Taper time!

Woohoo, now it's time to taper for the remaining week and a half till Nationals!

You have no idea how happy I am about that!  I've been running a pretty punishing fitness regimen lately, with heavy yardage in the pool, a bit of running here and there, and spin a couple times a week.  For the next week and a half, no running, no spinning, and less yardage in the pool.  Instead, I'll be focusing on speed and technique in the pool.  Now is the time to iron out as many of my swimming errors as I can to prepare for Nats.  Along with general speed, here's what I'm going to be focusing heavily on between now and next Thursday, when we drive down.

Fly: My stroke is good, no issues there.  Watching my swims at Zones shows that my stroke and kick are actually better than I thought.  That being said, I do have two areas to work on, pacing and my initial breakout.  Watching my 50 fly, it took me a couple strokes off the breakout to get into my rhythm.  By the time I hit the surface, I need to be at full speed, not flopping around for two strokes before I hit my stride.  And in the 100, my pacing is bass ackward.  I need to take it out at least a full second, second and a half faster and keep the pace up on the second 50.  If I do that, instead of a 1:01.2, I'll be on track to go a 58 or 59.  Another thing that is an area that needs a bit of refinement (I'm doing fine in it now, just could get even better at it) is my underwater work off the last turn in the 100.  I went underwater for a perfectly satisfactory distance, but I will strive to eke out another dolphin kick or two underwater before needing to surface.  Finally, as always, my turns can improve.  That's not saying they're horrible now, just that turns can always improve.

To train for these things, I'll do a handful of individual practices before the team practices this week and next week.  I'll continue to do a substantial amount of vertical kicking through next Tuesday and will also work on my fly endurance with a mix of 50s and a few 100s during my own practices and the team practices.  Breakout speed will rely on us practicing starts in practice, as I've never been able to replicate the issue from a push.

Back: Lots of stuff to work on here.  My underwater work is phenomenal (for me), so nothing to work on there.  However, my stroke is pretty cruddy.  I worked on my arm turnover speed yesterday during my (non-relay) 50 back, but it can still be faster.  It looks like my right arm isn't catching much water when I pull, though, and my left arm is only marginally better.  Like with fly, I can also work on my turns.

To train for these things, there are two main things I can think of--doing backstroke spin drills to work on my arm speed, and to pull backstroke with paddles to work on how I'm catching the water in my pull.  I can do both during my individual practices through next Tuesday.

Breast: Um, faster arm speed?  I haven't trained at all for breast and am not intending on doing anything specific for it between now and Nats.

Free: I'm only swimming a total of a 75 of free at Nats, the last 25 of the 100 IM and a 50 free on the 200 free relay.  From watching my 100 IM at Zones, it looks like my arm turnover wasn't very fast (MUCH better than in my 200 IM, but absolutely not anything to write home about), so I'll work on bringing the 100 IM home faster.  The other thing I can work on is my overall sprint speed for the relay leg.

To work on these things, I'll just need to work on finishing fast free sets in practice at a higher speed than I have been in the past. 

Starts: This is going to be the hardest part to work on.  The blocks at Lee District, where I will be doing all but two of the twelve individual/team practices between now and next Wednesday, suck.  I've slipped on them almost every time I've started off of them.  The top of the block is the plastic slats that are pretty commonplace at pools...but they run vertically, not horizontally like every other freaking pool's blocks do, so your feet have almost no purchase and slide back very easily if the blocks have any water on them.  The two practices at another pool will be much more helpful, since that pool has functional blocks.  In terms of my backstroke start, I'll get no useful practice before Nats--where I place my feet on the start, they're right in the middle of the black T on the wall, which is pretty freaking slick.  If I start like that, they slip straight down when I push off, which results in me doing a back flop.  If I change the position of my feet higher or lower, it royally throws off my start and I either back flop or push straight off without an arch.  Only times I've been able to practice my back start has been at meets, when they've got the touch pads on the walls.  Still, my start for the medley relay at Zones was phenomenal (besides going a bit too deep), so I'm not too worried.

Underwater dolphin kicks: This is my strongest portion of my backstroke races and makes up a good portion of my fly races.  I'll continue to do 20-45 minute vertical kicking sessions through Tuesday, and will also add in at least 10 minutes of jumps off the bottom (go to a deepish part of the pool, at least 10 feet deep, and push off as hard as you can in streamline and do dolphin kicks all the way up, trying to clear the water to your waist on the way up) and underwater 25s to work on my lung capacity so I can stay underwater longer in my races and capitalize on my kick.

We (Katie, Dan, and I) drive down to Nationals next Thursday.  I'm planning on 12 practices between now and next Wednesday evening, a total of six on my own and six with the team (I'll do a practice of my own tonight before the team practice, then do one on my own Wednesday and Friday nights, and then another one next Monday and next Wednesday; the team practices are Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights this week, Saturday morning, and Monday/Tuesday of next week).  My individual practices are mostly going to focus on the dolphin kicking, underwater work, and technique work, while the team practices will take care of the speed and endurance work.

And then finally, not something I will be working on, but I'm planning to buy a camcorder before Nationals.  Being able to watch my races at Zones has been extremely helpful, so I want to film my races (and races of teammates if they'd like to see them) at all meets going forward so I can always see how I'm doing and what I need to work on right then and there.

Can't wait till next Thursday!