Man in the Mirror

Date: Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Time: 5:50 a.m.
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Short Course Yards/Short Course Meters
89 days to Olympic Trials

Short Course Yards
8x150 on 2:15
odd: 75 swim/25 scull/50 swim
even: 75 swim/25 underwater kick/50 swim

4x25 flutter kick with arms out front on 1:00

Short Course Meters
8x25 breast on :45
1-2: pull with parachute
3-4: pull 
5-6: kick with parachute
7-8: kick

3x(3x50 on 1:20)
1. 25 fast/25 easy
2. 50 fast
3. 50 easy

200 easy

6x50 breast on 1:40, best average
(avg. :34.0)


300 easy (with stretching)


Total: 2,750 yards/meters (75 minutes)


My neck felt a lot better today. I slept quite well last night, and the ibuprofen I took before bed helped help the pain, as did the ice I put on my neck. I still wasn't able to do backstroke very well, and sometimes breathing on freestyle put a strain on my neck. I was surprised that I hardly felt any pain while swimming breaststroke. That's why so much of today's workout was done breaststroke.

I wanted to do more sprinting today, but the water was about 82 degrees, too warm for effective sprinting. The weather is getting warmer in Phoenix, and soon the water will get cooler. Because the water wasn't optimal this morning, I couldn't swim faster on the last set than I did. On a good day, I should have been able to swim a second faster, but I was happy I was able to stay strong on the set though my arms felt like jello.

Today was the official start of my power phase of training. I've got about 80 days of hard training ahead of me, with the goal of getting my muscles primed for explosive speed, both in and out of the water. Just about every workout I do, even the so-called recovery workouts, will have a speed element to them. I'm very, very excited to be at this phase of training. The "sprint endurance" phase I've been going through for the past two months was OK, but now it's time to work on race pace, and that is always fun to do.

My dryland session with J.R. Rosania today was my first real dryland workout in about two weeks, and I felt like I had been away for a few days, but my body responded well. We're starting to put power into some of the exercises, and will be building up to doing some explosive work in the next few weeks. It will be tough, but I'm excited to see what the final result will be.

This morning I turned on the light in my bathroom, which I usually do not do because it's very bright, and quite a shock at 5 a.m. But this morning I turned it on, and what I saw in the mirror gave me pause. The guy in the mirror did not look like me! The guy I saw looked fairly lean, had lost a little of the love handles I'd been carrying around since December. I rarely analyze my body in the mirror, and I do not own a weight scale, so I wasn't aware of my weight loss. Many people have told me in the past few weeks that I've lost weight, but physically I didn't feel different, and have been so busy with life that I didn't have the time to notice even one pound of weight loss.

I have long thought that it would be great to be under 200 pounds by the time I swim the 100 breast at Olympic Trials, but I told myself not to be fanatical about it. When I went to the doctor for a check-up in February, the scale said 210, including clothes, and I figured I weighed 205. Losing five pounds seems easy, but I was not about to eat celery or do any other radical dietary changes. I think the weight came off just from working hard and being smart about what I do.

Because I do not have a weight scale at home, I do not know how much I weigh, but I am very pleased with how I looked in the mirror this morning. That's enough for me! I'm not sure if I was this light at sectionals three weeks ago, but if so, it could explain a lot about feeling "lighter" in the water.