Food, glorious food

Date: September 20, 2011
Time: 5:45 a.m.
Short Course Yards
279 days to Trials

1300 warmup

Main set:
Three rounds, descending effort by round:
4x25 fly on :25
1x100 back on 1:40
2x50 breast on 1:00
1x100 free on 1:40
(Descended to :15 for fly, 1:05 for back, :34 for breast, 1:00 for free)

100 IM fast for time (:59)

200 scull/swim

4x(3x100 on 1:40)
#1 backstroke (averaged 1:06)
#2 IM (averaged 1:06)
#3 free (averaged 1:01)

200 warm down

Total: 4,200 yards

At the gym (6:15 p.m.):

Five minutes shoulder warm up exercises

Sitting bench press (15 @ 115, 12 @ 135, 10 @ 155)

Sitting row (15 @ 80, 12 @ 110, 10 @ 120)

Sitting leg press (15 @ 140, 12 @ 170, 10 @ 200)

Dumbbell curls (15 @ 15 lbs each arm, 12 @ 22.5, 15 @ 27.5)

Hamstring curls (15 @ 70, 12 @ 100, 10 @ 110)

Standing lat pulldown (15 @ 50, 12 @ 60, 10 @ 75)

15 minutes abdominal exercises and stretching

A common story about swimmers is that we can eat whatever we want. Because we train so hard, we need lots of calories to replace the ones we burned. That's true for those in their teens and 20s who swim 10,000 yards each day. It's not true for this 37-year-old Masters swimmer who averages 3,500 per day. I wish I had thought of that after eating an entire Digiorno pepperoni pizza last night. I was extremely hungry after a long day at work and a tough day in piano class, and it was the only thing that would be ready in 30 minutes (except for pasta, which I had for dinner on Sunday). The pizza was still digesting in my body this morning, I believe, because I felt like a ton of bricks through the entire workout. I didn't feel bloated, just unable to make my muscles move through the water as fast as I expected. Plus, all the sodium in the pizza made me very thirsty, and I almost drank the entire contents of my water bottle in 70 minutes, which I rarely do. To make the morning more bizarre, one of my lanemates said he thought I had lost weight!

(I was much smarter with dinner tonight when I got home from the gym: Two chicken breasts, some broccoli and a protein shake.)

If it weren't for Alan Carter pushing the pace in the lane next to me, and if I had done today's workout alone, I would have quit after the first round of the main set. Today was tough to get through, but I'm glad I did. The times on both of the sets you see above were above aerobic pace, and my heart rate got pretty high. I checked at the end of both of the big sets and my heart rate was at 174 (29 beats for a 10-second count).

I know that every swimmer experiences a bad workout or two occasionally. After more than 30 years in the pool, I know that all too well. But I always get excited for Tuesday workouts because they are stroke-oriented, and I'm swimming with a group of talented people after my lonely Sunday workout. I was a little mad at myself for not being able to swim better today. And when your stomach isn't feeling its best, working on utilizing your core on your strokes is a little bit of a challenge. I think tomorrow's sprint workout will be better. No, I know it will be better!