Don't Worry, Be Happy

Date: Monday, June 18, 2012
Time: 12:20 p.m.
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Long Course Meters
6 days to Olympic Trials

300 warmup

8x100 :20 rest
50 drill/50 kick, 2 each stroke, reverse IM order

200 free aerobic on 3:00 (2:40)
150 free on 2:30 (2:00)
100 free on 1:30 (1:18)
50 free (:38)

100 easy

2x50 on 1:30
#1: 15 fast breast/25 easy/10 fast
#2: 15 fast/35 easy

Five minute break

50 fast breast from push (33.98)

250 warm down

Total: 2,100 meters (45 minutes)

I felt very good in the water today -- though my legs were a little bit heavy.  I wanted to do that 50 fast that I had planned to do today. Mark Rankin was noticeably concerned about me doing it, thinking I might be in the best condition to do a fast swim today. I'm not sure why he was concerned. I've been swimming pretty well, but maybe he thought I was going through the "taper blues" today, and he didn't want to time a slow swim and have me mentally wrecked from it.

If I had swum slow today, it would have been fine. I've been feeling icky for the past three days, and if I wasn't feeling it today, I would still have six days to get things in order. But I swam quite well today, and I left the pool with a small grin on my face.

I am worried about my legs, though. They ache!!!!!! But, I do have six days, and I'm sure they'll turn around well before then. As I told Mark after my fast 50 today, I think I deserve to swim easy tomorrow. I will do more than 2,100 meters, though. My concern during taper is getting out of shape, so I'll keep up the cardiovascular training, but not overexert myself to the point of building up lactate or sustaining a high heart rate.

A couple of people asked me after workout what my time goal is for the 100 breast at Trials. I told them I didn't want to make an official time goal. My only goal is not to get last in my heat, and to that end, my training has been geared toward having a good race strategy that will allow me to keep at or near the head of the pack. All the splits I've been recording make it tempting to think of a possible time I could swim next week, but if I get caught in that, I build up an expectation that might be too high for me to reach at this stage in my life. The point of this is to have fun with the experience and let the results take care of themselves. So far, I am having a blast and I'm sure that will carry over to my emotions one week from now, when I'm warming down after my swim.