The Swim Challenge

My swimming still suffers. It is always the last thing on my list. But since it is my top limiter it should also be towards the top of the list! While flipping through the USMS magazine, I came across an ad for the Nike Swim Challenge. Sign up for free, swim, log the distance, hit some benchmarks, get Nike stuff. What a deal. Except the first Nike benchmark is 50 miles and you get a Nike swim cap. Yee haw!

But it got me thinking, if I'm willing to sign up for a swim cap then I should be able to write up something similar for myself with carrots that I really want. So, I've written up a swim challenge for myself, but the problem is I can't find a good carrot. That is where I'm hung up, but I've found a few weird ones that might work. I've also put in The Pot, a bin of monetary rewards. It goes something like this:

Goal is to swim 3-4x/week. Each swim a minimum of 45minutes, unless it's the 4th or 5th swim then it can be 30 mins of drills. The swim can not be moved to another day. Miss the swim, miss the reward. Although swimming another day still adds to The Pot.

Monday swimming with Master's gets a serving of nut butter.
Wednesday swimming gets to watch ANTM that night.
Thursday swimming (usually drills) gets a serving of cashews.
Friday swimming gets a Lara Bar.

Like I said, I found some weird carrots. Nut butter, Laras, cashews, all highly pleasurable foods. What a mean trick to get me to the pool! Take away my Laras unless I swim!!

Each swim gets $5 added to The Pot, and swimming 4x/week ups it to $25/week. The Pot will accumulate until 3 months are up, then The Pot can be spent on anything. The problem for me is that there is nothing right now I want to buy right now, so The Pot is almost meaningless but I've got 3 months to think on it.

I've also set some benchmark time goals to chase down. The first round is pretty easy:
50y in <50s
100y in <1:50
500y in <10mins
1000y in <20 mins

Everytime I get all 4 benchmarks done, $20 to pot. Each time a goal is hit, another is set. Goal is to get all 4 at least once/month.

This starts tomorrow--March 29th. Master's swim, here I come!!