Just keep swimming, just keep swimming

Date: Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Time: 5:45 a.m.
Short Course Yards
293 days to Trials

400 warmup


6x150 on 2:30
odd: kick/drill/swim (averaged 2:10)
even: back/breast/free swim (averaged 1:55)

8x100 on 1:40 roving IM (averaged 1:10-1:12)
Roving IM means you start with a different stroke on each repeat. The first one is regular IM order, the second 100 is back/breast/free/fly, the third is breast/free/fly/back and the fourth is free/fly/back/breast. Repeat.

8x25 on :35
odd: fly pull with underwater recovery
even: fly swim with four kicks per stroke cycle
(I didn't look at the clock quickly at the end of these repeats, but I was getting about 15 seconds rest)

6x100 on 2:00 descend 1-3
(Swam 50 back/50 breast: 1:17, 1:10, 1:05, 1:16, 1:11, 1:03)

100 easy

6x50 on 1:00 descend 1-3
(Swam backstroke: 38, 33, 28.0, 38, 34, 28.0)

100 easy


6x25 on :30 descend 1-3
(Swam butterfly: 18, 15, 12.8, 18, 15, 12.8)

100 easy (with stretching)

Thanks to yesterday's very long walk, my gluteals and hip flexors are extremely sore. I almost collapsed from the pain of it when I got out of bed this morning. I'm sure the walk was good for me, but maybe I shouldn't have walked so long! No matter how much I stretched today, the soreness would not go away. It made breaststroke difficult to do well, since the kick is very dependent on the hip flexors. Every time I lifted my legs for the kick, I could feel the flexors.

As such, the set of 100s descend wasn't as fast as I had hoped. I was certain I could go 1:00 or :59, but when your kick is compromised, it affects everything else.

Tomorrow morning I am headed to the American Swimming Coaches Association's annual clinic with part of the Swimming World crew. This year it's in San Diego, which means we're driving. I will be packing my Prius with heavy boxes, which will affect the gas mileage severely. On last weekend's trip, I managed to make it on one tank of gas each way, which was expected. I got about 43.5 miles per gallon, which is below normal for highway driving, but about right when you factor in that I went through several mountain passes. With the extra equipment in my car, I hope the gas mileage can stay in the 43-mile range.Coming back there should be less stuff in my car (provided we sell a lot of product!), so my car will like me then.

Anyway, I expect to swim every day I am there, so I will continue to post during the trip.

If you're going to be in San Diego, stop by the Swimming World booth and say hello!