Goals.

I'm still swimming, and I'm still doing something I call "running," a few times a week.  It'll all get harder after the baby's born, I know — mostly because of scheduling.  As much as we like the people who staff the child care in our YMCA, the new baby will be many months old before we even try to find out whether he likes being left there for 20-30 minutes.

It's not exactly dismaying to see my performance declining in pregnancy, because (a) I expected it and (b) I never managed to maintain the habit of exercising through any of my other pregnancies.  There is a certain amount of "Gosh I hope it doesn't take me forever to get back where I was" and a dash of "Is it even possible to get back where I was?"  Obviously one goal will be to return to where I was before my pregnancy started.  But I think I might like to set my sights higher than that, and set a "next" goal as well — bearing in mind that it could be a while before I get there.  So here are two.

1.  My next performance goal as a swimmer is to raise my workout distance to one mile.  When I first started, I got noticeably faster every time I got in the pool, and so my workout distances lengthened steadily.  By the time I got pregnant, the improvement had slowed, and I'd been swimming 1400 yards (28 laps) each 40-minute workout.   1750 yards — 35 laps — is just about one mile, and I think I'd like to be able to say that I swam "a mile" at the end of my workout.  It's a modest improvement, 25 percent; but I need to get a bit faster for it to work, because I don't have much time to spare.  I'd like to be able to swim the whole workout in 45 or 50 minutes.

2.  My next performance goal as a runner is to complete a 5K — walking or running — in the spring, and to run a 5K (without stopping to walk) by late summer or fall.  It pains me a little bit to have such modest goals, but I'm a good bit nervous about returning to running, having perused the "post-pregnancy" forum at Runners' World.  Apparently injuries are pretty common if you overdo it too quickly, what with all the ligament -softening hormones.