Date: Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Short Course Yards
41 days to Olympic Trials
That was the hardest workout EVER!
OK, maybe I'm exaggerating. A little bit. I have done some very difficult workouts in my 30-plus years in swimming, but very few of them had me wishing I had a third lung to help me get through it. Plus, I have never seen two people throw up into a garbage can in the middle of workout. I saw that happen today.
It wasn't a completely difficult workout with the Phoenix Swim Club's elite group from start to finish. Just the main set, which had us sprinting for 600 yards with next to no warm down between rounds. I built up so much lactic acid during the first of the five rounds of fast swimming, and I never fully got rid of it. That is the essence of lactate day at Phoenix Swim Club, and though it's very tough, I know it will pay off in the end. The pain I'll feel in the last 15 meters of my 100 breast will be NOTHING compared to the pain I felt for 45 minutes today.
The set called for a lot of swimming on the Power Tower, plus a few running dives and more fast swimming. Three of the five rounds only had 100 yards of fast swimming, but the entire 100 was at all-out pace, no building to the last 25. The other two rounds had 150 yards of fast swimming, and I think those were harder than the other rounds.
During the main set, Coach Tako was doing some underwater filming, and after the workout, most of the swimmers gathered around a monitor to watch our strokes. I was still warming down while they were watching, but I got to see some of my swimming. A few people remarked on "interesting" freestyle kick, which consists of a whip kick, a flutter kick and a scissors kick. It used to be much worse.
But on the video, Coley and I got to take a look at my breaststroke pullout. He discovered that I am bringing my hands too far under my body on the insweep. My thinking behind that was to simulate a butterfly pull, but he believes I could be better by keeping my hands outside my body line. I'll have to try that in tomorrow's workout.
Ugh. Tomorrow morning. I don't know how much I'll have to give for Mark Rankin. I gave everything I had to Coley tonight. Thursday morning with the Phoenix Swim Club Masters team is very much like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get!
When I got home tonight, I drank about 24 ounces of my P2Life Nutriboost shake, and I'm going to probably have a bit more before I go to bed, to help with the recovery process. I'm glad I didn't drink any before workout. You might have seen some of it in the garbage can on deck.
So, what was the workout???? I know Coley is VERY creative with his sets, so I'm interested in knowing how he made this one so hard on everyone.
ReplyDeleteBTW, back home (in Brazil) it was pretty common to have a number of kids looking for garbage cans on lactate days, but I have yet to see that in the US (been here for 5 years now). Not sure if it is generational, dietary (our lunch is a bigger meal, before practice), or what, but I always thought it was an interesting difference.
Keep up the good work and good luck!
Hi, Lucas.
ReplyDeleteColey will not let me post the actual workout, as he prefers to be a little secretive with these things outside his circle. But as I mentioned in the post, it was essentially five rounds of fast swimming between 100 and 150 yards. I think the fact that we didn't flush out the lactate between rounds made it more difficult. It was a pretty creative set, to say the least!