mwest42

Someone just asked me if I had big plans this weekend, and I responded: "I have a swim meet tomorrow."
She responded: "Icky."


I assume she just misheard me, which makes me really curious about what she thought that I said. Otherwise, hey, I suppose some people do think pools are kind of disgusting.


As for me, I am excited about my second swim meet of the year, and I don't expect it to be "icky" at all. I swam a terrible 100 free last weekend (a terrible dive AND a bad final turn), so I'm hoping to improve on that. Then it's no more of this sprinting business for awhile as I go back to training for the 10K.

This is my ladder set. It's not a very good ladder. Some of the rungs are broken.

200 Swim
200 Kick
200 Pull

7x100 Free
600 hypoxic, each 100 breathe 3-5-7-9
500 Kick (25 easy/25 fast, 50 easy/50 fast, 75 easy/75 fast, 100 easy/100 fast)
4x100 Free
300 IM
200 eggbeater
100 Free

200 easy


On the 200 I was just going to do breaststroke kick until I remembered that when I stopped playing water polo this year, my breaststroke really suffered. So I think trying to maintain a good eggbeater helps (and mine needs some work to get back to "good").

I was pleased that I managed to get faster each set of 100s. I got out of the habit of descending until about a week ago, and I forgot how important that really is.

Most of the good stuff in this workout came from a Tall Paul workout. I just threw in some filler sets.

200 Swim
200 Kick
200 Pull

12x50 odd stroke, even free

800 negative split :30 rest
400 build :20 rest
200 build :10 rest
100 fast

1000 pull w/paddles

4x
100 easy kick :10 rest
50 fast kick :15 rest

200 warmdown

Today I was swimming on my own as usual but tried to do a provided workout. I totally messed it up. I wanted to change the 10x50 to a 12x50, and wound up doing 24x50. I thought it was taking an awfully long time, but I attributed that to the fact that I was doing drill. It wasn't until later in the workout that I realized I'd actually done twice as much as I was supposed to. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Workout (as it was written): 2900 yards

200 Swim
200 Kick
200 Pull

10x50 drill/swim - odd free, even stroke

2 x200 dolphin kick on back

10x100 - odd free, even stroke

200 kick w/ board and fins

4x50 warm down



Workout (as I did it): 3200 yards

200 Swim
200 Kick
200 Pull

24x50 Drill/ Swim
odd free
even stroke

2x200 dolphin kick on back with fins

6x100
odd free
even stroke

200 kick w/ board and fins

4x50 warm down

Here's a 3200 yard workout I did the other night. I came up with it while I was still doing the warm-up, but I liked it.



200 Swim
200 Kick
200 Pull

300 IM

12 x50 descending

6x100 descending

3x200 descending

300 IM kick

200 Easy

I guess I could post this in the forums, but I'd like to start posting to this blog frequently, so I just thought I'd just jump-start that.

I want to do the 6000 postal this year, but the actual swimming doesn't seem to be the hard part. How do you get someone to time for you for that long? What's a good bribe to get someone to sit around on deck for -- I don't even know how long in my case. Under two hours, I hope. Also, should I even try to get a second person to count for me? I think I can do without, and I don't mind popping my head up every once in awhile to ask the timer how much I have left. Even though I know everyone of those conversations will go something like this.
"What lap am I on?"
"Mumble."
"What?"
"Mumble mumble."
"WHAT?"
"MUMBLE MUMBLE!"
"Never mind, I'll ask later!"

I started out by writing the title of this blog entry and all of a sudden I'm thinking of The 12 Days of Christmas. On the third day before Nationals, my swim coach gave to me: three pairs of goggles, two new swim caps, and a high SPF sunscreen.

Sorry. It figures that the very first time I would choose to post on my blog I would get distracted right away.


I leave for Puerto Rico in 10 days to compete in Nationals. I have never competed in a National pool meet before. In fact, this year marked only my 2nd and 3rd times competing in any sort of National event; I did the 1-hour postal swim and the 1-3 mile open water swim. It's easy to say this now, when my first event doesn't start for another 12 days, but I'm not feeling too much pressure. I'm pretty much accepting of the fact that I'm going to get my butt kicked.

No, seriously. In the 200 fly, some of the women in my age group entered times over a MINUTE faster than mine. They swim the 200 Fly faster than I can swim the 200 Free. They will be out of the water drinking Bacardi while I'm still drowning through the final lap. Luckily for me, I'm still new to butterfly as an event and as such I have very little ego attached to swimming it.

So anyway, I do feel pretty good. As far as I'm concerned, if I embarrass myself in the 200 fly, at least I'll be in Puerto Rico. If I swim terribly... still in Puerto Rico. There is a silver lining here, and it is called Puerto Rico. In fact, why even go to the swim meet when there's Puerto Rico to enjoy?

I kid, I kid.