Friday Morning Workout

After great workouts on Tuesday and Wednesday today I hit a rough patch.  I'm going to blame it on a few things first being the run last night.  When I was swimming today my hip relfexer (sp?) on my left side was a bit tender.  I'm also going to blame it on how hot the water was once again.  I figure I have another month to use that excuse.  But it really was a bit warm.  Finally my last crutch of the day is that I felt like I was gasping for air after doing the breath control set of 3x300's.  I'm just not a of breath control swimming.  Maybe it's the pack a day smoker till 5 years ago that makes me love the oxygen so much. 

400 swim
300 pull

During the warm up 300 pull I used my hand paddles.  Working on my catch.  Also I was being a young Luke Skywalker and using the force on my turns.  What, you ask?  I have a real bad habit of looking up and almost stopping before I head into the wall.  The Wednesday morning coach told me not to look up to have faith that with correct timing the wall will be there.  At the end of the black T take one last stroke and flip.  So I have to be like Luke in Star Wars: A New Hope when he's about to destroy the death star and just believe in the force.  For the rest of the workout I believed in not hitting the wall and just went back to my old style.

6x50 kick on a minute

3x
300 pull on 4:00
Breathing
3/5/5
3/5/ 5/7
3/5/7 (it was suppose to be all 3/5/7 but being a bad breath control swimming I worked myself up to the 7)

The Freestyle Main Set:
4x
50 on 60
100 on 1:20
200 on 2:20 (i was just barely making the 200's.  luckily we had that 50 recovery.  i just felt crappy after the 300's.  I liked the 300's being pull and I used my hand paddles.  Really working on my catch)

The Stroke Main Set:
4x
25 on 30
75 on 1:10
100 fly on 1:20
The 25 and 75 I did freestyle while working the 100's fly.

At the end of the workout the coach asked me if I was going to the freestyle clinic to which I applied no.  Actually, No I'm only here for the cardio.  To which he asked don't you compete?  To be honest I only compete in a few meets a year and I seem to improve every time.  Maybe I'm just in a slump or something but i really don't care that much about meets right now.  I have one in a few months and I want to improve a bit but I don't want to kill myself.  Yes all of the coaches including the one today mention to me that I have bad swim habits.  But they are my habits and they seem to work.  Some of my bad habits I've come to have because I know if I swim a certain way I feel pain so maybe one arm doesn't do a great recovery.  I'm not going to the Olympics.  Ugh!  Also I think the clinics suck.  If you aren't the super vocal teachers/coaches pal then you don't get that much.  I don't see the value of $20.00 for 2 hours of the same coaches you see already.  Enough venting for now, till next time.