Lazy Sunday

Date: Sunday, January 22, 2012
Time: 11:25 a.m.
Location: Tucson, AZ
Short Course Yards
155 days to Olympic Trials

400 choice

300 reverse IM: 25 kick/50 swim

200 breast kick no board

100 free breathe every 5

4x100 free on 1:30, descend 1-4
(Descended to 1:03)

4x75 on 1:30
25 breast double pullouts/50 back

8x15 breakouts on :45

100 easy: 25 scull/25 swim

Three rounds:
Power Tower (filled to 3/4 full) -- 25 fast/25 easy on 1:00
Remove belt, then 50 fast from push
100 easy on 3:00
Round 1: backstroke
Round 2: breaststroke
Round 3: freestyle

4x50 easy on :55

Three starts

50 easy

Total: 3,000 yards (75 minutes)

I planned this workout last Wednesday, which made it easier to get through, but my body wasn't too excited about sprinting. The idea of lying on the couch watching movies almost won out.

Today's Power Tower/sprinting set showed me I need to do a lot more lactate/anaerobic swimming. My stroke rate wasn't very high, and I didn't feel like my fast-twitch fibers were doing very well. I didn't have someone timing me on my fast 50s, but based on what I saw on the digital clock, I went 27-low on the back, 30-low on the breast and 24-high on the free. That was a very difficult set to do, especially since there was not much rest after doing the 25 fast on the Power Tower.

Working on starts today was productive. I thought about gliding longer after entering the water, which took a lot of trust on my part that I was maintaining velocity. I held the glide for about two extra seconds before starting the pullout, and I definitely got more distance on the pullout, but was it faster? I didn't have anyone at the pool to time me, but I'm getting confident on the idea of holding the glide longer.

Earlier this week, I got a drill progression on doing the dolphin kick at the beginning of the breaststroke pullout from Trip Hedrick, who was the former head coach at Iowa State. It involved evolving from three kicks at the start to one kick at the start. I did the drill progression well enough, but when I tried to do it on a push-off, my brain was still trained to kick at the end of the pullout, so I did a kick at the beginning and the end! It will take a lot of work to move that dolphin kick to the beginning.