Random Nonsense

I have the official results from the meet and there was no one in my heat that went a 1:54, but there was someone who did a 150 in 1:54. I was racing, probably several people, who were in the warm up lane. I am changing my name to qdumbass.

http://www.ntswim.org/meetresults/20...nt_results.htm

More interesting:

I have worked out 5 times in 3 days and will probably hit 12 workouts for the week. 5 swimming, 3 weights, 4 conditioning.

KPN is giving a clinic this weekend. Hopefully she can teach me how to swim. I am counting this as a workout, it is at least 75 minutes of water time.

I booked my Asia flights yesterday. $121 for two people in business/first for 18,506 miles. I love airline miles.

I still think that my 200 was a lack of conditioning issue. Obviously I am working on that a little harder now.

In the up coming A meets, I will swim the 50 and the 100 for racing practice. That will give me 2 meets in Nov and 3 in Dec, instead of 1 and 2. Dec is my next shot at a 200 A time.

Jeff Comings is sending me a tempo trainer. I assume this has something to do with his Swimming World responsibilities, but it was awesome to see that HE was the one on the from address in the email. Even that brush probably won't make me a better breaststroker, but I am ok with that.

My next 200 free is at the DAM SCM meet. The A cut is 2:12 SCM, so my goal is to go faster than that at Lifetime before the meet.

My coach told me I am flat on my left side, but my rotation is good on my right side (breathing side). My left shoulder bothers me... He pointed this out at the end of a timed mile, (20:43), so I think this gets worse as I get tired, but is something I need to work on. He said to look for it in the videotaping this weekend, or even better, fix it before then.

Found out that I need 15 and up A times, not 17 and up, so I have A times in the 50 and the 100.

But not the 200...

A cut: 2:00.09
My time: 2:01.56
Splits: 27.38, 29.73, 31.96, 32.49

I went out a little too fast, but the real problem is my conditioning wasn't there. I needed to swim 27 high, 2 x 29high/30low, 29 mid. I am not sure taking it out a second slower would have saved the back half of the race.

It was very painful. I had several people tell me it looked very painful. I had people tell me they wanted to jump in and push me that last 50. If there was another 50, someone would have had to jump in and save me. I could go on, but I am not Jimby or P. Wolf.

So, more En3 for me. More kick sets.

I did talk to several swimmers behind the blocks. Each complaining that I was swimming in their heat Nothing to worry about, some NT kid in the same heat went a 1:54. One asked how old I was and if I didn't have A times already. I told him my A times were from 95 and didn't count anymore. All the interactions were humorous.

There were also two coaches making fun of me on my way to cool down (I was walking behind them). Talking trash about blowing out in the first 100... I never really liked coaches.

I have a problem now. The next BB meet that I can make is in Dec, which means I miss the Nov and Dec A meets, and it is the same weekend as the DAM Christmas Relays. That isn't really helping me compete more. So I need to figure out how to get an A time in the 200 free or find some other meets to swim the 200 at... or ask everyone to forget the breaking 1:50 goal

Alright, time to rehydrate with Pinot Noir.

Went a 54.0x, needed a 53.59.

After warming up 2 hours before my swim yesterday, I changed my game plan. There is one lane set aside for warm up and cool down, and it is the cluster you would expect it to be with 10 lanes of competition feeding it. But I thought a warm up near my swim would help.

The plan was to get to the meet as warmup ended with just enough time to check in. I was swimming in the 3rd event of the day, and the second event was relays, so it would only have a few heats. Once the relays started, I would hop in and warm up until my race.

Everything went as planned actually. I got to the pool, checked in and the place was packed. Found a seat, and was worried that they roped off the cool down lane because they wised up and didn't want people goofing around next to the race. What they really wanted was people to not enter from the starting block end, so I was safe. A little worried I wasn't going to have a warm up for a second.

Warm up was a 50 every time the warm up lane dropped to only 4 people swimming. I got one solid 100 in as well, and this actually was a great warm for the 100. Maybe 400 total.

There were 7 heats of NT. That is 69 kids (and me) swimming the 100 free for the first time at a USA-S meet. Kinda surprising. By virtue of name I was in the 6th heat.

My swim itself was decent, I just didn't have what I needed. I had one bad turn when the touch pad was a little grippier than expected, causing me to go deep, but I really worked my turns in warm up, and my turns off the far wall were solid.

The 200 free will be a near thing using Ande's magic equation. I went 54.04(?), so double that and add 10 seconds, 1:58.08... I need to go 1:58.09, so there is room to spare.

Nerves were a non-issue today. Warm up was much better. I am really starting to agree with ehoch, I need racing practice.

This morning, did some broomstick twists and used the foam roller on the legs. That really loosened things up, and I think I will make it a regular pre meet warm up.

For Tim: My lifetime best 100 is 50.0x and my Zones time was 54.22 shaved with legskins.

I expected this to be the most difficult A cut to make. Hopefully I am right and I can break 1:58 tomorrow.

... a bunch of little kids.

Interesting tidbits:
- the heats are mixed (coed heats)
- the heats are not broken up by age
- I am on good terms with a coach now I was on bad terms with when I quit his team (twice)
- my old Master's coach: "HI MIKE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING AT A BB MEET?" but she was happy to see me
- talked to DAM (Dallas Area Masters) coach Wendy who I have met previous, she was very supportive
- parent in front of where I was sitting: "I saw you win your heat"
- my response: "I think I won my age group too."

I was very very nervous. The bad terms/good terms coach was the head coach of the team hosting the meet, so I wasn't looking forward to that. It is a BB meet, so most of the kids who are as tall as me have either made A cuts or quit the sport to do something else, so I stood out about as much as I thought I would. Plus the normal nerves from competition.

My 50 was about 2 hours after my warm up. I was in heat 2 of event 3, but there was only one heat of event 2 (400 IM), so I had to move to get to the blocks on time. Behind the blocks are PACKED because it is the main path from the doors to half the stands, plus timers chairs, plus 7 heats of kids ready to swim the 50.

A cut: 24.49
My time: 24.43 (I hope I the scoreboard was right).

So that is pretty slow. Over the last 3 weeks, my training had dropped in frequency to about 3-4 times a week. As much stuff as I have been changing, I think I need to be in the water 5-6 times a week, not necessarily for yardage, but to reinforce the changes I have made. I really felt my kick was missing and my start and turn were too deep. My stroke didn't feel strong during warm up or the swim and I felt winded during warm up.

I think tomorrow will go better, because there is less to be worried about. I am unsure if I should hit Lifetime in the morning for some pre meet practice. Overall, I am content with my swim. I would have been thrilled with a 23.5, and horrified with a 24.5.

At Lifetime SCM

Warm up

200 free
200 back
50 kick moderate

Main Set 3x

100 free AFAP (3x1:03 if I read the clock right, def all under 1:05)
50 kick ez
200 back ez
50 kick ez

Cool down

50 kick ez
200 free drill

This is very typical of my solo workouts now that I am concentrating on sprint training. After reading the SpeedForto workout, I felt the need to do some AFAP 100s for a change.

My main sets are 1x200 or 4-6x50s or 6-10x25s AFAP with recovery swimming between each and the balance of time spent on drills and technique work. Kick and recovery days are thrown in as needed.

The 100s were faster than I expected today.

Just got my 2010 USMS registration in the mail and I am sending back out my registration for my first USAS meet in 15 years.

Until I have some times in the SWIMS database, I am a C swimmer

Weighted exercises increase by 5lbs every workout until I fail, then I drop to 80% of that weight and start the progression again. Warm up sets are not listed, but the higher the weight, the more warm up.

Strength Days (MWF)
A Day
5x5x280 squats
5x5x155 bench press
3x20 stretch cords double arm pull fast (changing soon to bent over rows)
3x20 crunches (going away soon)

B Day
5x5x155 deadlifts (just added 2 weeks ago, replaced squats)
5x5x85 shoulder press
5x5 or 3x10 or 2x15 pull ups (changing soon to one arm rows)
3 min plank (going away soon, I hate planks)

"Core" Day (So new, I have not done it yet, TuThSaSu)
20 Tricep dips
20x45 Upright rows (45lbs is a naked olympic bar)
20 pullovers
10 pull ups
20 back extension
20x? side bends (I don't remember how much weight I used to do)
20 broomstick twists
20 crunches

"Core" Day: I am trying to build up and balance the major muscles needed to support swimming, so the muscles supporting the spine and connecting the arms to the body. I am not really worried about strength and I am not worried about endurance, I am worried about balance. I am not 100% convinced this will be a good idea, but I don't see it as a bad idea. Feel free to criticize the plan or even make suggestions.

Background: My personal bests for 5x5x? are 300 squats, 175 bench, 110 shoulder press iirc. Squat PB is recent, but I have not hit bench or shoulder press PBs in almost 2 years. I weighed 5-10 lbs more 2 years ago and weigh 180-185 now at 6'2". I workout at home, have a full power lifting cage, 300lbs olympic plate set, 5-50 hex dumbells. Yes, I am jealous that at least two other USMS bloggers bench more than me.

Quicksilver asked about my roadmap, and I told him it followed the Step 3: Profit meme. Plus a little more detail.

The Southpark version:

Step 1: Collect underpants
Step 2: ?
Step 3: PROFIT!

Qbrain's version:

Step 1: A cut 1:58.09 in the 200 free
Step 2: ?
Step 3: 1:49.99

In 3 weeks I find out where I am unshaved, untapered, with a sprinter's light workload. I will lay off the weights the week before the meet, and probably skip the team practice that Friday to get a light practice in solo Friday morning. I only have one event on each day, so hopefully I will be able to make my times. Friday is the 50, Saturday is the 100 and Sunday is the 200. The 100 cut looks to be the toughest. The A meets are held at 50M pools, which means there is space for warm up and cool down, unlike the BB meets which are held at 25yd facilities.

I have BB meets listed until the end of the year. If I have not made cuts by then, I will probably join the circus.

Target meet is A Champs in mid February right now. If Zones is local again, then that will be the target meet if it is before I leave for Asia.

After the Oct meet, I will adjust my training. If the sprint training seems to be working, then that will stay, but drylands will be modified.

Here are my signposts:
2009
Aug

14: Vasectomy
24: Back in the water (7 weeks to BB meet)

Sept

1: send in USAS registration
28: Sign up for BB meet

Oct

16-18: USAS BB at Grapevine
A Cuts: 50/24.49 100/53.59 200/1:58.09

Nov

6-8: USAS A ATAC at ?
13-15: LA/Santa Barbara trip
20-21: DAM SCM at Tom Landry Center

Dec

4-6: USAS A COR at Loos
11-13: USAS BB COPS at ?
12: DAM Christmas Relays at SMU

Unoffical 2010 (dates are not official yet)
Jan

8-10: USAS A NTN at CISD

Feb

5-7: USAS A COPS at Loos
19-21: USAS A Champs at Loos
26-27: USMS DAM SCY at SMU

Apr

8-25: Asia

Ok, a few updates.

Surgery went fine, everything works and I have been training for a little over a week now.

I am going for A cuts in the 50, 100 and 200 free in six weeks. This attempt will be at the first BB meet of the season locally.

Alcohol VERY much affects my sleep. I had 3 bottles of wine since the surgery over two weekends and every night I drank I would wake up completely in the middle of the night, sometimes only an hour or two after going to bed. The house is now wine free, and I think there are 8 beers in the house. When those are gone, I am not restocking until after the BB meet.

I am playing with my training. I am sprinting MUCH more and trying to go much faster in team and solo practices. I probably have not done sprint 25s since I was a kid, and now they are a regular set solo. I get enough rest during team practices by sprint/loaf combos. No one on my team pushes for tight intervals, so it is quite easy to push hard and go near 1:00, then leave early going easy and stay on interval with everyone.

Finally, I am probably going to be in Asia instead of Atlanta. My target meet for 1:50 in the 200scy free will either be Zones depending on timing/location or a USAS meet.

• July 14th was the last day I had any alcohol.
• July 30th I was supposed to have a vasectomy, and was not supposed to have alcohol or any blood thinning medications for 7 days prior, which was the original motivation for this experiment.
• July 29th my vasectomy was rescheduled to August 14th
• July 31st and August 1st, two interesting data points were added to the experiment.

For 16 days, I had very good sleep except for one night I had trouble falling asleep. That day I had 2 espressos and 3 cups of dunkin doughnuts coffee (no doughnuts, just black coffee), 2 glasses of coke at lunch and maybe a pepsi at dinner. My normal caffeine intake is limited to 2 espressos in the morning, no additional coffee and no soda, so this day was very over the top for me.

I opened a bottle of wine Friday, had 3 glasses*, then 2 more Saturday night. Both nights my sleep was on the restless side and was distinctly worse than what had been normal the prior two weeks. Wine appears to make my sleep shallower, so I wake up more easily (say if my wife rolls over), and I think it also elongates my sleep cycle, so when the swimming alarm goes off, I am mid cycle and groggy instead of end of cycle and ready to get up.

The major results are in, wine does affect my sleep. Going forward, I am limiting my alcohol to the weekend. After my surgery, I might try having wine with lunch on Saturday and see if that affects my sleep Saturday night.

No more alcohol for me for another 3 weeks at least. I am worried what all this clean living is going to do to me. Am I going to start craving alfalfa sprouts?

* In my book, a glass of wine is 5 oz, there are 5 glasses of wine to a bottle (750ml bottle with 5oz = 148ml). Also, 5 oz of wine has the same alcohol as 12 oz of beer (on average).

I was about to comment on Patrick's blog about this, but the comment got so long, I figured I should stick it here.

I drink 1-3 glasses of wine in the evening regularly, but I have an upcoming minor surgery where it is recommended not to drink (or take aspirin) for 7 days. When I go to bed and when I get up is very regular, but recently my sleep has been broken once or twice a night and I wake up groggy. These sleep problems are fairly new, and I blamed the time change and the late sunsets for not being able to get enough sleep, but about until April I would fairly strictly limit alcohol consumption to Friday and Saturday only. The wine could be affecting my sleep as well.

So an experiment is born. Monday I finished off the last of my open wine. The first two nights I slept well and woke up less groggy. There is probably a little sleep debt that needs to be made up, and after that, I should be waking up before the alarm by a minute or two each day if the wine is the problem. The experiment will run until August 14th. If the improved sleep continues, then I will again strictly limit alcohol to the weekend.

Caffeine: Unlike Patrick, I am not cutting out or limiting caffeine. I have two espresso shots every morning, caffeinated sodas on the weekend, and usually a few extra cups of coffee during the week. It takes 2 espressos and 3 strong large cups of coffee to get me to the jittery stage, at which point, I know my sleep will be affected. It is possible that less affects my sleep, but I am unsure of the cut off amount.

The idea of an armless prone bridge came up recently, probably in the comments section of Fort's blog. I tried it out Wednesday and did a little more experimentation today.

In case you don't read all the comments on Fort's blog, but do read my blog (unlikely), let me describe the armless prone bridge.

The armless prone bridge underwent seconds of evolution in my head as a way to do prone bridge without the shoulders or arms becoming a limiting factor. To do an armless prone bridge, you need a weight bench to substitute for the arms. Looking at the line across my chest from the edge of the bench, the edge of the bench was about mid chest. I don't think this will work for females, and they will need to balance higher up. Right below the collar bone should be ideal as most of the weight will be carried on the sternum and the head of the shoulders since both fat and muscle is thin at the top of the chest. To get into position, I suggest laying your chest on the so you are laying at a right angle to the bench, and then scoot your chest off the bench until you find a comfortable position for the edge of the bench. This will probably end up being most of your chest off the bench, with the top 3" of the chest and shoulders on the bench. This also allows you to lay your head down on the bench at around 145 seconds when you want to cry.

What I learned. My abs get MORE work from armless. Holding my hands behind my back kept them out of the way, which was a problem Wednesday, and put a little more pressure on the abs, making them work harder. I am going to replace PB with armless PB going forward.

I also experimented with two variations. I did 180 seconds on my back and each side as well as 180 seconds for the abs. These were all much easier than the abs, and I won't be adding them to my routine, but they were still interesting.

Back: Lying with my mid shoulder blades at the edge of the bench and my heels on the ground, my body held straight, 180 seconds worked my lower back. This might be a decent exercise to start with if you have a weak lower back (not a BAD back, just not strong).

Side: Lying with with the edge of the bench hitting at the bottom of the shoulder head, this one cuts off blood to the arm, so time becomes an issue. I got some decent oblique work from this, if I balanced on the edge of my bottom foot. If I used both feet for support, the pressure was taken off the oblique and it became really easy. I don't recommend this. Side bends are so much easier, take less time, and you have more control of the stress you put on your obliques.

I would be interested in hearing experiences with armless prone bridge. One thing I noticed is that I didn't cheat, aka, I didn't let my back arch, or my butt rise, changing the pressure on the abs. Not sure why it wasn't as easy to cheat.

This is exactly why I waited for the results to be posted, what I heard is not what was posted.

Results are here and should be good for a giggle or two.

Two things I wanted to brag about. First, I swam the 1500M and that alone might get me my first top 10 time. Last year, only 12 people swam it in my age group so the competition is fierce.

What I really really wanted to brag about was my second fastest 50 free time. I thought I swam a 27.09 lcm which converts to a 23.30 scy. My fastest 50 was a 23.0 my sophomore year as the lead leg of a 4x50 free relay. What I really swam was 27.49 which puts me at 23.64 scy. A half a second drop from zones, so I am happy, but that second fastest time was going to be really cool. Brag worthy even.

If you ever have the opportunity to swim the DAM Summer LCM meet, skip it The water was in the mid 80s Friday night for the 1500, and Saturday probably went from 80 to 82. It was hot (mid to upper 90s) and humid, the diving well was murky and there were touch pads only at one end of the pool. Not a great pool. The meet is well run, it is local and everyone was just there for a fun competition.

This was an inseason meet for me, and I really just goofed off. I didn't enter the 200, I scratched the 100, swam all the 50s and the 1500. I did wear my Yingfa legskins for the 50s, and I noticed that they were exactly the same as the speedo fastskin II, except for two differences. Speedo's scales point the other direction, and speedo has much better colors.

If you look at the results, and you notice that there is someone with the same last name as me who might be my wife. What you will also notice about this person is that they kicked my ass in the 1500M. This person only entered the 1500 because I entered it, wanted to scratch it, kicked my ass, acused me of letting her win and is now very much interested in training for the 1500/1650 after I told her I didn't let her do anything.

TIMES!
1500: 21:57.22
50 Back: 35.85
50 Fly: 34.45
50 Breast: 44.25
50 Free: 27.49

With such stellar times, you must want to know how I trained for the strokes... yep, I don't do any breast or fly at all in practice, ever. If we have an IM set, I do all back.

Relative to the 50 free, I sucked at everything else. That was the idea. I wanted to fill in some blanks on my check off challenge, and set some benchmark times. I would like to train backstroke seriously in the future, and now I have a baseline.

Some asides:

- I swam next to Bobby Patten in the 1500, who held and holds many zone, national and world records in the longer events. Being lapped in a long course race was humbling. Twice was just excessive. I couldn't see the other two who lapped me twice.
- I didn't swim the 200 free, because it was last and I knew the heat would sap my energy. That would have taken the fun out of my meet.

What's next?

My next meet is in October, which will be my first USAS meet. I am tired of the 200 free being last, I just want to swim it fast, I don't care if the time counts for USAS, USMS or QbrainRUs. The October meet is just to get my A cuts. The A meets are at better pools, and they should have warm up/cool down lanes. The BB meet which I will start at, will not have warm up/cool down, and I think the only good pool that hosts a BB meet is BB Champs.

In addition to getting better placement of the 200 free in the meet, swimming USAS will increase the number of meets I can swim. I asked in January what I needed to do to swim a sub 1:50, and many people suggested that I needed to race more. USMS just doesn't offer that. I should be able to swim a meet a month from October to April in my quest to break 1:50, plus there is enough pool space at the new team that I can do a 200 free from the blocks once a week if I want to (I need to, I won't want to).

Jazz, Fort and I had a "discussion" about if a 200 was a sprint or a middle distance. Today, I was reading Swimming Fastest, and Maglischo weighed in on the topic.

Maglischo classifies a person as a sprinter if their 100 and 200 are comparable competition wise. So if you place well in both the 100 and the 200, you would be a sprinter. On the other hand, if you place well in the 200 and the 400/500, you are a middle distance swimmer. Someone who performs much better at the 50 than the 100 is considered a "fleet" sprinter, because Maglischo considers drop dead derogotory.

Based on SCY Zones, I am ranked #103 in the 50 free, #123 in the 100 free, #98 in the 200 free, #61 in the 500 free. Crap, that makes me a fleet middle sprinter.

Ok, how about USAS timestandards as a better, larger pool to compare too? I have the A cut by .5/50 in the 50, I missed the A cut by .25/50 in the 100, I missed the A cut by 1.5/50 in the 200 and I missed the A cut by 1.7/50 in the 500.

So yes, I am a sprinter, not middle distance. It also means my endurance really sucks.

I really really want to blog about my meet from two weeks ago, all triathlete style, and tell everyone about how my wife kicked my ass in one event and in another I went my second fastest time ever. But since the results still are not posted online , I am only positive about the first occurance and a little hazy that the second actually happened. So until the results are posted, no details.

Analysis:

The local USMS meets in my area all have the same format, Friday night is the 400 IM and the 1500/1650 and the rest of the events are Saturday. You are allowed to enter both events Friday and are limited to 5 events Saturday.

If you enter the 400 IM, 1500/1650, 200 back, 200 breast, 200 fly, 200 IM and the 100 IM (if short course), you can get official times for every event in a single meet by submitting 11 split requests.

Experimentation:

My next taper meet will be in October. This gives me about 1.5-2 months to experiment with things that might get me hurt, or hurt my performance.

I need to find out the volume of work my shoulders can comfortably handle. To do this, my training intensity and yardage needs to be ramped up, and I need to keep better track of what I am doing in my workouts. I already keep good track of my yardage and what the major accomplishments were in practice, but I think that won't be enough if I have to go back and analyze when I crossed a threshold with my shoulders. I have done well in the past keeping a food diary at the kitchen table for tracking everything I eat, so I will do the same for workouts. This might result in me actually knowing my typical stroke count and my times through out entire sets. Maybe.

Experiementation in the pool is what is most likely to result in injury.

I will be experiementing with dry lands, but my weight routine will not change drastically before October. I will try adding drylands with heavy core work on non-lifting days, and I will make RC stretch cord work a regular part of my daily routine.

The current blog popular topic, diet. This is where I expect to make some mistakes and hurt my performance in the pool and moreso in the weight room.

A few weeks ago, I tried a "slow carb" diet, and lost some body fat while gaining muscle. The reason I only did it for a week was that it is boring as ****. The diet is very simple, you just replace white carbs (bread, pasta, potato, sugar, etc) with beans, lentils, chickpeas and the like. Essentially, all you are trying to do is convince your body that you are usually full, and you don't need to be in fat storage mode. In theory, doing this would result in a lower bodyfat percentage than somone who fasted between binges but ate the exact same caloric intake, assuming you eat 3-5 meals a day that all included fiber rich, slow to digest beans, lentils and chickpeas.

On top of being boring, I upped my workouts from 6 to 10 during that week. I have a theory about which played a bigger factor

If I make a mistake with diet, and my calories drop as a result, that will effect my performance in the weight room. Increased strength requires increased muscle mass, but increasing muscle mass while loosing weight is not realistic. Hopefully with a more detailed log of my swimming, I will be able to see the subtleies that might be related to diet.

I also got some new toys to play with during solo practice. If I find that they are effective, I will share.

Warm up
300 Swim
200 Kick
300 Pull

Transition
200 Swim/Catchup/Fist/Swim
200 broken at the 100, 10 seconds rest moderate pace (aka filler while everyone else catches up)

Main set - Consolidate from 18 lanes to 8, group send off, times are called out.

4x200 maintain pace (2:20 passed 3 people, 2:20 passed 2 people, 2:18 passed 1 person, 2:18 passed no one)

3x100 descend with buoy and paddles (1:09, 1:04, :59)
again he says (1:09, 1:04, :59)

Split into 4 teams, 2 girls teams and 2 guys teams.

9x25 free relay (my team won!)
9x25 fly relay (my team didn't win)

And for the GRAND FINALE I BRING YOU THE CHRIS STEVENSON WARM DOWN!

Hopped out and toweled off, no warm down.



We do a consolidated workout about twice a month, the rest of the time we spread out, have a work out on a sheet of paper, and the coach spends time working one on one with people on their stroke. This works great for me, since I need to be out of the pool, around 6:00am so I can get to work. We finished the second relay at about 6:13, thus the Chris Stevensonesque warm down.

I am not planning on blogging my workouts, but may occasionally blog random swim related thoughts that don't really fit into the forums ... or a comment on someone else's blog