Swim Progress

Great workout today at regular masters.  I led the lane so none of those times were drafting.  The 300 and 200's were on a 1:40 pace and the 100's and 75's on a 1:36!  So excited with those times.  My winter swimming goal was to get my pace under 1:40 for 100 yard intervals and I did it.  This was a stretch goal too.  Now to get it to transfer to the open water next month.

I think the drills this winter have more than paid off.  Yesterday's drill workout was low yardage and somewhat frustrating to be honest but it turns out I had picked up some new skills that I was trying out today and I could feel the benefits.

Warm-Up

350 yards choice

Repeat the following 4 times, 4th person rest
25 yards right arm only
25 yards left arm only
25 yards catch-up drill
25 yards free

200 yards kick (once)


Main Set

300 yards on 6 mins. (did it in 5:00)
50 yards on 1:30
2x200 yards on 4 mins. (did them in 3:19, 3:21)
50 yards on 1:30
3x100 on 2:00 (did all three on 1:36)
50 on 1:30
4x75 on 1:30 (did them in 1:12, 1:12, 1:12, 1:13)
50 on 1:30

Finale

Repeat twice, 3rd person rest

25 butterfly
25 back
25 back

I realize I'm due a week in training post but it'll have to wait, I'm swamped with other things. but I wanted to post this workout while it was fresh in my mind, mostly for myself so I can track my swim progress but maybe some swimmers out there are looking for workout ideas.  This one was fun.

Swim

Finally went to a regular masters workout as opposed to the less intense, less distance skills/drills workouts that I've been going to.  I love working on skills but this month I want to have at least one workout of harder, longer intervals so that I'll be prepared for the open water next month.  I was curious to see how I would do, it's been ages since I've been to a regular workout and feared I was getting soft.  But in the end I easily managed the intervals on a tough set of 200's.

Here's the workout for any swimmers out there who want to play along.

250 yards warm up

6x100 yards, 1st, 3rd and 5th are free with 5 secs rest, 2nd,4th and 6th are choice with 10 secs. rest

6x25 yards on 40, 35, 30, 40, 35, 30 secs

200 yards on 4:00 mins.
25 yards non-free on 35 secs.
200 on 3:55
2x25 non-free on 35 secs.
200 on 3:50
3x25 on 35
200 on 3:45
4x25
200 on 3:40

50 yards easy

50 yards non-free on 1:20
50 yards choice on 1:10
50 yards free on 1:00
Repeat 3 times for a total of 9

I did the first 200 on 3:20, the fourth on 3:30 and the fifth on 3:23, forgot to keep time on the other two.   I think the fifth was faster than the fourth because of the extra rest due to the extra 25 non-free.  I think the second and third were probably the slowest but again I forgot to keep track.  All of the workout was without drafting.  So happy with those times, especially since I haven't been pushing hard speed wise in the pool lately.

Looking forward to more 'kick your butt' masters workouts this month though I'll still go to one or two skills/drills workouts.

Life in the Fast Lane

Through some weird wrinkle in the cosmos I ended up in the fastest lane at masters today for the first time ever in my long history of masters.  This was the drills workout which doesn't typically attract the out for blood crowd and there was only one really fast person in the fast lane today so it's not a huge thing to brag about but still it felt kinda weird to be the second fastest person in the pool.  I suppose everybody was up in the mountains skiing for President's Day or something.  Anyway, aside from the one fast guy the only other person in the lane was a woman who's about the same speed as me so I moved myself over because I'm having frustrations with the lane I'm in.  Felt so good finally to be able to swim as fast as I wanted without the other people in my lane being in my way and I did confirm my suspicions that I'm faster than them, by about 4 seconds per 100 yards.  Was also nice to not have people leaving 3 secs. after me and riding my heels.  Best part though was that my time for four 100 yards intervals was 1:31, 1:33, 1:34, 1:35 on a 2:00 minute interval and that was without drafting.  I was shocked to be in the low to mid 1:30's since normally I'm in the low to mid 1:40's. 

Last week the coach suggested moving up to that lane and wearing flippers to keep up since I'm waaay slower than everybody when all the fast people show up.  I'm curious to give it a try so we'll see how the lanes play out this week.  I wouldn't do it every workout but maybe every once in a while.  She claims it'll make me faster and so far she's been a huge help to my swimming so it's worth a shot.  Maybe I'll even break that 1:30 barrier for 100 yard intervals that has always seemed such an impossibility.

The other funny thing that happened today was the coach having me swim a freestyle demo for the group to demonstrate an aspect of a drill we were working on.  That's only ever happened once before and it was for breast stroke of all things and so embarrassing and inexplicable because breast stroke is my worst stroke.  But I did o.k. with the freestyle today, phew.

Strummy had his first short leash walk this morning and did great, Project No-limpics marches onward.  I'm toying with the idea of going to Regionals.  The trial secretary told me they're going to have barriers around the rings so it would be a great opportunity for Strum to get used to a big, noisy multiple ring trial before Nationals.  Plus he has a GP Q so we could try for a Semi-Final bye.  But it seems stupid to drive 7 hours to try to qualify for a trial that's 45 minutes away.  I have a hotel reserved but we'll see what the price of gas is like and how my pocketbook is feeling though I do have a free night at a La Quinta so that would help.  Could be fun or could be an expensive hassle.

Crazy Dog Lady Goes to a Swim Meet

Some of the masters coaches got together and decided to have a swim meet for the beginners.  And while I'm hardly a beginner, I've never been in a swim meet before and the meet was open to anybody who wanted to go.  As it turned out plenty of fast, experienced folks turned up.  I wasn't going to go because I still don't have my flip turns figured out and I hadn't been swimming a whole lot the past few weeks.  But peer pressure from lane mates and the chance to do more diving off the blocks won out in the end.  It turns out I like diving from the blocks now that I sort of kind of know what to do.  And it was free so what did I have to lose?

It was funny how many people were nervous before the meet.  It was just supposed to be a fun thing to give people a taste for what a swim meet is like.  I wasn't nervous but was looking forward to seeing what my times would be for the various distances and my goal was to swim each one as hard as possible.  I signed up for the 200 yard freestyle, 100 yard free, 50 yard free and 200 yard relay (each person swims 50 yards).  200 yards was the farthest distance they had and only 4 of us signed up for it.  We had to put down estimated times for each event so they could seed us into waves and I grossly underestimated all my swim times because I didn't realize how much time you save by diving in.

In the end I had a blast and was shocked at how fast my times were.  It's long been a pipe dream of mine to swim 100 yards in under 1:30.  Best I've ever done in practice is maybe 1:34 and that was with some serious drafting.  But there's no drafting at the swim meet, you have the lane all to yourself so I figured I'd be a little bit slower than in practice and estimated my 100 yard time at 1:40.  In the end I swam it in 1:26.  I couldn't believe my eyes when I got out of the pool and saw my time.  Now this is not a fast time for a real swimmer but I was so happy to finally break that 1:30 barrier.

The other great victory for me was the 200 yards.  I guessed I'd swim it in 3:40 and swam it in 3:09, beating a guy that usually swims in front of me at workouts by a whopping 10 seconds.  And he was doing flip turns.  He was in the lane next to me and led for the first 100 yards then I noticed I was catching up to him and next thing I knew I was ahead and he never passed me again.  And I had the disadvantage of being in the end lane where the wall creates extra drag.  So happy with that result as well.

I'd guessed 45 seconds for the 50 yards and came in at 38 secs and in 2 place of 5 women which surprised me since I'm not a sprinter.

Our relay team was randomly assigned and came in 2nd out of 3 teams.  My 50 was 38 secs. for that one as well.

Afterwards a bunch of us went out for dinner and I had a fun time hanging out with my lane mates.  It turns out that when you're a hypnotherapist people are much more interested in your job than when you're a structural engineer.  And nobody mentioned dog poop the whole night.

Final Stats:

200 yard freestyle
3:09.81
2/2 women
3/4 overall
(1st place was 3:01.42, 4th place was 3:19.89)

100 yard freestyle
1:26.04
2/3 women
(1st place was 1:03.34, 3rd place was 1:33.9)

50 yard freestyle
38.14 secs
2/5 women
(1st place was 36.86, 3rd was 40.01, 4th was 42.86, 5th was 43.20)

200 yard freestyle relay
2/3 teams (1 male, 3 females on our team)
my leg was 38 secs.

Maybe pigs will fly and I'll do another one some day.

Crazy Dog Lady Takes a Dive

Or 'How to overcome your fears to learn a totally useless life skill'.  Or maybe learning to overcome your fears isn't such a totally useless life skill.

The masters coach for the beginners/skills & drills workouts has decided to have a swim meet for us.  I wasn't planning to participate because swim meets involve many swimming skills that I don't have-flip turns, swimming fast and diving off the blocks.  You could probably get away with missing out one of those skills but if you're missing all 3 it's probably not going to be a good day for you.  So I've never done a swim meet and I had no plans to do this one.

The workout today was focusing on preparing for the swim meet and this involved flip turns and diving off the blocks.  I've been working on flip turns, in fact I even asked the coach if we could work on them last spring so I could do them at a summer pool triathlon.  I never did work on them enough to be able to do them for my race but I did learn the basics of them so that most of the time I don't get too much water up my nose and we started back up with them at the indoor workouts this fall.  Today I finally pulled off a good one, so pleased with myself.  Then the next one I ended up in the lane next door.  I'll bet most of you couldn't do that if you tried.  I'm sure I couldn't do it if I was trying.  Maybe I should aim for the next lane over all the time and I'll end up in my own lane.  Anyway, I gave up on flip turns for the day since it was a crowded workout and I got lucky that I didn't crash into anyone.

Next it was time to practice diving off the blocks.  Yeah, sure, just send my 47 year old ass plunging off the blocks to my doom for no compelling reason, this sounds like a fine plan for the day.  Last year I refused to even try, those blocks looked awfully scary high above the water.  Plus I have no idea how to dive.  The coach says she'll help me but she doesn't give me a whole lot of instruction.  But sometimes you just have to do it so you can see what part you don't know how to do.  Another guy also in my shoes suggests diving off the edge of the pool for starters.  Baby steps is what he says.  I'm all for baby steps.  But maybe the blocks would be easier?  But they're still looking kind of high so I go for the edge of the pool.  The first dive goes o.k., I land pointing downward into the pool rather than belly flopping which is good but I feel like I'm going more downward than forward and I don't think this will help in a race.  So next dive I try to shoot more forward but I land too flat.  Not quite belly flopping but not terribly comfortable either.  Third dive is much like the first.  The coach tells me I need something in between and as she's discussing it with me a guy from the next lane offers up a bunch of advice.  And next thing I know he's giving me and some other 40-50 something ladies a diving lesson.  He takes us all back to the deep end of the pool with the blocks and shows us how it's done complete with a detailed explanation.  He only learned himself a year or two ago so he knows what to tell us.  He goes off the blocks a couple of times and then it's our turn.

Last year I would have been scared standing up on the block, like I said I refused to even try last year.  But I've been working on overcoming fears this past year, and I'll write more about that later, and I'm oddly calm as I climb up and say, 'O.k., I'm going to do this thing.'  I get in the position he describes which involves bending over and looking at the wall behind me, chin pressed into chest, and not looking out at the water in front of me, which is very counter-intuitive but I understand the why of it so I do it.  I'm not entirely sure what to do to get into the water without incident but I do something and again I go in pointing down and not belly flopping which is good but I'm still not going forward enough.  He explains what I did wrong and how to fix it and the next dive is pretty darn awesome, for me anyway.  I can feel myself propelling forward in the water after I hit the water just like I imagine you're supposed to.  I come up to the surface and hear the coach cheering and the guy says it was great.  I decide to quit while I'm ahead.  Hooray for learning totally useless life skills and overcoming fears.  Maybe I'll do the swim meet after all.  Just have to learn how to flip turn back into my own lane.

Wordless Wednesday

My turn at the Rez

I love the smell of neoprene in the morning. Some triathletes love the smell of chlorine and I've never understood that. Pool chemicals-gross-and so bad for you. I prefer the smell of neoprene because it means my wetsuit which means summer and the excitement of race morning and open water swimming without the limits of lane lines and walls and stinky chemicals and psycho overcompetitive triathletes tailing me and watching the clock and are we on the 7th or 8th 100 out of 12 and what was the interval again? I love swimming in the Rez, enough to get up at 5:30 a.m. so I can be there on time for my early morning masters group swim. Usually the water is freezing at this time of year but temps were in the 90's yesterday and more of the same predicted for today. I had Strum at the Rez last night for a swim session and the water felt o.k. but I didn't venture in past the shoreline so I figured it might still be cold further in but when I got in this morning I was shocked at how nice it was. Now it was not warm, I needed my full wetsuit, but it wasn't that horrible take your breath away, what the hell am I thinking type cold either that you would normally get this time of year.

There's always a tense moment when I have to squeeze into my wetsuit for the first swim of the season. Will it fit? Some wetsuits have a decent range of weights/body sizes that will accomodate each suit size but mine fits relatively closely and doesn't allow a lot of room for winter indulgence. Somehow though I manage to squish my butt in for yet another year. Phew, what a relief, those suits are expensive.

Usually my first open water workout of the season is spent swimming back and forth parallel to the shore line for maybe 10-15 minutes because for some reason I freak out the first time I'm back in the open water. But today I started right into the 900-1000 yard loop course with no fuss or muss. The courses vary so it's hard to compare but usually they take me 20-23 minutes or so. Today's took just over 19. Of course it could be shorter than normal but still I was pleased enough to be able to do a whole lap my first time out let alone at a good clip. I felt like a wuss getting out after only one lap but I didn't want to push it and poor Lola was in the car freaking out about being at the Rez and not being out in the water playing with me. She was barking when I left her and I hope she didn't bark the whole time I was gone. I thought Memorial Day was the cutoff for dogs being allowed at the Rez but when I drove in the sign said May 15th (oops) so she was S.O.L. I let her out at the entrance to the Rez to play on the grass there but it's not the same as being in the water. Maybe tonight I'll take her to the north side of the Rez which is open to dogs year round but fills up with naked hippies and rattlesnakes during the summer months so I don't like to go there normally.

I got to work feeling all relaxed and happy only to be greeted with the news that my swim coach's brother, Dave Scott, had been hit by a car over the weekend while cycling on a street in my neighborhood where I walk the dogs all the time. For the non-triathletes out there, Dave Scott is something of an icon in the triathlon world. He won the Hawaii Ironman a zillion times as a pro and continues to race and coach athletes here in Boulder and is an all around nice guy. His sister Jane has been the swim coach of my master program since I started a zillion years ago and though I thought it weird that she wasn't at practice this morning I didn't give it all that much thought. I'm not sure if she was missing because of her brother but it's not often that she misses practice. There weren't a lot of details about the accident, only that it was bad enough that he needed shoulder surgery and that there was a big dent in the car. The stretch of road where he was hit is a very quiet, low speed suburban road, not a place you would expect to get hit. Anyway, that was an unfortunate jolt to the morning and I'm hoping he recovers quickly.

In completely unrelated news I rode a new (to me) trail with some friends over the weekend up near Horsetooth Reservoir in Fort Collins. The Blue Sky trail is only a few years old and it was fabulous. Beautiful smooth single track, rolling green hills with red cliffs at the top, gorgeous wild flowers, quad busting climbs and whee-ha descents, who could ask for more? Unfortunately I forgot my Camelback so had no way to carry my camera and didn't want to risk it falling out of my jersey rear pocket so I have no pictures. Darn, I guess I'll have to go back to get some.

There was a USDAA trial this weekend that I missed for various reasons but mostly to save money since it would have required an overnight stay and I have to say I'm sure I had just as much if not more fun riding that trail than I would have had trying to drag Lola around an agility course in the hot sun on Sunday. I'm debating whether I should enter her in the July 4th weekend trial since it's usually so hot. I was only planning on entering Standard and Gamblers with her but maybe I should bag it altogether and spend the money on triathlon entry fees. On the other hand my knee has been so wonky I go back and forth about whether I should race this year and surely Lola would be o.k. with 2 runs for 2 days, especially with the first run of the day and it's only 45 minutes away. Ah, decisions. At least they are good decisions.

I have lots to write about Strummer's dogwalk but the internet went kaput at my house and I've sort of been enjoying not being on the computer at home so I probably won't have it replaced anytime soon and I've been busy on my lunch hours at work so not much time for blogging I'm afraid. This weekend's DOCNA trial should be interesting. Thankfully there's only one dogwalk in Standard to worry about if I keep him off it for Gamblers. This running dogwalk training has certainly challenged my training abilities and my sanity. Fun! I think.

Day of Speed I'd say

You know triathlon season is kicking into gear when you have 3 showers in one day. First one was after a morning run with da boyz. I finally made it a full 1/2 hour of 5 mins. run/1 min. walk with only a few twinges of knee pain going up a hill. This was not the speed part of the day by any means but felt faster than I've been going, almost like a run as opposed to a penguin shuffle. Cody was not thrilled, he hates running on leash and Strummer kept trying to stop every 10 yards to sniff and mark but it's good exercise for them so I make them go with me.

Shower #2 was after Tabata sprints on my lunch hour. I'm up to the full 8 reps and wow it is a hard workout for only 2 minutes. My quads have felt like jello all week and about an hour before lunch time I start dreading them but I feel good the rest of the afternoon and my knee's been tolerating them so I've been trying to gut it out.

Shower #3 was after masters swimming workout which was a sprint workout. Lucky me. To be honest I hate sprinting and I'm bad at it and it hurts and wah wah wah but I made it through the whole workout and the coach even said my last sprint of the night looked like a good effort, good form, etc.-Shocking! It was not the normal coach though so I guess I had her fooled. Jane, my normal coach, has given me some good basic pointers for sprinting in the pool and once I remembered to use them I guess was able to fake my way through. I'll post the workout below for my own benefit so I have a benchmark for where I am with my swim times right now. I feel like I'm oh so close to being able to move up a lane but not quite there yet. In the showers I asked someone from the next lane up what their prescribed interval times were and there was no way I could have held them but she said no one in her lane held them either and they ended up swimming the 100's continuously with no rest. Even so, I couldn't have swum at that pace continuously so I've got to keep plugging away for a while longer. The woman from the other lane suggested I move up anyway and sit out for a 50 here and there and draft wherever I can and I'll get better faster swimming in that faster lane but I'm not sure I agree. I think it's better to do the workout you're capable of, get enough rest per interval and put more effort into each swim rather than missing all the intervals and swimming at a continuous pace with no rest the whole workout. I know at least one of the coaches agrees with that, not sure what the research or general consensus is but speaking from personal experience I seem to get more benefit from doing proper intervals.

Today is a rest day except for maybe more Tabata sprints. The protocol calls for 5 days per week but they're so exhausting on top of all the other training that I may have to phase them in. So far I've only done 3 days this week and I think 3 last week. If it wasn't for my knee issues I'd push through today's fatigue but I'm thinking maybe it's best not to push my luck and have a nice solid rest day. Plus I'm not into that whole self-flagellation thing and I'm tired today.

I've got to decide if I want to spend money on races this year and if so which ones. Decisions, decisions.

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Masters Workout April 24, 2009
South Boulder Rec.
Coach: Eenie
All distances in yards

200 on my own pre-workout, mix of free/non-free

Warm-Up:
8x50 on 1:20 (start slow and build up to fast by 4th interval then slow back down)
[my times started at :50 and went down to :45 then back up to :48)
50 easy

Main Set:
All distances on 2:15
As the distance gets shorter, pace gets faster
Work on pacing for the 100's, try to keep them all the same pace
8x100 [my time ranged from 1:42-1:44, mostly at 1:43]
6x75 [these were the hardest, times were 1:14, 1:12, 1:06, 1:07, 1:07, 1:09
big jump in time from 1:12 to 1:06 was because I remembered to use quick
short strokes]
4x50 [times were :44, :42, :44, :43]
2x25 [times were :20, :20 we cheated and took a shorter interval because 2:15 is
too long to sit around for a 25]

Grand Finale:
3x75 on 2nd person rest
Wear fins for all
first 75 is kick with 25 easy, 25 medium, 25 fast
second 75 is kick with 25 fast, 25 medium, 25 easy
third 75 is free, fast

75 cool down

Total: 2450 yards

Not a lot of yardage but a hard set.

Thursday Night Masters

Last night's workout was a bastard, I felt like puking and lost feeling in my right pinkie toe. Yeah, I don't know, I have no explanation for the toe thing so don't ask me. Last time I felt like puking during a workout was probably when I was on the high school track team. I'm not really a 'push until you puke' sort of person. I'm a firm believer in the notion that one's stomach contents should remain in their rightful place. The intervals were tight though and I was leading the lane and trying to hang on and next thing I knew I was pushing too hard.

Here's the workout if you'd like to play along. The idea in the main set is that you should have 2 seconds rest on the 100 yards and the recovery 25 (or 50 or 75) is done on the same interval no matter your skill level. In other words, if you're faster than me, and chances are you are, you should adjust the time interval on the 100 so you have 2 seconds rest, then adjust the 75, 50 and 25 accordingly but the recovery 25 is done on 50 seconds (50 on 1:20 and 75 on 1:50).

South Boulder Recreation Center
Coach: Jane

Distances are in yards, time is in mins:secs.

Warm-Up
200 free
25 non-free
25 kick

150 free
25 non-free
25 kick

100 free
25 non-free
25 kick

Swim the above continuously. Then:
4x75 on 2:00 (1st 25 is kick, 2nd 25 is non-free, 3rd 25 is free)

Main Set
100 on 1:40
25 on :50
75 on 1:20
25 on :50
50 on :50
25 on :50
25 on :30
25 on :50

Repeat patten above but with 50's for recovery, ie
100 on 1:40
50 on 1:20
etc.

Repeat patten above but with 75's for recovery, ie
100 on 1:40
75 on 1:50
etc.

Please try not to lose contents of stomach.

Grand Finale
To add insult to injury-a timed 100 of kicking using a kickboard. Predict your fastest possible time and try to make it. No sand bagging. When the coach asked me my predicted time I said 'oh 10 minutes'. She said 'Nice try but I'm giving you 2:30'. I suck at kicking especially with a kickboard but I surprised myself and finished before they turned off the lights in the pool and shut down the rec. center. Time was 2:39, not so bad for me especially after the killer set that had come before.

I made all the intervals on the main set except for the last 100. First 100 was 1:38 (perfect), second 100 was 1:40, third was 1:45. On the first 2 I swam with short, fast strokes which is what my coach has told me to do on sprint workouts like this. For the last I thought I'd try swimming with longer, more relaxed strokes like I normally swim because I was not up for puking in the pool so of course I missed the interval. Still, those times are fast for me and the woeful shape I'm in right now. I've been swimming mostly 1:46-1:48 for 100's on non-sprint sets so I was pleased. I was leading the lane too so there was no drafting.

I signed up for a Butterfly clinic next week, woe to my poor masters coach. We'll see how many grey hairs I can give her, my Butterfly is hilarious.

Apparently I Still Know How to Swim

I went back to masters last night and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Last time I went was the beginning of June when I decided I was taking the summer off from the pool and swam laps around the Boulder Reservoir with the Tues./Thurs. morning masters group. Because they'd switched the already early times to even earlier (6:15-7:30 a.m.) than last year I had many workout where I didn't get much yardage in, maybe 1 lap/900-1000 yards or so then had to get out. Then it got too cold for me and I don't think I swam at all the entire month of Sept. then got sick and had our vacation for Oct. and only last night finally felt up to going back to my regular workouts. I was dreading it all day and almost chickened out because once you get out of shape with the swimming it's so hard to claw your way back. It's painful and you can't keep up with the lane and the coach will yell at you for missing so many workouts and wah wah wah. But it turned out there were some newbies there who were even slower than me so the intervals were doable for me and it turns out I haven't lost nearly as much as I thought I did. We'll see how Thursday's workout goes, I've still got a ways to go before I'll feel good in the pool again but it wasn't nearly that bad and today it feels good to feel a little fatigue in my arms and shoulders. Maybe at some point I'll even have some upper body strength again. In the end I swam 45 minutes, 2250 yards. Thursday I'll gut out the whole workout.

Monday Night Masters

I was out of town at an agility trial this past weekend and I'll get to writing about that but I wanted to get this masters workout down while it was still fresh in my mind. Yes, I dragged my butt to masters the day after a tiring trial and let me tell you I needed a sprint workout like Prince needs Viagra but I gutted it out. I was dragging a bit and fighting the wall of the pool in the end lane again and still struggling with breathing to my off side and had no one to swim with in my lane and wah wah wah so my times weren't great but I suppose could have been worse.

North Boulder Rec. Center
Coach: Jane

Warm Up:
4x125 free on 2:30-2:40
1x100 non-free on 2:30
4x125 free on 2:30-2:40
1x1:00 non-free on 2:30

(my intervals were supposed to be 2:30 for the first set, 2:20 for the second set but I couldn’t hold them. I was swimming the 125’s on 2:25 or so)

Main Set:
1x50 free on 1:00
1x25 free on :30
do twice

1x50 free on :55
1x25 free on :40
do twice

1x50 free on :55
1x25 choice on :50
do twice

1x50 free on :55
1x25 choice on :60
do twice

12x25 on :40

The 50’s and 12 25’s were meant to be fast sprints and the single 25’s were recovery. I did the first 50 on :44 then most of the rest were on :50 with a :48 once or twice. The 12 25’s were on :22 or so.

Final Set:
3x100 free (pull w/ buoy & hand paddles) on 1:45

I was tired for these, did them on 1:35-1:40.

Cool down:
50 yards back stroke

Total yards: 2400 yards

Tuesday Night Masters

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
S. Boulder Rec. Center
Coach: Jane

Warm Up:
150 yards choice
6 x 75 free on 1:40/1:30 (longer interval is alternate breathing)
(my swim times were 1:20)
4 x 100 (75 non-free/25 kick) on 2:30? (can't remember interval)
50 yards kick

Main Set:
3 x 350 free on 7:10 (first 350 is with hand paddles, no buoy, others are no
equipment)
(my swim times were 6:15, 6:20, 6:25)
4 x 100 free on 2:00 (swim times were 1:40, 1:45, 1:45, I only did 50 for the last
one because I thought we were only doing 3)

Final Set:
4 x 50 non-free on 1:20

2500 total yards

Monday Night Masters

Warning to dog people, no dog stuff here, just swimming stuff.

I went back to masters swim practice some time ago, maybe a month? I was trying to go 3x a week but due to work and vet and doctor's appointments I've been back down to 2x for the past few weeks. I still can't push off the wall properly but I can push off a bit with the heel of my bad foot. This tweaks my back though so I can't do it with much power. I think I'm losing maybe a second or two every 25 yards, not too bad and I can keep up in the slowest lane. It's way more fun than swimming on my own.

I've been trying to stay dedicated to breathing to alternating sides which is probably effecting my times since I'm way more inefficient when I breathe to the left. I'm working on improving my stroke and the coach has given me some good pointers but it takes a while to break that old bad muscle memory and build up new muscle memory. I'm finally getting enough strength back in my arms that I can suppport decent form in my stroke. I still need more strength to get better but at least I can feel the faint hint of muscles in my arms & back. The other problem with alternate breathing is that you get less air and it's hard to keep up your pace. I was playing around with breathing twice to the right then once to the left then I saw this post about breathing two strokes left then 2 strokes right here. The big difference between me and this guy is that he is equally efficient breathing to his right and left as evidenced by his times so for me I would probably see increased times or at least not the great decrease in times that he got so it didn't initially occur to me to try this. However thinking about it my stroke will be much more balanced this way which is my ultimate goal plus I'll get twice the practice on the bad side. It's been a struggle for me and occasionally I'll cheat and breathe all to the right if I'm getting tired and trying to keep up in my lane at masters but I've been keeping up with it for about 80% or so of my workout and it's finally starting to feel better. I'm not confident enough to try yet in the open water but maybe by midsummer. Open water swimming started at the Rez this morning but it was freezing and sleeting outside and water temp. over the weekend was 58 degrees and uh no way, not even with my toasty wetsuit. I want to wait until the water temp. is at least in the lower 60's.

Anyway, I want to start posting my masters workouts more regularly, mostly so I can track my progress. I thought about keeping them private because this will bore the dog people to tears but maybe someone will find their way here looking for swim workouts and as long as I'm typing them up I may as well share them and the dog people can just ignore them.

Monday, May 12, 2008
North Boulder Rec. Center
Jane coach
All distances are in yards
All times are mins:secs
free means freestyle (front crawl)
non-free means backstroke, breaststroke or butterfly (I did all backstroke)

Warm Up:
(4)-150 free on 3:00 (I was late and missed the first 2)

Set #1:
4 x 25 non-free on 0:40
6 x 50 free on 1:00 (I was on 50-52 secs swim time/8-10 secs rest)
4 x 25 non-free on 0:45
6 x 50 free on alternating 0:55/1:00 (my swim time was around 51-52)
4 x 25 non-free on 0:45
6 x 50 free on 0:55 (swim time around 52-53, this time I left 5 secs after the
leader so I could draft a bit, all others I left 10 secs
behind and was not drafting)

Set #2
3 x 250 free on 5:00 (pull with buoy/paddles for first two, no equipment for the
third)

I swam the first two on 4:15 or so then around 4:38 for the last.

Final Set:
100 kick

Cool down:
100 non-free

Total yardage: 2350 for me, 2650 if you don't miss out the two 150's at the start

I was swimming in the last lane up against the wall which seems to slow down my times due to the drag from the wall. I was swimming 50's on similar intervals on Thursday at S. Boulder (no wall) consistently on 0:50. I'd like to get this down to 0:45 in the next month or so.

Monday Night Masters

North Boulder Rec.

Coach: ???

Warm Up:

150 yards swim
150 yards kick
150 yards pull
150 yards swim
straight through

Main Set:

100 yards swim, moderate pace, on 2:00
25 yards swim, moderate pace, on :40
50 yards swim, build pace, on 1:10
25 yards swim, sprint, on :40
Repeat 4x

(swam 100’s at 1:53 ish)

200 yards swim on 4:00

2x100 yards on 1:50
(yeah right, I did the first one at 1:48-1:49 and the second at 1:56)

4x50 drill, IM order, 5 secs rest after each 50

4x50 swim, IM order, 15 secs rest after each 50

Total: 2200 yards

This was my first time in the pool since my race 2 weeks ago and I was sure it would be a disaster but it didn’t go too badly. Luckily I had the lane to myself so I didn’t have to try to keep up with anybody. I’d like to try to be able to do 100’s at a 1:40 pace on a 1:50 interval by mid winter. Seems reasonable if I can keep up with twice a week workouts and make some improvements to my stroke. I’d also like to be able to breathe on both sides, every other stroke by next summer. That may be ambitious, I’ve been working on that for years but we’ll see.