plus, who knows, you might surprise yourself.