No 6am Swim Due To Rain

Well that is one way of getting out of doing 10x100's! It's raining hard so the pool didn't open this morning. Oh well!

Sunday Swim

I biked over to hit the 3pm Sunday afternoon swim feeling in a swimming mood. But once in the water it became clear that my body had other plans. I warmed up about a 100 before our warm up set:
2x
150 Drill
4x50's Kick
100 Swim
I skipped 3 of the kick 50's with a pee break and some chit chat.

Then we did 6x75's IM (no free) on 1:05. Then 4x50's on 40. I think we did something else but don't remember. Maybe 2x25's?

Main Set:
400 IM on 6:00
3x100's Free on 1:20
300 IM on 4:30
4x100's on 1:20

Then I stopped. I wasn't feeling that good and had a pain. Might have been dehydrated. Decided to stop and it was 4pm so one hour give or take a few minutes was a decent workout. I don't get out of workout that often so it's not so bad. After this week I'll be on vacation in Florida and won't be doing much working out so why kill myself this week?

Monday 6am Random Swim Set: 10x100's

Tomorrow at practice we have our 10x100's and to be honest I don't want to do them. Now I could skip workout but that would mean one less workout for me this week. That is an option but the other option is to have a little protest during workout and do my own thing. Mind you I don't want to disrupt the workout and mess up anyone who want's to do the 10x100's. I've been thinking of alternatives to the 10x100's. Some of these alternatives are 10x100's but not done all out. For those of you who has never swam the 10x100's set it can be easily explained as swimming ten 100 yards all out sprint freestyle on a three minute interval. The point of the set is to make you puke at seven in the morning. Actually the point is that after you swim the set and look at the times you'll have a sense of how you are doing and gauge your training. Now this set following short course regionals is pretty pointless as I know how I am swimming in regards to my training.
The 10x100's set is normally done on the 1st Monday of the month but was pushed back one week due to regionals. We will do this set again on Monday, January 5th and then again once a month up to Nationals in May. Once again this set is to gauge how one is in training leading up to Nationals or IGLA. Mind you anyone who would be swimming to be in competition most likely swam last weekend at regionals like me and know how they are doing.

So what to do about tomorrow? I had thought I'd do the 10x100's but kick them all. But that seemed boring. Okay it's 10x100's on 3 minutes so I can kick 30 minutes non stop. Do I really want to kick that much? No. Plus if I share the lane with someone who wants to do the prescribed 10x100's I'd screw them up which isn't fair. Hmm...what to do? How about a relay? If I have one other person we could each swim just a 50 of the 100 and try to beat our times each one. A 50 is easy enough, right? That really doesn't sound much different from the 10x100's though. Come on brain, think! Oh! Eureka! How about a raffle! What? I'll have a hat on deck with folded slips of paper which will have written one of the following on each paper slip: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle, kick, underwater, freestyle breathing every 3, every 5, every 7, etc.. Before each 100 I'd pick a slip of paper and I and anyone so inclined would swim the 100
how we picked at random. I'd write each selection on ten pieces of paper so in theory I or we could be forced to swim 10x100's breaststroke. Yeah, I'll be doing the 10x100's but at least it'll be fun and not mind numbing and pain inducing all out 100's!

I'm Number Three

I didn't even know they compile results like this but it seems I finished 3rd in Men aged 35-39 as the Individual High Point Award at the 2008 SCM SPMA Regionals. Wahoo. I'm #3! LINK

Monday, Rain and 10x100's.

Monday is the kickoff for our once a month 10x100 Check Off Challenge or the Breakthrough Challenge. The last time we did this set was in April and I'm not looking forward to doing this again.

A little about the 10x100's Sets:

In a race/meet environment, our bodies produce higher levels of lactic acid, higher heart rates and inevitable fatigue. ‘Breakthrough Sets’ call for high-intensity repetitive swimming on a specific work-to-rest ratio, giving our bodies enough rest to recover partially, but not completely, between each of the 100s. Breakthrough Sets, when pushed to our personal maximum speeds, improve our ability to perform consistently for an extended time at high speeds, despite this increased level of lactic acid.

These sets are designed to be difficult and should be painful (in a good way). With that, if you plan on attending one of Monday’s ‘Breakthrough Sets’ workouts, please mentally prepare for a challenging and valuable practice.

Now besides the fact that I really don't like these anymore it will be raining on Monday. So we may be swimming in the rain. Oh Joy! Read about past 10x100's Set LINK

Friday Morning Swim

After swimming last nights killer workout is was back in the water this morning to get beat up some more. I jumped in the pool and did about a 200 warmup before we started our warm up set.

3x
150 kick
100 drill
4x25's swim
first round free / second round backstroke / third round IM

Main Set:
6x100's Free alternating intervals 1:20/1:15
4x50s fly on 50
we took an extra 30 seconds rest at this point.
4x100's Free on 1:15
4x50s back on 50
2x100's Free on 1:10
4x50's breast on 50

I was so beat after that set. I was shocked I made the breaststroke interval.

8x50's on 50 Freestyle Pulling breathing 3/5/7/9 by 50 and repeat.

And that was it. I was going to sleep in and swim tonight but my internal clock woke me up so I decided to swim. Saturday will be my recovery day and I may just do weights on Sunday. I have yet to take a day off after last weekends swim meet so I need to at least take Saturday off. I do dread starting up weights again as it's been two weeks since my last gym visit. But I can't put weight training off forever.

Thursday Night Swim

I told myself I was going to take today off from swimming and all forms of working out. Well as they day wore on I felt like swimming. So I headed to the 7pm swim practice at the WeHo Pool. One thing for sure is that it's warmer at night then it is a 6am. Maybe I should consider sleeping in all winter.

Warmup seemed to go on forever. I didn't count my laps but I can guess that I did somewhere between 600 and 700 yards.

Warm Up Set:
3x
25 Drill
50 Drill / Swim
50 Swim (free/stroke)
25 Swim
I don't remember much of this set just that each round was one stroke IM order.

3x200's on 2:50 Pulling. 1st breathing 3/5/3/7 by 50, 2nd one build each 100, 3rd one breathing 3/5/5/7

Main Set:
100 Kick on 2:00
75 Kick on 1:30
50 Kick on 1:00
25 Kick on 30
Right into 3x
150 2:15 (i think) 50 free / 50 stroke / 50 free
2x75's IM on 1:05
100 Kick on 2:00
75 Kick on 1:30
50 Kick on 1:00
25 Kick on 30
okay i took 5 seconds extra rest to regroup and see the next round on the board
3x again
150 free the 4th lap was underwater only breathing twice. shit, i don't remember the interval.
2x75's free on 55

Damn that set was hard. Those 75's in both the IM and Free kicked my ass. The worst part was that my lane mates couldn't handle the intervals so they sat some of it out and did free instead of stroke. I was getting pissed off by this. I know it shouldn't matter but when I'm doing IM barely making the intervals and the person behind you is doing free that sucks. Then in the free round the one guy who was left swam the 4th lap never going underwater w/ only 2 breathes. So of course he'd catch up to me at that point.

Final Set:
3x
100 on 1:30 25 fly / 50 free / 25 fly
75 on 1:00 25 fly / 25 free / 25 fly
25 on 30 fly

I moved over to the other lane during the final set. I made a comment to the swimmer I was with about him swimming free while I did stroke. He apologized saying that he was in the wrong lane as he expected a slower fast lane like we have sometimes. I didn't care at that point as the workout was done and over with. This workout was a tough one and boy am I still feeling it. I should sleep in and just swim tomorrow night instead. We will see, we will see.