Meet weekend recap!

This was a big weekend on the swimming front for me.  There were two meets, a distance meet (200s+) in Maryland at UMBC on Saturday and a meet in Warrenton, VA today.

Maryland Masters Winter Meet at UMBC

The meet yesterday was a bit of a disappointment and rather frustrating.  The meet director had sent out several emails in the weeks before the meet with the timeline for the events.  There was a morning session for the mile, and then an afternoon session for the rest of the events that was supposed to start at 2:00 after a half hour warmup.  I was entered in the 200 back, which was the second event of the afternoon session, and the 200 fly, which was one of the later events.  Well, I got to the pool at 1:30...and discovered that they'd apparently started the second session a good 45 minutes or so early.  I walked into the pool area as the heat before mine was getting in for the 200 back.  Given that I didn't have my suit on, I had to miss the event.  So not cool!  As a side note, I looked into it and it turns out they did in fact have the earlier start time on the heat sheets...but didn't notify folks before the meet itself.  Seriously, how hard is it, if you know the second session is going to start early, to send out an email before the meet and give everyone a heads up?!

Next was the 200 fly.  I attempted to warm up for it in the diving well...which is about a whopping 40 feet long.  I'd get in three full fly strokes before hitting the wall.  Totally unhelpful for warmup purposes.

I've always (since I became a butterflier in highschool) had a complicated relationship with the 200 fly.  For me, at least, it's much more of a psychological event than a physical event.  Not to say it's not a physical event!  It's probably the most physically taxing event I've ever done besides the 400 IM.  Anyways, I hadn't done it since March of 2005, so I was pretty nervous.  Standing behind the block waiting for the heat before me to swim, I started psyching myself out.  A combination of being nervous, as well as not having done a full 200 fly swim in practice since highschool, resulted in me being pretty psyched out.  The first 100 was decent.  I think I took it out pretty slowly, so my pace, while clearly not fast, was relatively suitable.  I started to feel the burn on the 3rd 50 and died on the last 50.  My back muscles totally locked up, so I'm pretty sure my stroke looked awful.  I ended up going a 2:32 something.  With how much I psyched myself out, it actually wasn't that bad a swim!  I'd set a goal time of a 2:25 beforehand, but all things considered, I'll definitely take it!

On to the natatorium itself at UMBC.  Good grief.  I've swum at some pretty crummy and depressing pools during my now 14+ year swimming career, but this place ranks as one of the worst.  It was apparently built in the 70s, and definitely looks it.  The pool itself isn't that bad, but everything surrounding it is flat out depressing and dingy.  Pretty sure that didn't help me motivate myself before the race.

Dreaming of Spring Meet at the Warrenton Aquatic and Recreation Facility

In contrast to yesterday's pool, this place was great!  Just one pool, but it's only a couple years old, very nice--fast water, real competition lane ropes, and very nice blocks.  Kinda out in the middle of nowhere, which is pretty funny, but still one of the best non-college pools I've swum at.  I've swum at some very nice pools, too--University of Kentucky, IUPUI, George Mason, the Sportsplex in Nashville, and a few others.  This one, while not at that caliber, is definitely one of the top ones I've swum at.  In addition, the whole experience was more enjoyable because three of my friends from the team were also swimming--Dan, Katie, and Sarah.  Meets are much more fun when friends are there!

On to the events--I was entered in the 50 fly, 100 fly, and 100 IM.  I also swam the backstroke leg on the 200 medley relay.  Overall, a much better swimming day than yesterday was!

50 back: This was the second event of the meet.  I got to do a total of about a 300 warmup before the race, since I'd gotten to the pool late.  Good start, great underwater work, and pretty decent turn (not the best turn I've ever had, but better than my back turns have been lately).  I went a 29.89, which is a full second faster than my previous best (as a Masters swimmer).  I was very happy!  My backstroke as a whole is just not clicking, and the only thing that seems to be going well for me in it is my underwater work off the walls.  And I nailed the underwater work off the start and turn this time.  Great start to the meet!  Our relay ended up first, too, which was also awesome!

100 fly: This was my second event, about 20 minutes after the relay.  As an aside, the meet today ran very quickly--I didn't have more than 20 minutes or so between any of my events.  After my disappointing 100 fly at the Richmond meet a few weeks ago, I was anxious to do better this time.  I got a good start, and felt fantastic during the first 50.  At the flags going into the wall at the 75, though, the 200 fly from yesterday decided to come back and bite me in the rear.  My back muscles and shoulders locked up then, so the last 25 was quite painful, and I'm sure it wasn't pretty at all.  I still dropped 3.1 seconds from Richmond, and went a 1:01.75.  My splits were pretty interesting--took it out in a 27.84 and brought it back in a 33.91.  Uh, yeah, I definitely locked up on the second half!  Should have been able to bring it back in a 30 or 31 if I hadn't locked up.  Right now I'm 2.5 seconds off the Nats cut (it's a 59.09), so I'm definitely within reach, sans locking up!  Very pumped about this swim!
As an aside, if I remember correctly, it took me 4 or 5 meets to break a minute in the 100 fly in highschool after I became a butterflier--I'm on track to potentially break the minute in the next meet, so it will have only taken me three meets this time around if that's the case!

50 fly: Sigh.  This one was not all that good of a swim.  I had a good dive, but my left goggle cup filled up as soon as I hit the water and the right one flipped off.  I pretty much swam the race blind.  That hasn't happened since my sophomore or junior year in highschool, and I'd forgotten how much it sucks and hampers my swimming.  Completely guessed where the walls were, and managed to get lucky and have a decent turn, but the finish wasn't as good--still wasn't a terrible finish, but not the best one I've had.  In addition, I hit the lane rope twice with my right hand, once going down and once coming back.  All that said...I went a 27.45, which is only .16 slower than my best 50 fly so far.  Sigh.  Not great, but I'll take it.  Still pretty confident that I've got a sub 27 in me, just need to actually have a great race for it to come out!

100 IM: Great on the fly, great on the back...and then it was just so-so.  I generally try to do a back-breast flip turn, but I have to have an exact stroke count at the flags going into the wall for me to be able to do it.  If I don't have that exact stroke count, I have to do an open turn.  I was a bit off the stroke count this time, and then had a brain fart, so I kicked too long into the wall instead of taking an extra stroke for the open turn.  Breast wasn't too bad, but my technique wasn't all that great.  And then I died on free.  At this point, my upper back was quite tight as a result of all the fly I'd done over the weekend, and my shoulders were starting to tighten up, too, so it was rather painful.  I went a 1:03.93, which is off my best time of a 1:03.70, but still faster than when I'd swum it in Richmond, when I did a 1:04.52.  I'll take it for now!

Overall, today was pretty satisfying!  While I only got two best times out of the four events I swam, I was right there with the other two!  One more meet in which to get any Nats cuts, so I've got my work cut out for me!

"The pain train's comin'!"

"Pain used as a weapon is one thing. Personal pain, the kind that comes from just living our lives, is something else. Pain isn’t a lot of fun, at least not for most folks, but it is utterly unique to life. Pain-physical, emotional, and otherwise-is the shadow cast by everything you want out of life, the alternative to the result you were hoping for, and the inevitable creator of strength. From the pain of our failures we learn to be better, stronger, greater than what we were before. Pain is there to tell us when we’ve done something badly-it’s a teacher, a guide, one that is always there to both warn us of our limitations and challenge us to overcome them. For something no one likes, pain does us a whole hell of a lot of good."

That's a quote from one of Jim Butcher's books. He's one of my favorite authors, by the way. Good stuff.

For the most part, I love pain (for the sake of this post, I'm referring to physical pain) for the reasons that Mr. Butcher writes about.

Those who've followed my blog know that I've suffered from a list of physical ailments as long as my arm off an on since I started swimming again last fall. Up through last weekend, all of them but my left elbow had resolved themselves! So, sorta-masochist that I am, I decided to try play chicken with the pain train, courtesy of Terry Tate (...I'll give a brownie point to anyone who gets that reference).

A bit of backstory--when I lived in Charleston, I had a pretty tough running/pt/weights routine that I did four or five times a week, usually over my lunch break at work. However, the latter half of last April was really busy at work, so I only worked out a couple times after the beginning of the month. And then all last May was chaotic, what with my move up here at the end of the month. So, the result was that prior to this past weekend, I hadn't done any serious running, pt, or weights since the beginning of last April.

Back on track, last Friday after work, I lifted for the first time in roughly 10.5 months, then did a freaking awesomely tough spin class, then swam for an hour afterwards. My upper body was totally beat afterwards, and most of my muscles were on fire from spin and weights. Come Saturday, my arms/shoulders/lats were pretty sore. On Sunday, without the soreness having abated an ounce, I did a 1000 pushup challenge, to try and do 1000 pushups throughout the course of the day. Uh, not my most brilliant idea ever. From mid April 2011 to last Sunday, I'd done maybe a total of about 150 pushups. The day started off pretty well, and I hit the 400 mark without too much of a problem. After that, though, the soreness and my total lack of preparation set in, and I barely scraped my way through 750 pushups before bed.

On Monday, my arms, chest, and the front of my shoulders were in pain. I'm not referring to just being sore, I mean actual pain. It was awesome! The tendon thingy that goes from mid-forearm up the outside of the elbow to the bicep on both arms was freakishly tight. I couldn't straighten my arms without having some sort of weight pulling them straight--my arms weren't much straighter than C-3PO's arms are. Yeah, yeah, I know, needless nerd reference. Shoot me. I couldn't lift my arms up more than shoulder level in front of me without struggling to do so, and couldn't swing them further back than straight out to my side. I swam for an hour before practice Monday night, and it took the full hour before my arms were loose enough to let me do full streamline. The forearm tendon thingy didn't fully stretch out till yesterday, a good three days after the pushup day. They're still a bit tight, but I've got full mobility again.

One big advantage of my arms being super tight was that on Monday night, I did a fair amount of breast in practice without pain. Normally, that is a surefire trigger for the deep seated ache and twinges of pain just above my left elbow that've plagued me since October or November. No problems with that this time! Of course, I had a rather stilted breaststroke pull due to the arm problems, but it was quite nice to actually be able to swim an IM in practice without having to stop and massage my elbow after breast!

Tonight's practice will be the first one without any arm tightness, so I'll see if the elbow issue will be a factor tonight or not...

Getting from Point A to Point B

Uh, yeah, getting from point A to point B...

In this case, point A is me being within reach of the Nationals cuts in the 50 fly, 100 fly, and 100 IM.  Point B is me getting the Nats cuts in at least the two fly events.  Not worried too much about the 100 IM, since I'm going to swim it one way or another.  The same could be said for the fly events, but I've got a personal goal of not only getting back into fly shape, but aging up to a faster age group and getting the Nats cuts in the two fly events within six months of me starting to really practice again.

I've been strategizing how I'm going to get the two fly cuts in the next two spring meets, on March 4th and March 17th.  A big part of said strategizing has included looking at my performance in the past few meets in those events.

Take my 50 fly performance in the 50 fly in the past three meets: Annapolis on January 21st, Tropical Splash on January 29th, and then Richmond on February 11th.  Here is the time progression I had in those meets, and how those swims were:

• Annapolis: 28.16.  Just not a very good swim.  Bad start, sloppy turn, not very good finish.
• Tropical Splash: 27.88.  The swim itself was fantastic, but I dove for the wall on the finish a full stroke too early, so kicked the rest of the way into the wall.  Conservatively, I lost at least half a second right there.
• Richmond: 27.29.  Iffy start (went too deep) and totally screwed up the turn, but still had a decent time.  Probably lost about half a second on the deep start and frigging terrible turn.  Half a second would put me right at the Nats cut.

Looking at those times, despite each swim having at least one glaring flaw, I've had pretty marked improvement from meet to meet.  I'm about 99% sure that, if I can finally have a flawless start/turn/finish, I can swim in at a mid 26.  That would get the cut with room to spare.  Gotta nail the start, turn, and the finish.  Those are the areas I've struggled the most on in this event.  The swim itself is quite satisfactory, but I'm failing miserably at the non-swim part of the event.  Uh, not exactly conducive to improving as much as I'd like if I manage to screw it up every time I swim it!

On the other hand, look at my 100 fly.  I've only swum it twice as a Masters swimmer, once in short course meters, the other in yards.

I've been doing a lot of fly in practice, as well as doing a few all-fly-with-fins practices here and there, so my shoulder endurance is pretty decent.  Still got a good ways to go to hit my old level of fly endurance, but it's pretty darn good right now, all things considered.  The first time I swam the 100 fly, at the SCM meet in early December, I didn't have the endurance, and my swim was terrible.  Partly due to me not pacing it well, but mostly because I just died.  When I swam it in Richmond, I didn't pace it well at all, and had the small issue of dying halfway through the swim--on a positive note, it was full body weakness, not specifically related to me swimming fly, so that at least is a good sign.

At the Richmond meet, I swam the 200 IM the day before I swam the 100 fly.  I was in the lane next to a 33 year old guy who absolutely kicked my butt in the IM.  I took it out too slow, and then had my elbow blow up. Bad swim all around.  Anyways, getting back on point, here's a comparison of my fly in the 200 IM and the 100 fly:

• First 50 of the 200 IM: Took it out in a 28.28.  For the IM, that was a pretty darn slow start--should have been well under a 28.
• First 50 of the 100 fly: Took it out in a 29.67.  WAY too slow!  For one, that's nearly a full second and a half slower than I took out the 200 IM.  I realize that I was still tired from the 100 back I'd done shortly beforehand, but still, that's an embarrasing split.
• Second 50 of the 100 fly: Brought it back in a 35.19.  Again, embarrasing, although the whole dying thing played a pretty big part in that performance.

This one was a much more embarrasing performance than the 50 fly.  Even setting aside my general tiredness at the time, I just had freaking terrible pacing.  I've gotta work on that in the next two sprint meets. Here's what my goals are for this event on March 4th.

• Take it out in a high 27.  That should be about a second slower than my 50 fly time, which is an acceptable difference between the 50 and 100.
• Bring it back in a 31 or 32.
• Nail the turns and breathing pattern.  

I've got a high 27 in me for sure for the first 50, given the lackadaisical first 50 of my 200 IM in Richmond that still wasn't too far off that mark.  And I think I've got enough endurance, provided I'm not already tired, to bring it back in a 31 or 32.  I've done a 35 from a push in practice at the end of a main set, so I sure hope I can shave a few seconds off that in a race.

If I do all these things well, come March 4th, I should be well on my way to Point B!

Recap of meet in Richmond this weekend!

This weekend I had my first two day meet as a Masters swimmer.  NOVA of Virginia Aquatics hosted the meet in Richmond.  Saturday was the longer events, from the 200s up through the mile, and Sunday was the 200s and 50s/100s (people had the choice of swimming the 200s on either Saturday or Sunday).  I entered in eight events, but scratched one (swam two events and scratched one on Saturday, then swam the other five on Sunday).  In order, here were the events I swam across both days and their times:

• 200 IM - 2:22 something
• 200 back - 2:24 something
• 400 IM - scratch
• 50 fly - 27.29
• 100 IM - 1:04.52
• 100 back - 1:06.03
• 100 fly - 1:04.86
• 50 back - 31.17

And here's how each event went:

• 200 IM: Ugh.  This was my first time swimming it as a Masters swimmer.  My energy level wasn't there, and I tweaked my left elbow.  I'd say the energy level issue was due to having done a spin class the night before and having gone to practice that morning before driving to Richmond.  To be fair, going to practice before the meet wasn't *exactly* a smart idea.  Anyways, I must have pulled a tendon in my left elbow a couple months ago, and it has been flaring up off and on since then.  The most common trigger is breaststroke (normally just breast, none of the other strokes) in practice, but ibuprofen before I do a lot of IM/breast work usually makes it a non factor.  Well, not for this time.  I'd tweaked my elbow in practice that morning, so dosed up on ibuprofen before the meet, and felt fine in warmup.  Not in the IM, unfortunately.  Elbow twinged off the start on fly, then hurt the rest of that stroke, was a steady burn in back, and was on freaking fire in breast, then just hurt on free.  Totally screwed up my focus during the race--didn't think to do my back to breast turn, or the fly kick on the breast pullout, or work on any semblance of technique on my breast pull.  Not cool!
• 200 back: Ugh.  Like with the 200 IM, this was my first time swimming it as a Masters swimmer.  Approximately a handful of ibuprofen later, the pain in my elbow had subsided to a dull ache, but it was still rather distracting. so I'm pretty sure my technique wasn't as good as it should have been.  Didn't take it out fast enough, so I tried to turn it on in the second half...and my legs burned out at around the 150 or so.  Sigh.  Not exactly a stellar swim.
• 50 fly: I was feeling much better all around this morning--I'd been popping ibuprofen like M&Ms since the previous evening, so the elbow was peachy keen, and my energy level was up.  Went a bit deep off the start, but got up and going without too much difficulty.  Then promptly flubbed the turn.  The pool has a metal gutter, and the metal extends down the wall about a foot or so.  I've been working at not grabbing the gutter during open turns, so I tried that this time...and my hands slid straight down the slick metal of the wall as soon as they touched.  Basically did an incredibly uncoordinated turn without my arms, for as much good as they did me.  Still, I dropped .9 seconds from my previous fastest time and set a new Masters personal record!  The Nats cut is a 26.78, so I've only got half a second to drop!  I figure the flubbed turn alone cost me at least .3 seconds, so I'm right there in the ballpark for this cut.  I've got two more meets to get the cut in--pretty confident that I'll get it.
• 100 IM: Eh, not so hot on this one.  4 years ago, I'd injured my chest--tore a small amount of the cartilage just to the right of my sternum, and inflamed the cartilage on the left side of the clavicle (the inflamation is called costochondritis).  At the time, it would hit me in waves of literally debilitating pain--when the pain hit, I couldn't do anything, and one time when it hit while I was standing, I fell over.  Took about 2 years and plenty of anti-inflammatory meds to fully get over the random waves of pain that would come through with no seeming rhyme or reason.  Anyways, during my warmdown after the 50 fly, the left side of my sternum flared up.  Nowhere near as painfully as it used to, but still pretty painful.  So, going back to the 100 IM... Like the 50 fly, a bit deep on the start, but not too bad.  My speed was a touch off, but again, not too bad.   On the fly to back turn, the sternum flared up.  Just on the turn, not during the back, although I could feel it every time I swept my arms in on breast.  Took the first 50 out in a 27, so that was good, although as normal, the second half was cruddy.  I have GOT to work on my breast and free in the IM.  With a first half like mine, I should be able to go well under a minute, if my breast/free were halfway decent.  I added about 3/4 of a second in the swim.  My best is a 1:03.70, which is just under 3 seconds off the Nats cut.  I've got two more meets to swim this event in, so I'm in the ballpark if I can nail everything in the race.
• 100 back: This was comparatively a better swim than the 100 IM, but my backstroke is just not where I want it to be.  Good start, relatively good turns, and my stroke/kick felt decent.  The last time I swam this event in yards was at the first meet of the season back in October, so I dropped a good 5.5 seconds since that swim.  All of that and I'm still somewhere in the general vicinity of 8-9 seconds off my best 100 back time from highschool.  I can't figure out why my back is so far off pace, since my fly is much closer to my old times (well, more on that below) than back is.  Nats cut is a 1:01.53.  With how relatively little progress I've made in my backstroke, I'm gonna have to write this event off as a pipe dream for this year's short course National Championship.  GRRR!
• 100 fly: This race hurt.  All of 15 minutes after my 100 back, I didn't have enough time to warm down sufficiently, and still had an elevated heart rate and faster breathing when I got up on the blocks.  First 50 was good, although I think my pace was a bit too slow for a 100.  About halfway down the third lap, my legs just died.  Given the short rest between events, I'm gonna say it was due to the 100 back.  Pulling the remaining 25 and a half was *slightly* painful.  That being said, I've been doing a LOT of fly at practice the past month or so, so I was actually able to finish without feeling like I'd just swum a 1650 fly.  Still, the pull put stress on my sternum, so that was a dull ache on the last 25.  This was my first time swimming this event yards as a Masters swimmer, so I was pretty happy.  I was aiming for a 1:03.8 (Dan, one of my good friends on the team, is also a flyer, and that's what he went at the last meet), so I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't make it...but feel pretty confident that without dying, I could have gone a 1:01 or 1:02.  Nats is a 59.09, so it is conceivably within reach.  I've got two more meets to try for that cut, and another five weeks of practice time to train for it.  My fly in general is doing much better than my back at getting close to my old times.  My 50 fly is only about half a second off my old best (I think my old best was around a 26.7), and my 100 fly is about 6-7 seconds off my old best.
• 50 back: This one was just ridiculous.  Unless I miscounted, this event was only 13 minutes after the 100 fly, so I only had time to do a 200 warmdown before going back to the blocks and stretching out for a couple minutes before swimming again.  Nowhere NEAR enough time to get ready to swim again!  Besides the fly kicks off the start and turn, I had no legs, and my arms were apparently nonexistent.  All that being said, I only added .3 seconds from my best.  I'll count that as a success!  Going back to the my-backstroke-is-not-very-good thing, my 100 back is 8-9 seconds off my old best, and my 50 back is about 3.25 seconds off.  For the life of me, I cannot figure out why my back just isn't there.  Everything feels pretty good--underwater work (what I think is my best aspect in back right now), kick, pull, turns, everything.  I've even been working with my head coach, Drew, for the past month or so on my back pull to fine tune it.  I'm improving...but slowly, much slower than my fly is improving, even though I do a good deal more back than fly in practice in general.  Something just isn't right with back, and it's bugging me like crazy trying to figure it out.

The coolest thing at the meet by far was seeing the women's American record holder in the 95-99 age group in the 50 and 100 free!  At 99 years old, she swam both events (and even dove from the blocks!) and got a standing ovation when she finished them.  If I hadn't known she was 99, I'd have pegged her as late 70s/early 80s, tops--fantastic shape for her age.  I didn't see what her times were today, but her records are 1:26.77 for the 50 and 3:02.75 for the 100.  SOOOOOOOO inspirational!!

I've got two areas of concern--my left elbow and the sternum issue.  I'm hoping consumer strength ibuprofen is enough to take care of the sternum, and that it's not a return of the costochondritis.  If it's back, it's gonna totally eff up my swimming if I have to deal with it for the next two years!  For the elbow, I'm going to keep up the ibuprofen diet and refrain from swimming breast as much as I can this week, which will hopefully give it time to calm down.  With the sternum issue, it's not as simple as just not swimming breast, since anything and everything can trigger it--since this morning, that has included looking before I change lanes while driving, extending either arm (sometimes), or a totally random movement that doesn't seem like it's connected to my sternum at all.  Still not debillitating pain and is quite manageable, but I don't want it worsening.  Since it's seemingly random, I'll keep up my ibuprofen diet this week and hope that takes care of both the elbow and the sternum.

Nats registration closes March 23rd.  In the five weeks between now and then, I've got three meets to go, one distance meet (200s+) and two sprint meets.  I'll probably do the 200 fly and 200 back at the distance meet for fun, but depending on the event order at the two sprint meets, I might only swim the 50/100 fly and 100 IM at those two meets, since those are the cuts I'm really trying to make...and actually have a shot at.  Unlike most of the meets to date, when I've swum as many events as I could fit in, to try and eke out the best swim I can in each event, I might only enter in those three.  I'll have to look at the event order to verify that, though.  If the events are well spaced out, I might throw in another for fun.  Maybe.  Too early to decide, though, since the next sprint meet is March 4th, so I've got a while.

Until the next sprint meet on the 4th, and then the last qualifying meet after that on March 17th, I'm going to continue focusing a LOT on my fly in practice.  50 and 100 fly are the two main cuts I want to get.  100 IM would be nice, but I won't be heart broken if I don't get it in the next two meets.  After fly, the next thing I'm going to focus on is my turns.  My overall turn speed still isn't ideal, so that could squeeze out a few more tenths of a second per swim.

If I make those two (or three) cuts by March 23rd, then the two remaining meets, and the remaining month of practice time, before Nationals will be focused almost exclusively on fly, turns, and possibly back, depending on what I decide to swim at Nats.

5 weeks and counting!

Oof...the long road to Nationals just got shorter

At the beginning of the short course season back in October, I thought that you could get Nationals cuts up till a couple weeks before the meet.  Well, they posted the online entry form last week, and you only have through March 23rd to get the cuts, a full month before the meet.  I mean, I understand why they have it like that, I just assumed they'd give us more time.

My original game plan from December for the rest of the season was for me to go to a total of eight meets from January-April before Nats.  The last meet before Nats is the Zone championship meet from April 13-15 (Nats is April 26-29).  I had thought it would be like USA swimming, when you could go to the State B meet two weeks before the State A meet and still get A cuts.

With the shorter time frame, the last two pre-Nats meets are now meaningless on the cuts front, since there's a meet March 25 and then Zones.

Since I've now got a bit less than 7 weeks to get Nats cuts, I gotta move up my meet schedule.  I'm trying to get Nats cuts in the 50 fly, 100 fly, 100 IM, and possibly the 200 IM.  With those four events in mind, here's my new meet schedule for the rest of the eligibility session:

• February 11-12: Two day meet in Richmond, longer distance events (200s on up) on the first day, sprint events (50s and 100s) on the second day.  I'm swimming my full repertoire of fly, back, and IM events, minus the 200 fly.
• March 3: One day meet in the Baltimore area.  It's a longer distance meet, 200s on up.  I'm probably going to swim the 200 IM and 200 fly, maybe 200 back, too.
• March 4: One day meet in Warrenton, VA (about an hour away).  It's a sprint meet, so I'll try to get in the 50/100 fly, 50/100 back, and 100 IM.
• March 17: One day meet in Bethesda.  It's a short course meters meet, but they offer the full range of events.  This will be my last chance to make cuts (converted times are eligible qualifying times), so I'll swim whatever events I'm close to the cuts in.

After those four meets, I'll have two meets to get in the Nationals frame of mind.  There are two meets offered on March 25, so I need to decide which to go to.  One is a repeat of the meet in Annapolis I went to three weeks ago, so I think I might go to the other meet for a change of scenery.  And then there's Zones in April.  That will be my big prep meet, since it's a high level fast competition pool, as opposed to many of the pools we swim at.

Four meets to potentially make four cuts.  I can do this!

Hard core meet in Richmond next weekend!

I've got my first hardcore meet next weekend!  I'm going to a meet in Richmond that NOVA of Virginia Aquatics is hosting on Saturday and Sunday, my first two day meet since 2005.

Not just my first two day meet, it's also the first meet in which I swim some serious yardage.  Saturday afternoon I'm swimming the 200 IM, 200 back, and 400 IM.  Sunday morning I'm swimming the 50/100 fly, 50/100 back, and 100 IM.  I haven't swum any of the Saturday events as a Masters swimmer yet, so I'm rather nervous about them.

Here are the made up times I entered myself with for the Saturday events, since I've got no clue where I'm at for them:

• 200 IM: 2:20.00.  This should *hopefully* be an easy one to get.  My 100 IM last weekend was a 1:03.70, so unless I utterly die in this event, I hope to break that with time to spare.  Still, no guarantees!  The Nats cut is a 2:11.51, so I would LOVE it if I managed to get that in this swim, though I'm not holding my breath on that.
• 200 back: 2:22.00.  This one is up in the air.  I haven't swum the 100 back since the first, disastrous meet, when I went a 1:11 something.  I'm pretty confident that my 100 back time is closer to a 1:05 than a 1:11, so I *should* be able to go under a 2:22, hopefully.  Nats cut is a 2:11.39, but I think that's out of reach right now.
• 400 IM: 5:20.00.  I'm pretty worried about this one.  I've only done a 400 IM a handful of times in practice, but will be doing it a lot on my own this week in preparation.  Not worried about the fly or back legs, but the back half is a different proposition.  My old time from highschool was a 4:30 something, so I hope I gave myself enough cushion time.  I'll be pretty damn happy if I go faster than a 5:20!  Nats cut is a 4:51.49, but I've got no idea whatsoever if it's a feasible time for me to get at this point.

I'm much more comfortable with the Sunday swims, since I've done them all at least once.

• 50 fly: Haven't gotten the official time from last weekend yet, so I'm entered as a 28.16.  If I have a good swim, I'm fairly confident that I can hit around a 27 point, if not an upper 26.  Nats is a 26.78, so that's what I'm aiming for, although I won't be completely heartbroken if I don't get it this time.
• 100 fly: 1:09.09.  I've just got that converted time from the short course meters meet I swam at the beginning of December.  Been swimming a LOT of fly since then, so I should be able to smash that time unless I totally die or flub all the turns or something like that.  Nats is a 59.09.  I don't know if I can break a minute, but I'm sure going to try!
• 50 back: 30.89.  If I have a good swim, I hope to break a 30.  Nats is a 28.22, but I don't think I'll be able to hit that at this meet.  I'd love to get the cut with this swim, but ain't staking the meet on that happening.
• 100 back: 1:11.57.  I haven't swum this event since the first meet, so I should be able to smash this time.  As I mentioned in the 200 back above, I think my actual 100 back time is somewhere in the general vicinity of a 1:05, give or take two seconds.  Nats is a 1:01.53.  Unless my back is a LOT better than I think it is, I think that's out of reach this time around, but I'll still give it my best shot.
• 100 IM: 1:03.70.  Nats is a 1:00.77.  I'm very pumped about this swim, which should be the highlight of my meet!  I've been working on my back to breast flipturn this past week, and will continue to work on it this week.  I've also been working on my breast technique (by far my weakest leg of the race) with the coaches, so hopefully that'll help too.  If I have a good race and have someone to race against at the end, the cut should be in reach!

All total, I'm swimming 800 yards on Saturday and 400 on Sunday.  By far my most intensive meet yet, and also my most high stakes, since I've got two Nats cuts definitely within reach, and another one or two potentially within reach, depending on if I have standout swims.

Woohoo, turn the motivation this week up to 11!

Things to focus on in the pool

There are two months and three weeks till Nationals.  During that time, I've got several things to focus on in the pool.  It seems that my backstroke isn't improving quickly enough for me to make Nats cuts in it this year (at least, not in the 25-29 age group, although some of the 19-24 cuts look in reach), so I will focus on fly and the IMs (at least the 100 IM, possibly the 200 and 400, as well).

• Flip turns: My flip turns are rather lethargic--I've got great underwater work coming off the wall, but my actual flip speed is pretty crappy, so I lose ground on that portion of the turn.  If I'm neck and neck with someone going into the turn, they'll normally push off a fair bit earlier than me, but I can almost always catch back up to them, if not pull a bit ahead of them, by the time I get to the surface of the pool.  If I can get my turn time down, I can give myself an extra boost in races.  During my individual practices (not the team ones), I'll do a lot of 25s and 50s from the middle of the pool, working on increasing my flip speed.
• Open turns: My mechanics seem to be decent, but just don't have the turn speed.  As far as I can tell, I'm staying low in the water, not popping up as I turn.  Just have slow leg speed as I draw them towards my chest when I touch the wall.  Same as the training for the flip turns--lots of 25s and 50s from the middle of the pool should help out on this.
• Back to breast turns: Up until this week, I've been doing an open back to breast turn in practice and in meets.  I don't think it's a bad turn, it's just not a very fast turn.  My senior (and possibly junior?) year in highschool, I did a back to breast flip turn, where I'd turn mostly onto my left side, touch the wall with my right hand, then flip and push off leaning towards my stomach on breast.  I can only do it if I turn to that side--trying to do it to the other side is grossly uncoordinated.  The timing and body positioning is very tricky--since I can only do the turn to the one side, I have to be at the exact same part of my stroke when I hit the flags every single time, otherwise the timing is off.  And in regards to body positioning, if you cross the 90 degree line as you're coming into the wall and lean towards your stomach, DQ.  But you have to be right about that 90 degrees in order to turn and flip in that short a distance, so that's a very tricky line to cross.  I've been DQd once for that that I can remember.  Likewise, when pushing off the wall on breast, your body has to cross the 90 degree plane leaning towards your stomach, or DQ.  Gotten DQd for that once, too.  Did that turn for the first time since highschool in practice on Monday night.  Ooh boy.  Timing was off, turned too much towards my stomach going into the wall, and was almost flat on my back coming off the wall.  Yeesh.  Been working on a lot of back/breast turns this week, and I've gotten the timing down now, but still am working on the body positioning.  When the turn is done correctly, I used to be able to pull ahead by about half a body length over people who did an open back/breast turn.  Got a long ways to go, so those 25s and 50s from the middle of the pool are going to be a big component of my workouts for the next two months and change.
• Hypoxic work: My lung capacity has improved quite a bit since I began swimming again last fall.  That being said, my body requires a LOT of oxygen when I race.  At the meet this past weekend, in my 50 fly and 50 free, I only took two breaths on both, one down and one back.  Started to feel the oxygen burn pretty bad when coming into the flags at the finish on both races.  I'd like to get to the point where I can do the two breath 50 without hitting that burn.  I'll do more underwater 25s and more speed work with long breathing patterns. 
• Fly endurance: Just keep on swimming lots of fly.  I've gotten to the point where random 50s or 75s of fly here and there in practice are no big deal, and I can do sets such as 4 x 50 choice fast on :50 all fly without dying.  Just need to keep increasing the yardage and get to the point where 100s are no biggie.  I'm planning on doing an all-fly-with-fins practice this week, possibly on Saturday, to see how much my shoulders can take.
• Kick: My underwater kick is still my biggest asset when I race.  Once I'm on the surface, though, my kick is just middling.  Gonna keep pounding the kicking yardage in my individual practices, and will also incorporate vertical kicking at some point.

And for stuff outside of the pool.

• Weights: So far, I've yet to hit up the weight room.  Gonna make a concerted effort to make it there.
• Core work: Same thing as with weights.  I think a stronger core will help my kick out, and also help tighten up my body position between the walls.

Tropical Splash meet recap!

My team hosted the meet today, the Tropical Splash.  The pool is a kinda cruddy pool (compared to the competition pools at like the Sportsplex, the UK pool, IUPUI, George Mason, or any of the other top tier pools) and it was manual timing, but it was quite a good meet!

I swam a total of seven events, in order: 50 back, 100 IM, 100 free, 200 free relay, 200 mixed medley relay, 50 fly, and 50 free.  I had some great swims, some good swims, and some decent swims.  Had a bit of a problem with the walls/bottom/depth perception in the outside lanes, but other than that it wasn't too shabby.

50 back: First event of the meet, and it started off pretty well.  Had a pretty good start, good underwater work, and felt like I had good arm speed.  ...And then I missed the flags (foggy goggles), turned a stroke early, and barrrrrrely grazed the wall with the tips of my toes.  Came to a dead stop, and that basically killed my race.  I think I was neck and neck for first in my heat going into the turn, but came out of it towards the back of the pack.  Second 25...once I actually started picking up some momentum again...felt pretty good.  I was PISSED at that point, so I had a lot of energy on the back half of the race.  All in all, it wasn't a terrible swim--I was entered as a 30.89 and went a 31.36.  If I'd had a good turn, I most likely would have easily broken a 30.00.  Sigh.

100 IM: By far my standout event of the meet.  Last time I swam it, I died from lack of air on the back half of the race, so this time I tried to slow the first half down just a bit, and worked on getting plenty of air on the breast and free legs.  Worked out quite well!  Don't know what my splits ended up being (I think I took it out in a 27 or 28 or something), but I went a 1:03.70.  Everything felt good on the race, although I didn't sprint all out on the free, since I was pretty far ahead of the rest of the heat and didn't have anyone to push me.  VERY pleased with that swim, since I was entered as a 1:07.00!  Even better, that puts me well within reach of the Nats cut, which is a 1:00.77.  In the three meets I've swum the 100 IM at, my time has gone down from a 1:10.21 to a 1:03.70.  If I've dropped 6.5 seconds already, then I can probably eke out another 3 seconds.  Now my training goal for the 100 IM is to pick up the pace on free and get back to doing the back to breast flip turn thing I used to do.  Much faster than an open turn, but tricky as all get out to get the timing down, not to mention doing it without getting DQd...

100 free: Those of you who've known me for a while know that I've never been anything more than a middling/decent freestyler.  The 100 free has never been one of my favorite events, and still isn't.  Hadn't swum it since early 2005 and had no clue where I was at in it, so I entered myself as a 58.99.  I had a decent race, but had a *slight*issue with my pacing.  I took it out at maybe a 200 pace, if not closer to 500 pace.  Didn't think anything of the pace until I flipped at the 50, then realized how slow I was swimming.  Not my best 100 free ever, but I still went a 57.52, so I beat my made up time.  Hey, I'll take that!

200 free relay: Decent race.  I went second on the relay, and have no clue what my split was.

200 medley relay: I swam the fly leg of this race, and had problems with the waves, along with a slow start (we haven't really practiced relay starts much, so my timing is awful).  Our lane was sandwiched between two faster relays, and the lane ropes did almost nothing to stop the wakes of the other swimmers from crossing into my lane.  My stroke on fly is just above the surface of the water, so if there's a wave, I'm going to hit it.  It normally isn't an issue in an individual fly event, but it was a big problem in this race.  I think I still split a low 27, but I splashed a LOT of water.

50 fly: Sigh.  My other not-so-good swim.  The race itself felt great, but I totally misjudged where the wall was on the finish.  I thought the wall was one stroke away, so I took the stroke and then dove into where I thought the wall was....but I had done that a stroke too soon, so my finish was terrible.  I thought the timer said I went a 27.75, but the ribbon I got said 29.75.  Given that I was entered as a 28.16, and with how good the race felt besides the finish, I'm going to say my time was probably a 27.75, and they just had a data entry error when printing up the ribbons.

50 free: Again, it's a free event, so not really my forte.  I was entered as a 26.93, and went a 26.13, so I'll take it.  The swim portion felt good, and I had the correct distance from the wall on my turn, but it was just a slooooow turn--I really need to work on the quick flip, driving in and out of the wall.  If I'd sped up the turn, probably would have been in the mid 25 range.

Overall, a pretty darn good meet, wall issues notwithstanding!  A fair number of swimmers from my team came out (15, I think?), which is a big improvement over the 2-3 of us who normally swim at meets.  I had a blast hanging out with them, along with all my other friends on the team who didn't swim, but came out to time or help run the meet, so I'd say this meet was an unmitigated success!

Update on times and progress towards Nationals cuts

The meet director from the meet this past weekend emailed out the results yesterday.  Here's what I got:

50 back: 30.89 (entered as 31.71, so I dropped .82 seconds, less than I thought)
50 fly: 28.16 (entered as 29.30, so I dropped 1.14 seconds)
100 IM: 1:07.00 (entered as 1:10.21, so I dropped 3.21 seconds)

On the 50 fly, if I hadn't flubbed the turn and finish, I probably would have been around a mid 27.  50 back felt pretty good, so I'm just not getting the times I want, for some reason.  100 IM splits were 29.81 and 37.19.  The first split is quite good for where I'm at right now, while the second split is terrible, just terrible.

Anyways, for those three swims, here are the Nats cuts for the 25-29 age group, since I age up three weeks before the meet...grr...:

50 back: 28.22.  That means I have to drop 2.7 seconds to make the cut.  It MIGHT be possible, but I'm not promising anything. If I wasn't aging up, I would only have to drop 1.9 seconds, which seems more achievable.  Sigh.
50 fly: 26.78.  I've gotta drop 1.4 seconds.  Pretty confident I can make this one, especially as I ramp up my fly time and yardage at practice over the next three months.  Again, if I wasn't aging up, I'd only have to drop 1.1 seconds.
100 IM: 1:00.77.  Not sure about this one, since I have to drop 6.2 seconds.  Completely guessing here, I think I might be able to drop another 2 seconds or so from my current time in the IM just by not having a meltdown in the second half like I did last weekend.  If I wasn't aging up, I'd only have to drop 4.1 seconds.  That cut would be fairly achievable, I think.

My team hosts a meet next weekend.  Unlike this past meet, we can swim up to five individual events, plus two relays.  I'm going to swim the 50 fly for sure, as well as the 100 IM in an attempt to vindicate last weekend's terrible performance in that race.  Besides that, no clue what I'll swim.  Well, that's not entirely true.  Last night's practice was a sprint/speed practice, and at the end (after I did a LOT of sprint fly) of the practice, we did two broken 200s (broken at each 50 for 10 seconds), one IM and one free.  On the free one, even though I was quite worn out from all the speed work I'd done for the preceding 45 minutes, I still managed to go an adjusted 2:13.  I figure there is about an 8-10 second fudge factor for that time, accounting for swimming it in practice, not wearing a meet suit, and not doing it from a dive.  If that fudge factor is correct, that means my 200 free time could feasibly be in the ballpark of 2:03 in a meet.  I'm tempted to put it to the test at the meet next weekend, although the 200 isn't exactly my most favoritist event ever...

Training plan through the end of April

I've got my training mapped out through the end of April, when the Masters National Championship meet is held.  This week is only a half week for me, so it's an abberation from the schedule, but here's the normal weekly schedule.  A note--the organized practices vary in intensity, some being pretty easy, while others rachet up the intensity to a pretty high level.  There are four different coaches, and they all have their own type of practice they like to give us.  Practices on my own are generally more stretched out and focus on stroke work and technique, since the organized practices often focus more on yardage and free than stroke and the fine stuff.

• Monday: Two back to back morning practices, from 5:00-6:00 and 6:00-7:00.  Evening practice from 7:30-8:30.  If I only manage to make it to one morning practice, then I try to get in an hour long practice on my own before the 7:30-8:30 practice.  If I don't manage to get in for either practice, then I try to get in an hour and a half long practice on my own before the evening practice.
• Tuesday: One morning practice from 6:00-7:00 and an evening practice from 7:30-8:30.  Alternatively, I do the morning practice, then do an hour long evening practice on my own before spinning with my friend from 7:30-8:30.
• Wednesday: Two morning practices the same as Monday.  There is no scheduled evening practice, so depending on if I missed a morning practice, I'll do either an hour or hour and a half long practice on my own.  If I didn't spin on Tuesday night, then I'll try to spin on this night.  Since the spin class is earlier (5:30-6:15), I don't know if Wednesday night spin class is very achievable, given how long it takes to get home from work and then get to the gym (it can take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half from the time I leave work till I get to the gym, on a good day).
• Thursday: Same schedule as Tuesday, sans potential spin class.
• Friday: Same as Wednesday, except the spin class is at 6:00, so it's more achievable.
• Saturday: Morning practice from 8:00-9:00.
• Sunday: Hopefully nothing except for any swim meets, since those run on Sundays.

On average (based on weeks past), that would come out to 10-11 practices a week, not counting meet weekends.  Of those 10-11 practices, (depending on what the coaches have in store for us), that would be 7 or 8 relatively high intensity practices and 3 or 4 lower intensity practices working on the finer points.  General ballpark for distance should be around 35,000 yards a week.  Obviously, it will vary based on the yardage the coaches have us do in their practices (I've been in practices where we've done as little as a 2600 and as much as a 4000) and how much I do in my own practices, but 35,000 should be a decent average.

Several other things I'm adding in, or have just added in to my workout regimen:

• Resistance band training: I bought resistance bands this past weekend, so I'll be adding them in next week as part of a dryland training regimen either three or four times a week.
• Weights: On the non-dryland days, I'll start lifting weights again.  I've been out of the weight room since last April.  I think three times a week, Mondays/Wednesdays/Saturdays?  Not sure where they will fit into the overall workout plan yet.
• Stationary exercises: The other half of my dryland routine--pushups, crunches, squats, calf raises, pullups/chinups, stuff like that.  I need to work on my core, which is also something I haven't done since April of last year.
• Running: At some point in February (I haven't decided when yet), I'll add running into the mix.  Probably just run two or three times a week.  No clue on the distances, but when I stopped running last April, I was running 5 times a week for anywhere from 3-6 miles each time.
• Biking: In addition to the spin classes, I might add biking into the workout mix in February, probably about when I add in running.  I'm thinking once, maybe twice a week, most likely on Saturdays.

This whole workout plan will hold through the second week in April.  The third and fourth week in April will be taper weeks for Nationals, so I'll drop down to 6-9 practices a week at that point, but will train at full speed till then.  Overall, it's a pretty darn high intensity workout plan.  The cross training between the bike/spinning/swimming/running/dryland/weights should keep me pretty well balanced, while the hour long swim practices should help me keep the yardage up without getting the fatigue that two hour long practices produce.

Swim meet yesterday!

Had the first swim meet of 2012 yesterday in Annapolis.  The Maryland LMSC puts on the Carol Chidester Swim Series, which is a series of one a month meets that the LMSC offers at various pools throughout Maryland.  They're free to Maryland swimmers, and cost $15 for all non-MD swimmers.  Besides the drive, it's a pretty darn good deal!  I'm planning on the one they offer in March at the same pool, and possibly the February meet, once they say where it is.

Anyways, Dan (one of the other serious swimmers) and I were the only two from the team at the meet.  He's a flyer and freestyler, while I'm a flyer and backstroker.  I won't hold the freestyle against him... :-D

I swam the 50 back, 50 fly, and 100 IM, in that order.  I don't remember what my exact times were (I didn't write them down, and they won't release the results till later this week), but I dropped a decent amount of time in each event from what I did at the first meet, back in October.  I swam a second meet in December, but it was SCM, so the times aren't a straight comparison.  Anyways, I think I dropped about a second and a half in both 50s and a bit over three seconds in the 100 IM.

50 back: By far the best start I've had since I started swimming again.  On the finish, I realized that in the process of the start, I'd pulled the touch pad AND the velcro it was attached to off the top of the gutter where it was affixed.  Oops. Apparently I had a death grip on it...  Anyways, my turn was a shade longer than I'd have liked, but wasn't that bad.  Finish was likewise a bit long, but still within the ballpark.  I think I did right around a 30 flat, but will find out for sure when they send the results out.  Overall, I thought it was pretty good, though my stroke got kinda short during the last 15 yards or so.  I focused on the three main critiques from Saturday's video session--lifting my head before the breakout stroke, a stronger kick, and not over rotating my arms towards the 12:00 mark on entry.  I think I was successful with the head position and the kick (at least, the kick felt stronger to me), but I'm pretty sure I started to regress towards 12:00 on the hand entry towards the end of the race, just out of muscle memory, since I've been entering my hands there as long as I can remember.  Still, pretty good race, and I dropped time, so I don't have anything serious to complain about at this point!

50 fly: Had a great start and mostly good swim.  My mind blanked when I got past the flags at the turn, so while the turn itself was fine, my stroke tempo was off going into the turn.  Hmph.  Had a great tempo on the second 25 and didn't want to ruin it by breathing more than once, so I started to feel the oxygen deprivation going into the finish.  The finish, I can only imagine, looked extremely uncoordinated.  After my last full stroke into the wall, I was still about a half stroke out, so my brain said to take the half stroke...while my body said to just do a long finish.  The result was a bizarre mix of the two, so I kinda flopped into the wall.  It felt awkward as hell, so I can only imagine it looked about the same as it felt.  Went about a 28.1, which is around a second and a half faster than October, I think.  If I'd nailed the turn and had a good finish, most likely would have been under 28, easy.

100 IM: Had a fantastic first 50!  Excellent start, great underwater work, strokes felt great, perfect timing on the fly/back turn, and pretty good timing on the back/breast turn.  At that point, I think I was at least a body length ahead of the rest of the pool.  And then I had a spectacular meltdown.  For some reason, I wasn't able to get a single full breath on breast, so I was getting very oxygen starved going into free.  Breathing issues continued throughout the free 25, so my muscles all locked up and pretty much shut down.  Technique went out the window and I slowed way down.  Ended up only touching out the guy in the lane next to me by about a tenth of a second.  Still won the heat and placed 7th overall in the event, but the second half of the race was PAINFUL!  Dropped about 3.5 seconds from the last time I swam the IM (I went around a 1:07 flat, I think), so that was good, but I imagine that I'd have been a few more seconds faster than that if I'd been able to breathe properly for the second 50.  No idea why I crashed and burned so spectacularly on the IM, but it was still a decent swim in the grand scheme of things.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with the meet!  It was great having Dan there--he's got a coaching background, I believe, and knows technique like it's second nature, so he was able to give feedback on my swims.  I tried to do the same for his swims, but his technique overall is a lot better than mine, so I didn't have much to tell him.

Anyways, at this point, all I'm concerned about is dropping time.  Once I'm in the ballpark of the times I've set as my goal times for 2012, then I'll start to work on the specifics at meets.  Still got a ways to go till then, so for now it's just dropping time that's important.  And from that point of view, this meet was a total success!

Underwater video session on Saturday

We had an underwater video session on Saturday, the second one I've gone to on the team--the first was about a month ago.  Since the first session, I've worked a lot on my technique, at least the stuff that the coaches had critiqued the first time.  One of the big differences was that I swam at a pretty loafing practice pace the first time around, while this time I swam at a decently fast pace.

Fly: The biggest critique I got the first time around was that I paused a bit at full extension and drove my head and chest too far down in the water (not that my head was moving up and down, just that I was pushing my whole upper body too far down).  This time around, swimming at a speed closer to race speed, that wasn't a problem.  However, it turns out that I bring my hands too close together at full extension, and am splashing a lot of water as I do so, causing unnecessary drag and resultingly not giving myself enough room for the underwater portion of the pull, so it is a pretty narrow pull, rather than the full keyhole I should be outlining.  In addition, my kick wasn't as strong as it could have been.

Back: Similarly to fly, my hands enter the water at the 12:00 position, rather than at 1:00 and 11:00 where they're supposed to enter.  There were two main critiques from the first video session, that my hands were cocked at about a 45 degree angle when pulling through the water and that I paused at the end of the pull before lifting them out of the water.  Neither of those were an issue this time.  Also similar to fly, my kick wasn't as strong as it should have been.  Oh, one other issue--when I started my breakout stroke just before broaching the water, I lifted my head slightly, breaking the plane of my body, which although just about half a second before I hit the surface, still produces a fair amount of drag.

Breast: Ugh, the coaches tore this one apart the first go-around.  The main critique was that I was REALLY diving my upper body down at full extension, so I had a pretty pronounced up and down motion in the water, rather than shooting forward with each stroke.  As an aside, that was an overcorrection on my part, since Mike (my coach up through highschool) always told me that I wasn't driving my chest down far enough at extension, so I guess I corrected that issue...and went to the opposite extreme.  Anyhoo, while I still press a bit too far down, I have more of a forward than up and down motion now, so it's within the tolerance limits now.  My kick is pretty narrow on the outward sweep of my feet, though.  I've got some small issues with hand placement during the pull, but the kick is the main issue.

Free: This was also all ripped up from the first video session.  I'd been dropping my elbows, pausing on my strokes (at least that particular issue was a result of loafing), and overrotating my body from side to side.  This time around, I didn't have a problem with the dropped elbows (in fact, I think this is the first time in my entire swimming career that I've had good underwater pull mechanics in free!), the too long strokes, or the overrotation.  However, when my left hand enters the water, I'm doing something funky with it, so it enters with a lot of bubbles, causing extra drag.  Not entirely sure what I'm doing with my hand, so I'll have to play around with it to see what I'm actually doing wrong.

Overall, while this one brought up some new issues to work on, I think this was a very productive video session, and I'm heartened by how many of the issues from the first session a month ago have been resolved!

No pain, no peaches...quite true!

When it comes to swimming and general fitness, I love pain.

Pain makes you feel alive.  That sudden hot poker sensation in your muscles, or that feeling of your muscles completely giving out while struggling during a high intensity set, gives you that sense that you're alive, that your body and brain are firing on all cylinders.

Over the last three weeks, I've been amping up my workout intensity and frequency, and it's been paying off.  All things considered, I'm feeling great out of the water and also feeling great in the water.  I've got more energy and feel more alert during the day (well, except for days when I don't get enough sleep).  That being said, I've got a long litany of ailments that I've been living with for the last month or so, since I started to up my workout intensity:

• Both Achilles tendons--I pulled them about two weeks ago, and they are still very tight and prone to excruciating cramps at rather inopportune times in the pool.  In addition, they are fairly sore.  I've been popping ibuprofen lately, which has mitigated the inflammation, but hasn't taken care of all of the cramping.  Popping pills and started adding bananas to my diet today, so hopefully that will help the cramping.
• Left ankle/top of the foot--I injured it at some point back in November, and up until this week, it was extremely painful to kick when I'd first get in the water.  The past week, though, it's only been painful once, and that wasn't for very long at all.  I'm cautiously optimistic that it's not an issue anymore.
• Calves--I've had a LOT of calf cramping the past few weeks.  Ibuprofen, tons of water, lots of stretching, and now bananas has helped a lot, but a few cramps still sneak in every now and then, like the Achilles tendon cramps, at the most inopportune times.
• Both knees--Both of my knees are wonky in breaststroke, although my left knee is decidedly the more wonky of the two.  Based on its symptoms, I believe I'm missing a large amount of the cartilage behind the kneecap.  It will flare up from time to time when swimming breast and make the kick rather painful.
• Hips--Quite tight during the day until I get my first practice in, then they're usually fine till the next morning.  Several days this past week, they've been horribly cramping when I get out of bed, so I hobble around like an octogenarian for a while before they loosen up enough for me to walk upright.
• Left elbow--Pulled a tendon in it a week and a half ago.  Practice that night was terrible, as it hurt like the dickens to apply any pressure on the elbow through its range of movement, so I had to forego swimming breast and had to do left arm straight arm fly/free/back.  Lots of ibuprofen has mostly taken care of it, but if I do more than a 50-100 of breast without popping ibuprofen beforehand, it starts to twinge again.
• Lats--These have been tight for quite a while now.  Yesterday I did a 3600 mostly IM practice before the scheduled evening practice, since I missed the morning practice.  Given my luck, I should have guessed that the coach would then have us do a practice with a heavy IM focus.  Due to the approximately 1000 fly I did over the two practices, my lats are currently extremely tight and sore.  While they've never been painful, per se, I can definitely feel them any time I extend my arms to initiate the pull in all four strokes and when I'm in streamline.
• Shoulders--I'm putting a lot of stress on them, and they are holding up admirably so far.  No pain, just a heaping helping of tightness.
• Triceps--See what I said about my lats.

In addition, I've added in spinning to my workout regimen, and am hoping to do that once or twice a week with Amanda, my friend from the team.  That'll focus the stress on my legs and hips, so at least it'll give my upper body a respite!

Given that I can remember aching all over in highschool after a really hard workout, I'm pretty happy that I'm so sore and tight, although I could do without the leg cramps.  I'm heading down to Charleston next weekend for a mini vacation, and I'm hoping to get a massage with my old masseuse, since I haven't gotten one in a good six months and could certainly use one!

Kick Happens

I've always been a kicker.

Kick and turns, those were by far my biggest strengths in the water in the past.  Turns are still up at the top of my list now, but my kick, while passable, hasn't felt comparatively as strong as it used to.  Saturday and yesterday I put it to the test.

Saturday I did a 2012 yard kick set to ring in the new year, and yesterday I did a 2300 kick set before the evening practice, much of it with fins.  I capped off last night's kick set with three 100s free kick with a board and no fins, to see where my sprint kick was at.

Uh, not very good at all.  Back on Tritons (my team throughout the time I lived in Louisville, before going off to college), my favorite test set was a 1000 kick for time.  My best time in it, and a team record, I believe, was a 14:36.  That averages out to roughly a 1:28 per hundred.  If I recall correctly, my best 100 kick free without fins time was a 1:18 or 1:19.  I think my best free kick time with fins was around a :57 or :58.

Given, my 3x100 sprint kick were after a 2000 kick set, but the kick set had been relatively low intensity, focusing on high yardage over high effort.  I did the 100s on 2:30.  Their times, in order, were a 1:32, 1:31, and 1:31.  I had been hoping for something in the mid 1:20s, so I was quite disappointed.

I’ll try to get to the pool tomorrow night after work, since there is no practice Wednesday evenings, and get in a kick set of a 1500 or so.  After I do a short warmup, I’ll jump straight in with 4x100 sprint kick free and back, to see how my times are before I do the main set.  Hopefully I can break the 1:30 barrier on all four.

I know I create substantially more drag in the water than I used to, given that I’m about 60 pounds heavier than I was in highschool, but having seen video of myself swimming a few weeks back, I didn’t notice that I was markedly lower in the water than I used to be.  If the drag isn’t the issue, then I’m just not comparatively good a kicker as I used to be.

So, in addition to the extra fly that I’ll be swimming in practice for the rest of the season, I’ll try to get in three or four evenings during the week and get some good kick sets in, since we generally don’t do much kick at practice.  Hopefully that will increase both my kick speed and endurance, which can do nothing but help my swim times!

New Years resolutions

Man, 2011 was quite a tumultuous exercise year!  Started really running, did an awesome mud run, moved to the DC area, stopped running and working out for five months, started swimming again after six years off, busted my left ankle...

Anyways, with 2012 now here with a bang, here are my physical fitness goals:

• Get back into top competition shape in the pool
• As part of that, I'm aiming to get back to or beat at least three of my old best times in the pool.  Doesn't matter what events (although I hope it's in fly and back), just three times.
• I aim to average 10-12 practices a week (at least during short course, not sure what the long course practice schedule is).  That would be doubles Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, singles Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings, and at least two other practices from the evening practices offered on Monday/Tuesday/Thursday.  The ideal schedule would be all the morning practices (singles and doubles), Monday night, and Tuesday or Thursday night (if not both).
• Get up to that all fly practice by the end of April
• Provided my left ankle can handle it, start running again.  
• I don't know what I did to it, but sometime in November, I hurt the top of my foot/bottom of my ankle and it has hurt off and on since then.  It usually hurts like blazes for the first 300-400 of practice every time I get in the water.
• If I can get back into running, train for a mud run and a half marathon.
• Get back in the weight room.
• I was pretty active in the weight room and also did stationary exercises (pullups, pushups, crunches, and the like) up through this past spring, then I moved up here and haven't gotten back into it.
• Continue losing weight to my target of ~180.
• Even with how fitful my swimming regimen has been these past few months, I've still lost about 10 pounds from my peak.  Once I start working out again, it'll be harder to lose the weight, since I pack on muscle rather quickly, but as long as I hit that weight range by the end of the year, I'll be happy!
• Continue making good friends and strengthening existing friendships.
• Down in Charleston, I had plenty of friends at work who were workout companions who'd motivate me to workout (Jeff, Matt, Jennifer, Mark, Laura, Meredith, Brian, and all the others, if you're reading this, I'm referring to YOU!).
• Up here, I don't have that big network of friends, so I've had to make them in the process of my own training.  So far, that's just been in the pool.  A BIG kudos goes to the friends I've made in the pool who've motivated and encouraged me to push myself and get back into it: Drew, Katie, Dan, Amanda, Michelle, Jon, Francisco, Jennifer, and all the others.
• The folks I've mentioned have been my main source of motivation and helped make 2011 one of the best years I've had in quite a while, so I hope to continue to strengthen those friendships while creating new ones!

Bring it on, 2012!