That's A Lotta IM!

This morning I decided it was time to get my ass into gear and swim some Long Course Meters.  I wanted to ease into swimming LCM and swim the distance free workout but this week of course was all stroke / im with no free option. Doh! 

Warmed Up a 400.

Warm Up Set:

4x200's no interval / 15 seconds rest.  Odd's Drill / Evens Pull.  I did my first three all IM.  Pulling a 200 IM was a challenge.  Well mostly the breaststroke.  Everyone was pulling freestyle so I almost got lapped.  Ouch!  The last 200 I mixed it up free/back and fly. (800/1200)

4x100's Kick no interval / 15 seconds rest.  I took a 100 off for a pee break so only 3 for me.  . (300/1500)

4x50's Free on 50 (200/1700)

I felt slow and sore already and that was just the warm up.  1700 LCM warm up is a bit much for someone who hasn't swam LCM in ages.  Since I am determined to swim LCM on a more regular basis I just shut my mouth the whole workout and just swim.  I knew it was going to hurt and I had to accept that and move on. 

Main Set: (hope I can remember it)

Hmm...some 100's stroke.  2 maybe or 4.  Grr...I don't remember.  Let's just say 2 for now.  Yeah, 2 sounds about right.  (200)

2x200's IM (have no idea what the interval was)  (400/600)

300 Free (i think 4 minutes but maybe I'm wrong) (300/900)

400 IM (have no idea what interval it was on but we had rest) (400/1300)

300 Free (once again I think 4 minutes) (300/1600)

2x200's Stroke (meh, some interval) (400/2000)

3x100's on 1:40. (300/2300/4000)

We had plenty of rest which was a good thing but boy did it hurt.  I started off a bit easy and eased my way into the set.  I was second in my lane till after the first 300 Free so I was able to stretch it out a bit.  I was already a bit sore from the warm up.  The 400 IM came and I think I took the butterfly out to fast.  By about 75 meters I was moving my arms but wasn't feeling anything.  No water, no push just nothing.  It was like I was just whirl winding my arms in air and going no where.  Since it was long course and everyone was behind me in my lane the first 50 I was able to keep my head down and low.  Really felt good for a change.  But then it was all downhill after that.  The 2nd 300 I used as my recovery from the 400 IM.  I tried just to keep a decent pace but not kill myself.  I then fell apart in the 2x200's Stroke.  My stroke of choice for the 100's and 200's was backstroke.  Didn't feel that butterfly was doable at all.  I was just beaten down and my body didn't want to swim anymore during the last 200 backstroke.  Like the butterfly in the 400 IM I was moving my arms but wasn't feeling much of anything.  Then in the 3x100's something happened.  After all that backstroke I felt great swimming freestyle.  I was on a decent pace until the last one when I got a cramp.  The last 50 of the 100 I was just pulling like crazy keep my foot flexed so my calve would be okay.  It was like dragging my foot behind me since I couldn't keep it streamline the foot acted like an anchor. 

4,000 LCM was a pretty good workout.  I will hopefully do more LCM swims over the next few months.  I doubt I will swim at any meets but I like LCM and just need to swim it more.  Hopefully next time I'll get to do more free or butterfly.  Either or, just no more breaststroke.

Wow.  I just had to look up that last time I was at the RHS pool and it was May of 2007.  Which was the first time I had been there in almost a year. 

Swimming In What Felt Like an Empty Pool!

Run or Swim?  Swim or Run?  I came home from work and had to decide on hitting the 7pm swim workout or attempt to go run 5 miles at 6:30 with the Nike Running Club.  I haven't been running so I really should run 5 miles.  I was so tired that both seemed daunting.  Figuring it was 6:00 and getting ready and to Beverly Hills in 30 minutes wouldn't happen but I could get ready and to Culver City in 60 minutes.  So swimming won.  Of course traffic was a nightmare and I just made it to the locker room at 7.  Luckily there was some confusion about our team having pool time so I had a few minutes to relax.  Phew!

We started the workout with only four lanes but after warm up we had six lanes.  Which was so nice since they turnout was pretty low.  I guess you can't take the boy swimmers out of WeHo even for just one night.  I wanted to be a slacker and swim in the medium lane but the coach said no.  Which was a good thing since once we got past the warm up part of workout the intervals were doable.  It's just always a battle for me to make fast lane intervals with kicking and drilling.  Getting 5 seconds of rest in kicking and drilling is like almost no rest at all in my view since I'm dying from kicking and drilling.

As for the warm up I did about a 350.  I wasn't really counting and I was swimming a 50 and resting then swimming another 50.  And I took a pee break.  So a 350 in 10 minutes.  I'm such a loafer in warm ups. 

Then we did a warm up set - 3 Rounds

50 Sculling on 1:10

100 Kick on 2:10

150 Pulling breathing every 3/5/7 on 2:10

The coach had up drop 5 seconds to those intervals after the first round.  Grrr!  I'm glad we did sculling since I've been watching those Go Swim videos about sculling.  I don't know if I did it right or not but since the coach didn't say anything I guess I did.  (900/1250)

6x50's Drill 25 / Swim 25.  2 Fly, 2 Back and 2 Breast on 50 (300/1550)

Main Set:

100 Free on 1:20 (100)

75 IM on 1:10 (75/175)

100 Free on 1:20 (100/275)

2x75's Stroke on 1:10.  I did backstroke (150/425)

100 Free on 1:20 (100/525)

3x75's IM on 1:10 (225/650)

100 Free on 1:20 (100/750)

4x75's Stroke on 1:10 (300/1050)

100 Free easy no interval (100/1150)

we then rested a bit and then swam a fast 200 stroke or im.  I did  backstroke and swam it in 2:30.  So not good!  All the 75's were fast and I think I was just beat up by the 200.  Since we had moved over the fast lane became two fast lanes with only 2 of us in each lane.  I went 10 seconds behind the lane leader.  (200/1350/2900)

Hmm...really that is it.  Okay then we did a 50 Easy.  (50/2950) 

10x50's alternating easy on 60 and fast on 40.  (500/2450)

Then we did 2 over under 50's.  (100/2550)  

Like I said it was a good workout.  The WeHo Pool will be closed for Pride Weekend but I may hit one of our morning workouts at other pools.  Well maybe.  I figure I am so not hitting the gym in WeHo.  Hollywood or Koreatown maybe.  Also I'm not running the Pride 10K.  Can't be spending money on 10K entries right now.  So since I paid my swim dues I more as well swim.  Maybe I can get myself back in swim shape this summer. 

The Culver Pool lanes are wider then the WeHo Pool lanes so it felt like swimming all by yourself.  Well almost.  It's a shame we didn't do more free.  It was nice to swim into the middle of the wall to do your flip turn.  Normally we are stacked up on each other so sometimes you need to squeeze in between the person pushing off and the person behind you.  Freaks me out!  I have spacial issues.  I guess I liked the workout but I don't know if it was cuz' of the set or cuz' I really like the pool.  We have two practices next week at Culver before heading back to WeHo.  I'll make a point of going to those workouts.  I'm going to get spoiled swimming at Culver. 

Super Tuesday - Pooling and Polling Edition

Well not so super Super Tuesday.  The polls and pools are now all closed and I am not happy with all the results from the polls and the pool at least I voted and swam today. 

I woke up a bit later then usual and decided I'd grab my stuff and head to the gym on the way into work.  Usually I like to hit the gym then come home and eat, shower and then go to work.  But I figured it's nice to break routine sometimes.  I misjudged how long it would take me to get to the Koreatown 24 Hour Fitness so I didn't have as long as I wanted to workout.  I started off running 1 mile on the treadmill.  Then after scoping out the upstairs and downstairs weight areas I did a shortened modified regular routine.  The gym is in a office building and the ceilings at the gym seem really low upstairs.  Also some of the weight equipment looks older then I am.  But they had plenty of treadmills and flat screen tv's all over.  I guess they spend all the budget on tv's.  I got in a good workout before showering and heading to work.

After work it was a quick trip home before I was off to vote.  Even though I know I mailed my change of address form over a year ago I was still registered at my old address.  Luckily the old hood' was on the way to the pool.  Yesterday I had called the voting office place to find out exactly which was my polling place.  I was shocked when they gave me the address.  I also assumed it was one of the places that they held a primary before.  So blindly I headed towards that one place.  But it wasn't it.  I started to stop people on the street if they knew where the polling place was.  More then one person had no idea what I was talking about.  Finally I asked a guy if he knew where it was and he answered yes and continued to walk away from me.  WTF?  I then asked if he would tell me where it was to which he answered that is was a one block up the street.  So I decided to walk the block hoping to find it myself.  Since I'm a fast walker I was able to get there before that jackass.  Perfect Timing.  I was able to vote and be all done with it while that guy was still waiting in line.  Then it was off to the pool after a trip around the block to check on my old apartment building. 

Since the WeHo Pool is closed for the next 8 days practice was at Culver City Plunge at 7:30.  It was suppose to be 7:30 - 9:00 but when we got at the pool we were told the pool closes at 8:30.  Good thing since I was tired and 9 pm sounds so late to be working out.  I got in the water and swam a 600 warm up.  I wasn't feeling so hot in the water.  I was tired from the day and well maybe I over did it with weights today.  I should have sucked it up by I only swam 45 minutes before getting out.  I really just felt like crap.  I was able to get speed but had no motivation to continue.

Warm Up Set

250 - 50 Kick w/o Board / 50 Swordfish / 50 Finger Tip Drag / 100 Swim

I took a pee break and missed a 100 of the kick/swordfish for the 2nd rounds so I did...

50 Fist / 100 Swim (400/1000)

Then we did the head lead drill again.  4x100's 25 head lead drill / 75 build.  This was the start of me feeling like crap.  We didn't have an interval except to just take 10 seconds rest.  The problem with that was the leader of our lane was really fast and he caught up to us by the 3rd 100.  Also because he kept getting closer I wasn't taking a full 10 seconds.  It was a bad warm up set for me as I felt rushed.  Rushed and tired.  (400/1400)

Then we did a 600 Pull.  I felt okay and was able to get some speed but I kept on getting lazy and my recovery was all over the place.  I kept having to concentrate on relaxed high elbows and stretching my hand out in front of me.  A few times my arm didn't want to follow my directions.  I wanted to move down a lane to really focus back on my stroke.  But stayed in the fast lane for a bit longer before giving up and going home.  (600/2000)

5x100's Pace on 1:15.  My first one I did on 1:06 and the rest all on 1:07.  I really started to pay attention to my arm and the "over the barrel" technique.  This really started to take it's toll on my arm muscles.  I was getting tired and sore.  (500/2500)  We had a 15 second break before another set of 5x100's this time descending on 1:20. After the first one I got out.  Really I just didn't have the motivation to stick it out.  I was tired, hungry and just not feeling it.  Sometimes I feel like I'm better getting out while the goings good instead of fighting an up hill battle.  I know it's wrong and I need Jillian Michaels on deck yelling at me to go.  While watching Losing It With Jillian I realized that she would be doing a lot of yelling at me on deck if she was a swim coach. 

Total yardage for tonight was 2,600.  Not a whole lot but enough for 45 minutes.  After I got home I started to have this odd pain in my left calve.  Not a cramp but a pain.  Going to try to get a good nights sleep as I wanted to run in the morning.  Hopefully my leg will recover.  If it doesn't maybe Jillian will show up at my front door and make me run!

That's The Way, Uh Huh I Like It

After swimming yesterday afternoon I didn't know how I'd feel in this mornings workout.  I got in the pool at warm up and took it easy for a 400 warm up thinking about my hand entry and elbow position in recovery. 

After the initial warm up time we did a few warm up sets.  The first one was 3x200's broken as follows 50 kick / 50 swordfish with underwater recovery / 50 drill (finger tip drag, catchup and fist) and then a 50 swim.  Swordfish with underwater recovery is the impossible swim for me.  When I do the underwater recovery I feel like I'm pushing myself backwards.  (600/1000)

600 Pull.  400 Pace / 200 Race Strategy.  I started to get some of my mojo in the 600.  I started with a 1:10 then I sorta forgot my pace.  While I was swimming I was getting it but since forgot it.  I thought I was going to fast at first so pulled back.  I do remember descending the last 300. (600/1600)

Then we did I think a 75 of the head lead drill.  Or not.  Hmmm... I think actually it may have been 2x50's head lead drill to the deep and swim back.  Maybe just maybe.  Then after a 25 just head lead drill.  Head lead drill is like swordfish but without the arms.  You more as well just tie a lead weight to my feet and watch me slowly fall apart and drown.  (125/1725)

4x200's Descending on 2:45.  My first one was a 2:25, then a 2:21, a 2:18 and finished up with a 2:10.  Considering I was doing 2:30's yesterday I gotta admit I was happy with my swims.  2:10 is what I use to do when going all out in a 200 in workout so I was happy to have done that.  Guess my mojo was back for the day!  (600/2325)  The funny thing was that I didn't feel like I was going that fast.  I was nervous that my descends would not be descends.  And just a week ago my descends were not happening.  So wahoo!  Now the pool is going to be closed for 9 days or more so we'll see how much I swim.  (800/2525)

We did a 50 easy (50/2375)

Stroke Time - 75 kick / 50 drill / 50 swim / 25 fast kick I did backstroke (200/2575)

Stroke Set -

Two Rounds - 2x50's on 55 / 4x25's on 30.  (400/2975)

My backstroke felt crappy and not fast so I kept thinking technique instead.

Warmed down with a 100 for 3075 yards.  Overall happy with the workout!  Well busy morning so I'm off.

Continuing To Struggle Without Speed

I got to Sunday afternoon swim practice and it seemed like no one was at the pool.  Slowly but surely people showed up but still it was pretty empty with 2 or 3 people per lane.  I started off with an easy warm up of about a 400.

Kick Warm Up Set

Three Round

75

50

25

The first round I was in the fast lane with intervals of 1:30/1:00/30 then moved to the medium lane for the 2nd and 3rd round.  I was just barely making the fast lane intervals.  My legs were sore and I just couldn't get them to go.  I did skip the very last 50 of the kick set for a pee break.  (400/800)

Then the coach took a moment to talk about hand entry and elbow position in our catch.  He talked about going over a wheel barrel.  We did two 50's working on our catch.  Then we did 2x100's Drill 1/2 fist and 1/2 finger tip drag.  No interval just 10 seconds rest.  (250/1050)

Then I think we went into our main set.  We had a fast lane and a faster lane.  Today I swam in the fast lane.  Which was good as I was just coming in to the wall at the faster lane intervals.

Main Set:

2x200's Free on 2:40

2x100's Free on 1:20

75 Fast up to 90% of all out on 1:10

25 FAST all out 100% on 30

2x200's Free on 2:40

2x100's Free on 1:20

50 Fast up to 90% on 40

50 FAST all out 100%.  There was an interval but I took a quick pee break after the 50 and my lane mate got out.  So plenty of extra rest before the last round.

2x200's Free on 2:40

2x100's Free on 1:20

25 Fast up to 90% on 30

75 FAST 100% effort.  Well whatever I had left. 

I just felt tired and like crap for the whole set.  Hard to get up any speed.  The faster I tried to go the more of a struggle it was.  I ended up doing super sloppy turns just to have some recovery since my swimming was killing me.  (2100/3150)

50 easy.  (50/3200)  Then I joined in the faster lane to finish up the final set.  It was to be 5x75's on 1:25 I think.  1st 25 underwater, 2nd 25 stroke and 3rd 25 working out breakout freestyle.  I started on the 2nd one after the 25 mark.  So I did 3x75's plus a 25.  (250/3400)

So the workout was a long and tiring 3400.  The next week and a half swimming will be a tough one as the WeHo Pool will be closed starting on Tuesday and not opening till two Thursdays after.  Most of our workouts have been moved to other pools but I don't know how many of those I'll make.  I may have to do the dreaded "gym pool swim".  We;ll see.

Freestyle Drill, Baby, Drill Workout

Tonight's workout was the perfect workout for me.  It was all about freestyle drilling.  I know some people don't the drill portions of workouts that seem to take a majority of the workout but I love them.  Okay, so maybe not love them but I know I need to slow down and learn to swim correctly. 

Warm Up

600 Swim.  I mixed it up with some drilling and pulling.  I was really concentrating on keep my elbows up and my stroke long so I was doing fingertip drag and catch up drills. 

4x50's Kick

3x50's Pull

And that was warm up.  There also was 2x50's drill but I took a pee break and when I got back the coach held us to start the workout.  (950)

Drill, Baby, Drill Time!

We first started with some 25's.  A few Head Up Freestyle working on rotating your hips while at the same time looking at your hand entry.  My lack of kicking really made this difficult.  Felt with heads up drill my feet just dragged behind me.

So then we did Drill work which I can't remember but it was all about breathing correctly and head position.  We did a couple of 25's then a 50.  Normally my head goes way out of the water to breathing so trying to keep my head low I kept getting more water then oxygen.  Sometimes I would be afraid to open my mouth and skip breathing. 

Then we did some 6 beat and 4 beat kicking with our stroke.  Starting with 25's then 50's.  This was a tough one for me.  So many things to think about.  Head position, rotation of hips, hand entry, elbows up and now I gotta move my little legs.  Since we were on no interval I was able to slow up and do it right.  Pretty much for the rest of the workout I tried to hold all those things together.  Never kicked so much while swimming in my life. 

After the drilling I was beat.  Out of breath, tired, sore and we still had the main set to swim.  Swimming correctly or attempting to is harder then just sprinting back and forth.  But we only had 20 minutes left of our workout.

Main Set:

4x75's on 1:20.  This was all about technique and keeping with what we just did in our drills.  I really tried holding my technique and kicking.  I was out of breath at every 75 and still was taking in more water when breathing. (300)

6x50's on 45 (150/450)

something here...but what?

4x50's on 45 (200/650)

4x25's Stroke on 30 (100/750)

4x50's on 40 (200/950)

Hmm...I missed something so it was more then 950 yards.  Mostly for me it was working on my technique.  Intervals were generous enough to do that.  Well excpe thte last set of 50's but those were sprint and technique went out the window.

Workout was more then the 1900 I know of.  Don't remember how many drill 25's and 50's.  I was thinking about my stroke and not how many more.  Not that yardage matters as it was more about the focus of the swim to swim correctly.  Anyone can do garbage yardage sets.  Tonight's workout was part two of the Friday nights coach emphasis on freestyle technique.  I may email him and ask how long we'll be doing this so I can arrange my swim practices to allow Friday night swims.  I so need all the help on my stroke that I can get. 

Oh and I created a new category for my swim workouts that I like "Favorite Sets &/Or Swim Workouts".  Mostly I'm doing this for me to go back and look at what I like and what makes me tick.  I've swum lots of great sets that I really liked over the years but I'm too lazy to search for them all and mark them in this category.  But for future workouts they'll all be grouped together. 

June Gloom In The Pool

Here in Los Angeles we have what is called "June Gloom" which basically means our days start cloudy, hazy and cool but by mid afternoon the sun breaks out and warms up the day only to cool off at night and repeat the gloom the next day.  That "June Gloom" is how I felt in the water today and the past few swims.  Struggling with being a bit out of shape and now dealing with some lower back issues my swimming is stuck in the gloom with brief glimpses of sun or speed followed by cold or slow swims.  My lower back seems to be a lot better then Monday as it just feels like an annoying knot that needs to be worked out.  I was able to deal with it and finish the workout.  It wasn't fast but I did the workout.

Warmed Up about a 400.  Took it easy with some drilling and pulling. 

Warm Up Set:

3 Rounds

100 Kick / 75 Drill / 50 Breakout / 25 Swim (don't remember the intervals) First and Third rounds stroke and 2nd round free.  Did the 1st round fly and felt pretty good.  Then used a kickboard to kick in the free round and that felt wonky.  The third round missed a 50 kick for a pee break but did the rest backstroke.  (700/1100)

We had a lot of people at the 6am workout with some of the faster 7:15'ers decided to do a double and swim at 6 and 7:15am.  Crazy, but then again they are getting faster and I'm lingering behind.  We even have more medium lane swimmers which just throws off all the lanes.  So today we had a fast lane and a umm..cross between medium and fast.  We started with two fast lanes but the intervals were a challenge so one lane mate bumped up to the faster lane and I stayed behind with the medium swimmers.  I felt it was smart for me to take some extra rest.  I gotta admit I fibbed to the coach when he asked me about the intervals as I told him they were tight.  But I wanted the easier intervals.  I ended up getting more then enough rest.

Two Rounds:

100 IM on 1:30 for the first round 1:40 for the second

4x50's Stroke on 50.  Although I think we stopped and on the 2nd round to regroup and start on the easier intervals.

100 IM on 1:30 for the first round 1:40 for the second

2x100's Stroke on 2 mins for both rounds.  we had enough rest.   although the 1st one of the 2nd round we did I think on 2:10 before going to back to the 2 minutes as we had enough rest.  

100 IM on 1:30 for the first round 1:40 for the second

200 Stroke.  3:45 I believe. 

I did almost all my stroke backstroke except the 2nd round for my 4x50's I did butterfly.  Having multiple people in the lane it was a lot of one arm as I was passing people.  I had thought of attempting the 200 fly but figured it would be a pain in the ass and maybe too much too soon.  The groups of stroke were to be descending.  I will admit I could have put in a better effort and swam faster but I think knowing or remember that Monday my back was acting up made me baby myself a bit today.   (1800/2900) 

Then I did 4x100's Pulling on 1:25 descend.  I really wasn't even looking at the clock as I was just swimming them relaxed.  (400/3300)

Today is National Running Day and would really like to run at least a short run tonight.  But that is up in the air.  Let's see how I feel in a few hours after work.  I may feel up to it or I may just want to watch tv and lay on my back.  Either way it's all good!