Almost Back In The Swim Of Things

After another day of hacking and a running nose I felt like I was ready to go swimming.  Plus sleeping most of yesterday left me restless and up hours before 5am.  I was up early enough to hear the LA Times being delivered at 3:15am.  So I headed to swim but on my way I was having second thoughts as I wasn't feeling so hot.  I kept telling myself to give it a try this morning and if after warmup if I still felt icky I'd leave. 

I warmed up around a 400 and felt confident enough to stay for the workout.  We then did a 100 DPS counting the first lap, minus one stroke the second lap, minus two strokes the third lap and then regular dps for the last lap.  I started with 21 strokes the first lap, 19 the 2nd, 17 the 3rd and 18 the last lap.  I need to work on my strokes per lap.

4x125s 10 secs rest.  50 drill / 75 swim.  First drill was  modified swordfish, then one arm, then some drill that I don't know the name of then the last one was fist.

Then we did a 300 Pull.  50 DPS / 50 Fast

A 50.  Build the first 25.  Sprint the second 25.

5x300's on 4:15
first one the first 50 & last 50 fast
second one the last 100 fast
third one the middle 100 fast
fourth one the first 100 fast
last one 100 technique then 200 race strategy. 
These were to be descended.  My times were slow with a 3:41, 3:39, 3:38, 3:40 and 3:34.  Not bad considering I've been sick and out of the water but not fast in any way.  If I didn't have my lane mate on my feet the whole time I would have been a lot slower.  He pushed me even when I didn't feel like going fast.

100 easy

2x
4x25's on 30/30/30/45
100 on 1:45
These were choice and I did them all backstroke.  Didn't feel strong enough to do any butterfly. 

Overall the workout was good for me so I'm glad I went.  I wont' be swimming full steam by Friday but I'm getting back swim by swim.  Tomorrow is New Years so no swimming!  Hope everyone has a great New Year full of some great swims!

Taking A Day Off

My cold is still sticking with me so I'm taking today as a recovery day.  It was to be my first weight training day in a month but I'll start that on Thursday.  On New Years Day which will be the busiest day at the gym of the year.  GREAT!  I do plan on swimming tomorrow morning so I'll be back up and running at my usual pace by the weekend.

Back In The Water

After a week out of the water and battling a cold I decided to swim this morning.  I kept debating with myself last night and this morning if I should or not.  It wasn't a debate of if I can swim it was more of me debating how contagious I am to my lane mates.  Monday is an easy workout so I knew I could hack it even if I was hacking.  I warmed up a very slow 400 free.  Some swimming but mostly pulling without paddles.  Just swimming a few laps it was clear to me that my body was not use to swimming and the muscles would need to relearn how to engage themselves. 

After the 400 we did 8x25's kick.  Funny enough that this was pretty easy for me even being a non-kicker.  These were all free and on 30 seconds.  I will admit later on some leg muscle pain/fatigue started but not during this set.

400 Pull as follows.  1st 200 Distance Per Stroke.  2nd 200 breath control every 3/5/any/7 by 50.  The eagerness in me got to me during the 1st 200 as I tried to test my limits of speed.  My stroke was sloppy and after one push off the wall ran into the lane line head on.  I have a little mark smack dab in the middle of my forehead to prove it.  Which also shows that I need to be looking down not up on my streamlines.  Then again since I am looking up they shouldn't be called streamlines as I am not very streamline.

Two sets of 4x100's.  Round One on 1:25 and Round Two on 1:30.  These were descending 1-4 and 5-8 with second round faster than the first.  My times sucked as I did a 1:09/1:09/1:08/1:06 then 1:10/1:09/1:09/1:05. 

Then we did a 100 easy before switching to stroke.

3x150's.  10 secs rest.  75 kick / 50 drill / 25 swim.  Fly/Back/Breast

8x25s on 30 IM order

And that was it.  Wasnt the best workout ever but just enough to reengage my muscles and body to swimming.  Now I can let the muscles recover and swim again hopefully tomorrow night.  I figure by the end of the week I'll be my old self swimming.

5000 SCY Swim

I decided to squeeze one more swim in before I left so I headed to the WeHo Pool for lap swim.  Luckily I had my own lane for the entire swim.  Wahoo!

Warmed Up
400 Swim
300 Pull
200 Kick
100 Swim (1,000)

Main Set:
6x50's on 50
4x100's on 1:30
3x200's on 2:30
4x100s on 1:20
6x50's on 40 (2,000yards / 3000 yards)

10x100's Kick on 2:00 (1,000 / 4,000 yards)

3x300's Pull on 4 Mins.
1st One Breathing every 3
2nd One Breathing every 4
3rd One Breathing every 5 (900 / 4,900 yards)

100 warm down for a total of 5,000 yards.

Since I was on my own I didn't push myself that much.  I just kept under the intervals making sure I got some rest.  The water was warm so I figured work on my stroke and have a relaxing swim.  By the time I was finishing up people started to enter the pool so I finished just in time.  This will be last real swim for a week as I'll be in Florida.  The pool that is available to me is a 20 yard pool.  Ugh!  I was hoping to swim with a certain Masters team but they do not allow visitors to swim with them.  I was shocked to find that out.  But it is at a retirement community so I'd be lapping the swimmers anyways but even so non-residents of the community are not allowed to swim in the competition pool.  Which is odd as they had the "Senior Games" at this pool.  No need to fight the man on this stupid issue.  I'll just swim with the noodlers and enjoy my time in Florida.  Oh and the picture in this post was taken at the recreational pool I'll be swimming in.  I'm so going to do flip turns on those people!  Kidding.  Although the lady wearing a sun visor in the pool cracks me up!  I can just hear it "excuse me, can you not splash when you are swimming.  You are getting my hair wet". 

Happy Holidays To All!
Joel

It Was Like Swimming In An Outdoor Steam Room

I woke up from a nice warm toasty sleep and went swimming this morning.  Brr...nothing like a refreshing swim outside with temps hovering in the low 30's F.  The water was close to 83/84 so at least getting in the water was okay.  Swimming at a fast pace wasn't okay.  Warmed up about a 300 before our warm up set. 

Swimming today was a bit rough.  The water was warm and the air cold so you swam in a cloud of steam rising off the pool.  My goggles kept fogging up so reading the clock was a pain. 

The warm up set.  Hmm...what did we do.  Something with some kick.  But not too much kick.  Then some drilling and some swimming.  I think it was 3 times 100 kick / some 75's drill then 50's swim. 

We only had two of us in our lane so I went second but 10 seconds apart.  I actually caught up to the leader in the 100's and used this as a guide to pace myself so I wouldn't go too fast during the first part of the main set.

Main Set:
6x100's Freestyle alternating 1:20/1:15
50 Kick on 60
4x100's Freestyle on 1:15
50 Kick on 60
2x100's Freestyle on 1:10
50 Kick on 60

I was holding 1:06's for the first two round of 100's then 1:04's for the last two.  I didn't feel like I was going all that fast.  I think the water temp being warm fools me into thinking I'm going slower than I really am.  I was also doing my best not to breath the first stroke off the wall.  Trying to break that habit. 

Stroke Set:
100 on 1:30 Choice (did backstroke)
2x75's on 1:10  50 fly / 25 breast
100 on 1:30 Choice (did backstroke)
2x75's on 1:10  50 breast / 25 fly
100 on 1:30 Choice (did backstroke)
2x75's on 1:10 50 back / 25 free
100 on 1:30 Choice (did backstroke)
2x75's on 1:10 50 free / 25 back

I died during this set.  Between last nights workout and the free set I didn't have much left to do this stroke set.  I fell behind in the breast and didn't recover.  I just took my time with this set.  I skipped a 50 in the last 100 choice. 

Finishing up with 6x25's butterfly on 30.  1x25 only 3 breathes, 1x25 only 2 breathes and 1x25 only 1 breathe and repeat.

I did a 50 warm down and got out.  This was my last coached workout for a bit as I'm off to Florida tomorrow.  I can swim in a recreational pool on my own but most likely won't or if I do not swim too hard.  I'll pack both swimming and running gear just in case I muster myself to workout. 

Back In The Pool...Thursday Night Swim

Finally a real swim practice.  It feels like I havn't swam in a month even though it was just a few days.  My last practice was Sunday since the rain wrecked havoc with swim this week.  So tonight I headed to swim.  It's freezing outside here in LA but a few brave folks made it to swim practice.  The water is really warm so it feels good at first but after warming up it was to much.  For the last 20 minutes of workout I was pretty much goofing off and just using it as a warm down.

Warmed up about a 300 on my own before the warm up set. 

200 Pull on 2:50 breathing 3/5/3/5 by 50
3x50's Kick (forgot interval let's say a minute)
hmm...we did something here.  oh well it's the warm up set.
3x50's Kick
200 Pull on 2:50 breathing 3/5/5/7

one more warm up set of 9x50's.  It was some sort of pattern.  I went to the bathroom and missed what it was.  I sorta winged it. 

Main Set:
25 Fly on 30
25 Free on 30
50 Fly on 50 (25 swim / 25 drill)
50 Free on 50
75 Fly on 1:15 (i think) (25 swim / 25 drill  25 swim)
75 Free on 1:15
300 IM on 4:40
25 back on 30
25 Free on 30
50 back on 50 (25 swim / 25 drill)
50 Free on 50
75 back on 1:15 (i think) (25 swim / 25 drill  25 swim)
75 Free on 1:15
300 IM on 5:00 (we extended the interval as not everyone was making it on the 4:40)
25 breast on 30
25 Free on 30
50 breast on 50 (25 swim / 25 drill)
50 Free on 50
75 breast on 1:15 (i think) (25 swim / 25 drill  25 swim)
75 Free on 1:15
300 IM
I worked the first two 300's.  The way the lanes were tonight it was a bit difficult as I was lapping my lane mates.  But also the last person in the lane next to me so it wasn't like if I had moved over it would have been better.  By the third 300 IM I was tired, the hot water was getting to me and I was just not in the mood.  Each 300 was supose to be faster but it gets annoying catching up to someone in your lane.  Mind you it was only 3 in the lane and we were only going 5 seconds apart. 

The way lanes workout there will always be people lapping each other in anything more than a 200.  That's just the nature of the beast with our team and swimming in a 25 yard pool.  It sucks for both the leader and the last person.  I've been both so I know how it is.  The leader ends up having to slow up a bit and the last person struggles not to get lapped.  It's discouraging at times.   But that is the price of Masters swimming.

After a 100 easy (only did a 50 as I took a pee break and needed to cool off.) 

3x
50 easy
100 easy
75 fast
50 fast
25 fast

I had nothing left but stayed and finished all three rounds.  Pretty much in the end only 3 out of 7 of us remained.  The evening workouts that are 90 minutes tend to turn out this way.  After the 70 minute mark the lanes begin to thin out.  The coaches know it and the main set always seems to end close to 8:10pm. 

Damp, raining and no swimming.

When I woke up at 5am I hit snooze on the alarm and rolled over.  After the second time the alarm went off I turned it off.  Slept in to about 7:30.  Doubt I will swim at all today.  Its drizzling out now.  Thought I'd do a lap swim but won't if it rains.  I'm slacking off!

Jacuzzi Lap Swim

Why did I decide to go swimming when it's 40 degrees outside?  This morning I hit the weho pool for a lap swim against my better judgement to sleep in.  I decided to bike which was mistake number one as it was pretty chilly at 6am.  I could see my breath.  Once at the pool you couldn't see the clock due to the steam rising from the hot pool.  Hot it was.  So glad I really didn't have an agenda for swimming today besides just swimming to keep in some sort of shape. 

Warmed up a 400.

Kick 6x75's on 1:30.  odds free / evens stroke. (300/700)

300 Pull (300/1000)

10x100's using the Secret Santa Slips of Paper! (1000/2000)

10 folded slips of paper of each of the following:
fly
back
breast
free
IM
kick

and 4 folded slips of paper of each of the following:
breathing every 3
breathing every 5
breathing every 7
breathing every 9

We ended up doing 2 breast / 2 back / 1 free / 2 breathing every 7 / 1 kick, 1 IM and something else.

We then did 5x50's still picking from the slips of paper.   (250/2250)

We really weren't going on any intervals.  The water was hot and we weren't in a swimming mood.  Just trying to swim off those holiday snacks. (400/2650)

Not much yardage but at least it was a swim. I'll be lucky to even swim 2650 next week when I'm in Florida.  I may swim tomorrow if the rain holds off then on Thursday and Friday.  May, just may hit the lap swim again on Saturday morning before I leave.  Squeeze in one last workout for the year!

The Secret Santa of Swimming Sets

Since I will be hitting one of the lap swims tomorrow as we don't have a workout at the WeHo Pool I was trying to think of a workout I'd want to do.  Hmm...something fun but still a little bit of a challenge.  Then I thought about how today was to be the 10x100's which I didn't want to do so I came up with a random fun way to do them.  Last night I grabbed some paper and made little slips of paper as follows...

10 folded slips of paper of each of the following:
fly
back
breast
free
IM
kick

and 4 folded slips of paper of each of the following:
breathing every 3
breathing every 5
breathing every 7
breathing every 9

So I was thinking after the warm up I'd do either 50's or 100's for an hour.  Before each 50 or 100 I'd pull a piece of paper and whatever is written on it would be how I'd swim it.   I'm leaning towards doing 100's all on 1:45 which would allow me to do 30 in one hour and leave time for warm up and warm down sets.  30x100's on 1:45 all picked at random.  Just like picking a Secret Santa or Snowflake.  I know some of my team mates don't like gimecky workouts like this but I think it breaks up the routine.  I may get bored 1/2 way into the set and change my mind.  Then again lap swim may be packed and I'll just get out frustrated at the noodlers.

Scratch That Workout

I was on my way to the 7pm swim when the rain started to come down pretty hard so I just turned around and came home.  Ate some pasta and baking some brownies.  I'll attempt the lap swim at the WeHo pool at 6:30am.  Depending on this rain!  My holiday vacation from swimming is starting too early!