Kick It

Date: Friday, December 30, 2011
Time: 5:45 a.m.
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Long Course Meters
178 days to Olympic Trials

300 warmup

8x200 on 3:45
odd: 100 swim/100 kick
even: 100 kick/100 swim

12x50 on 1:15
odd: 25 kick underwater/25 swim
even: 25 swim/25 kick underwater

8x150 on 2:30
1-3: easy with breakouts
4: 50 back/50 breast/50 free fast from push (1:53)
5-8: recovery

50 easy

50 breast fast from push (30.0)

100 easy

Total: 3,900 meters (80 minutes)

I needed a little bit of recovery today, which is why I did not work the set of 150s as they were originally written. Everyone else descended 1-4 and 5-8, but I just swam number four fast and thought it would be good to finish up with a fast 50.

I did not expect to go under 34 again in my fast 50 breast. Everything felt good, but when you add up all the hard work I've put in this week, both in and out of the pool, I didn't think I had another great 50 in me. I know there are a few tweaks I could experiment with to see if they work. First and foremost is getting rid of the slight hesitation in my stroke after the insweep. I tend to do that when swimming fast, but oddly, not so much when swimming slower. Tako was our guest coach this morning, and he noticed that, as well as a little tip on holding water in the kick during the finish. As I noted before, I'll listen to every recommendation people give me about stroke changes, but I'm going to be very cautious about adopting them just because someone thinks they are best for me.

As you may have noticed, I did not lift weights this week. This was not by design. I planned to lift on Tuesday and Thursday, but life caught up with me, and other responsibilities took priority. Thankfully, I was able to my work with JR, and I should be back on schedule next week.

I hope to swim this weekend. I'm off to Los Angeles through Monday!