Recent Blogs Posts

SCY@Catalina Isle Community HOA Pool (1 Length/12.5 yards)
Air temp of 70, pool at 78, 100% water clarity.
Sunny skies with humidity at 55%

Warm Up
200 yards FR

*Set 1*
2x500 FR on 1:00 rest
Steady smooth EVF with still head position
Each 500 as 4x25 breath control/100 pattern;

• odd 100s; 2-4-6-1 breath
• even 100s; 3-5-7-1 breath

*Set 2*
4(1x200 Scull, 100 BR Kick, :30 rest)

*Set 3*
4 Rounds;

• 1x100 Dolphin Kick w/board
• 1x50 SDK under water as(4x12.5 w/:10 rest)
• 1x150 as 2(12.5 RA, 12.5 LA, 12.5 FLY strong, no breath)

500 FR quiet warm down with slow motion EVF.

Comments

• Another magnificent SWF morning. FR stroke form, FLY, BR/Dolphin kicking, SDK and sculling.

Wow... I'm stiff today. Yesterday we had the only SCM meet of the season for Wisconsin Masters... and it was my first meet ever; a lot of fun. Folks were super supportive and I was shocked at the strong turnout. Even with the strong attendance, though, there were few enough people in my age group that I had a chance to place in each of the events I entered; this is nice considering I'm a late-comer to swimming and my times still look pretty slow! I was pretty happy with my personal results; all freestyle events:

100M = 3rd 40-44M (1:24.30)
200M = 2nd " " (3:03.98)
1500M = 2nd " " (26:53.29)

I didn't know if I would get into the 1500 until Thursday this week (they had a limit of 12), so I signed up for some of the shorter events just to give it a try. I was happy I did, because I was able to get those starts and pre-race jitters under control by the time I finally got to my goal event. And I'm happy also to know, more or less, what my SCM times look like for the 100 and 200. Initially I was a little disappointed based on my SCY practice times, until someone pointed out there should be about a 10% difference... makes sense. That would put me in the mid to upper 1:10s for 100 SCY and upper 2:40s for 200 SCY, which is where I thought I might be.

I really didn't know where I was going to be for that 1500, but based on my broken 1650 a few weeks ago (about 26:30) I was going to be happy with anything between 26 and 27 minutes. I felt pretty relaxed the whole time and was able to push it in the last couple hundred. Now I have a time set at that distance, so I can start working to improve!

My friend Scotty swam the 200 and 1500 free also; he placed 1st in the 1500 for our age group. Since we're in the same age group we probably shouldn't be swimming too many of the same events together b/c we limit our chances at placing, but it was good to be swimming next to him in an event like the 200, where I really had no idea what to expect... helped reduce the anxiety level.

Actually, I did expect the lactic acid burn in the 200M (it's comparable to the 800M run in track) and probably shouldn't have tried to do it and the 1500 on the same day, but I signed up for it not knowing I was going to get into the 1500. I swam the first 100 of the 200 in 1:25 and then just tried to relax and bring it in hard for the last half... then I made sure to get a long cool down in after that. It would be a couple of hours before the 1500, so I was able to take in the rest of the meet at that point, which was a lot of fun.

I'll have to stop now, but I could go on and on. Two years ago I couldn't have imagined myself lining up on the blocks getting ready to sprint a 100 in a swim meet... now I wonder why I haven't been doing it all along!