Back in Business

Date: Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Time: 5:50 a.m.
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Short Course Yards
104 days to Olympic Trials

3x(3x100 on 2:00), all choice
1. kick
2. drill
3. swim

6x(2x50 on 1:00)
1. 25 fly/25 breast
2. 25 back/25 free
Rounds 1-5 aerobic effort; round six faster (29 on fly/breast, 28 on back/free)

3x400 on 6:30
1. 100 back/100 free (4:50)
2. 50 back/50 free (4:45)
3. 25 back/25 free (4:37)

Six rounds:
75 easy on 1:15
25 breast from dive on :45 (avg. 12.6)

100 easy (with stretching)

Total: 3,400 yards (75 minutes)

I felt OK in the water today. I wanted to take it easy, just to get my body back into workout mode. Plus, the water was about 82 degrees, or at least it felt like it. I spent all weekend in Washington spoiled by racing in 78-degree water that even 80 degrees today would have felt too warm. I managed to do well in the workout despite the general soreness I felt from last night's weight workout ... and the muscle pain from not doing a proper warmdown after the medley relay on Sunday.

When I saw the set of 400s on the whiteboard, I was already in sprinter mode, thinking of an alternative set. But I need to do "distance" stuff every once in a while, and I knew it wasn't supposed to be a set requiring all-out effort. Just a slight descend is all I had to do. My backstroke felt relaxed the whole set, but I was trying to put more emphasis on my kick. As you may have seen from my videos from last weekend, my flutter kick on backstroke has little to be desired. It's always been that way, and probably will be for the rest of my life. But I keep trying to make it better.

On the dive 25s, I wasn't going for all-out effort. I was working on keeping my legs together on the entry and holding them together until the breaststroke kick. Had some difficulty with it at first, but I think I got it down at the end. I plan to do lots of work on starts in the next three months, and hopefully it will translate into keeping my legs together on the entry without much thought!