The Eyes of a Child

Date: Thursday, January 5, 2012
Time: 4:45 p.m.
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Long Course Meters
172 days to Olympic Trials

Today's workout with the gold group at Phoenix Swim Club reminded me that I am seriously lacking in aerobic conditioning. I suppose I am well-conditioned for a person of my age, but when I'm swimming next to and in a lane with people half my age, it's humbling. I usually gauge my aerobic level based on my Masters teammates. I've been improving on my aerobic base lately because they have as well, but teenagers have seemingly endless resources of energy that they can use for 90 minutes with little problem. Of course, when I was their age, I didn't think much about this wonderful aerobic capacity that I had. I just put my head in the water and swam.

I find that Coley's workouts are the most difficult when it comes to the breath-holding parts. I can handle the short rest and the weird drills. In fact, those are the reasons why I try to make the workouts every Thursday. But when it comes to swimming breaststroke underwater or kicking underwater, I find that my lung capacity is put to the test. That typically elevates my heart rate, which today was high for pretty much all of the last set, which involved lots of breath holding, with some 100s free on 1:35 holding about 1:10 mixed in. That's well above aerobic pace for me, but I think I held up pretty well.

Breaststroke felt good today, though my left shoulder was giving me some trouble. It is probably because I arrived to workout 15 minutes late and did not stretch much before diving in. Lesson learned! Because I was late, I don't think I got more than 3,000 meters in today. But it was a very high-quality workout, and it was not easy in the least.

Gotta shovel some food into my mouth before heading off to bed. Tomorrow's workout is at 5:45 a.m. Maybe I should have just unfolded a cot at the pool and stayed there!