10x100 SCY Breathrough Montly Set

Another first Monday of the month came today as did our breakthrough set of 10x100's on 3:00 all out sprints.  In the past I like mostly everyone else did them all freestyle.  Month to month my times fluctuated with some months better than others.  These breakthrough or check sets are suppose to give us a snapshot on were one is in training.  In theory we should be improving month to month.  I have mixed emotions about this type of set.  On one hand I feel once a month is too much.  Also since it is announced before hand attendance at workout drops significantly for this day.  Which is good as we have 2 persons per lane but I don't think anything that discourages swimmers to show up is good for anyone.  On the other hand those who do show up seem to be more of a cohesive group of swimmers cheering each other on and giving words of encouragement.  Also when you do have that good month of swimming it only encourages you to train harder.

Personally this month was a mixed bag for me.  I started with the intention of doing 5 butterfly and 5 freestyle.  On my first 100 I came in at 1:04.  That was a bit too fast to keep up although looking back in time I remember when I did an off the block 100 butterfly and was happy the day I went under a 1:08 with a personal workout best of 1:06.  At a meet I'm still hovering at 1:00 with the goal of breaking that mark.  My second 100 butterfly I slowed up to a 1:05 and felt like crap,  My legs and arms were sore and the hot water made me fill ill.  My third 100 was aborted after a 50.  I gave up.  I know I should have continued and pressed forward at a slower pace but I just didn't want to.  The fourth 100 I switched to backstroke just to see what I could do.  I did a total of six backstroke each one getting slower 1:06 / 1:07 / 1:08 / 1:09 / 1:10 / 1:10.  The final and 10th 100 I did butterfly with a time of 1:06.

Afterwards the coach gave us all a speech on how we should be all doing these all freestyle to get an overall feeling of how we are in our training or at least do the same thing from month to month.  Now not to make this a bitching post I found it interesting that I heard a rumor that one of the elite faster swimmers was telling the other elite faster swimmers to skip the workout this month as they are on a National's training program.  These are the people who wanted this set to be a monthly thing in the first place.  It'll be interesting the 1st Monday of the June which is IGLA if we do this this set or not.  I hate when swim practices become political or pissing contests. 

Back to me...with limited time and workouts I need to figure out how to still work on my butterfly, do some good distance freestyle workouts and then add in some good backstroke workouts now that I know that stroke is also a strength for me.  Also after a few weeks of no weight training I need to get back to the gym.  Even though I was tired and sore more often when swimming I think my swims were a bit faster during workouts.  I seemed better adapt at swimming  in the pain and not giving up so much.