Wake Up Little Susie

Date: Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Time: 5:45 a.m.
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Short Course Yards
236 days to Olympic Trials

300 warmup

4x(3x75 on 1:15)
1: 25 kick/25 drill/25 swim
2: choice swim
3: free no breaths between flags

6x50 kick on 1:10
Odd: 25 fast/25 easy
Even: 25 easy/25 fast

4x(4x50 on 1:00)
1: 25 fast IM order/25 easy
2: easy
3: free @ 200 pace (27.0)
4: easy

100 breast fast from push (1:02.1)

300 easy

100 back fast from push (56.4)

300 easy

50 breast fast from dive (27.5)

200 easy

Total: 3,350 yards (75 minutes)

I was very sluggish in the water today. I woke up at 3:00 last night and couldn't go back to sleep right away. The last time I looked at the clock before I fell into a deep sleep again, it read "3:50." My brain wanted to swim fast, but my body wanted to be under the covers.

A little disclaimer here: As my lane mates (and those in adjacent lanes at Phoenix Swim Club) know, I take what I call "sprinter's prerogative" on many of the sets during my sprinting phase. Instead of doing two 100s fast from a push, everyone else did four. I simply swam easy in my lane during two of those fast swims. I wanted to have more than three minutes rest between my 100s in order to focus on race pace training. If I had done the set as written, my 100 breast would have been in the 1:05 range, and my 100 back would have been probably :58 or :59. I noticed that others in my training group were able to hold pretty fast times on all four of their swims, which is great for them. I do wonder, however, how much faster they would have gone if they only did two with about eight minutes rest between.

In any case, my sprinting times weren't too far off my average, given my physical state. I had hoped my dive 50 would be under 26, but I had a bad turn and stupidly tried to recover from it by increasing my turnover on the last 25. Live and learn.

5:00 p.m. with JR Rosania

Today was a "very good" workout with JR. It was "very good" in the sense that I can feel the ache in my muscles two hours later. Most of the hard stuff was concentrated in my hamstrings and back. After an eight-minute warmup on the elliptical machine and dynamic stretches for my legs, I did some lunges with an eight-pound ball, rotating to each side on the lunge. Wow! That really puts some stress on the hamstrings! I know my hamstrings are weak, hence the inability for them to deal with simple lunges.

As for my back, I did a set of back extensions where I had to thrust my arms forward on the upswing, similar to the breaststroke recovery. Oh, and I was holding that eight-pound ball. I followed that up immediately with a variation on hamstring curls. Instead of lying on your stomach, you bend at the waist and put your torso on a platform while holding a bar in front of you. Then, you lift a bar with both of your legs, keeping your legs straight. That burns in the hamstrings and back! That was a sign that my lower back muscles were not very strong, either.

Though his workouts are tougher than what I do at 24 Hour Fitness by myself, I always find myself smiling when I'm working with JR. I think it's because there are other Masters swimmers there doing the same thing I am, and we all are dripping sweat and talking about the pains that come with being old. But we love it, because, as I told you last week, a lot of us are seeing results.

As for me, I think I'm going to end my day with a big glass of water. That will help the ibuprofen go down easier.