Mon Nov 9th, 2009 Met Jon Urbanchek this morning at the UT swim center after practice, he was observing the UT mens practice. He works as Mark Schubert's assistant for USA Swimming National team. I got to speak with him for a bit. Over 10 National team members train at UT. Jon said if you want to swim fast, swim fast in practice. He's going to run a few practices, do some race pace type sets. We talked about dolphin kicking & he said small rapid kicks are best. I said like Ian Crocker & he said Ian was the best. He also highly recommended this book "The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How" by Daniel Coyle TODAYS SWIM PRACTICE FOUR OR MORE SDKs off EVERY wall SCY 5:30 to 6:40 Whitney coached dove in on time swam with Nate & Mike beside Tyler & Todd WORE briefs warm up 200 fr 100k 200 fr 100 feet first scull 200 fr 100 k assigned: 15 min swim done 75 swim then get out & dive in sprint 25 did: 25 easy, 50 rest, 25 fast assigned: 10 x 100 fr on 1:15 did 10 x 50 fr on on 1:15 6 SDKs off each wall went 30's & 31's assigned 4 x ( 25 fast followed by 1:00 vertical kick) 50 easy MEETS: Saturday, November 21 & Sunday 22, 2009 University of the Incarnate Word (SCM) Masters Meet 11 Days till San Antonio December 4th - 6th, 2009 2009 SPMA Short Course Meters Championships at Long Beach http://www.spma.net/meetforms/2009/lbgscm.htm 24 Days till Long Beach
Updated November 9th, 2009 at 04:33 PM by ande
I ran on Saturday. I did not swim or do yoga Oh well. Got in almost on time this morning!?! 200 Swim 400 Reverse IM (kick/swim by 25) 100 Non-free 2 x 150 fr on 2:15 2 x 75 build on 1:15 2 x 150 fr on 2:15 2 x 50 fr on :45 2 x 150 fr on 2:15 2 x 25 fast on :45 50 ez 6 x 75 kick on 2:00 (it was 75 or 100 and the interval was a bit tight for 100s but too easy for 75s) 6 x 50 ez (I did 3 or 4 50s then did a couple of 100s ez) Felt really good to get in the water and push and swim some good yardage. Sometimes I forget how much I love swimming and the water. Felt awesome! I am coaching tonight so the plan is to at the very least run a bit before coaching but I am hoping to get some weights in too.
Felt fairly good today but started with no clock. Going to still focus on the legs this week and also working the abs since I need to get rid of this muffin top look! 500 Free every 3rd 25 back 5x100@2:00 Free 1/2 pull 1/2 kick 5x100@1:30 Free kick w/fins went 1:16, 1:21, 1:21, 1:20, 1:19 500 fly kick streamline w/fins every 3rd 25 fast 2x[3x100@1:30 Free w/paddles&bouy held 1:22's ....[200@2:45 Free w/paddles&bouy held 2:35's 500 Back every 3rd 25 drill alternate double arm and arms perpendicular kick 300 Free Easy Total 3800 yards
With my accepted entry to MIMS, my 2010 plans are all coming together. The 4 marathons I hope to complete are: Tampa Bay on April 17 The Manhattan Island Marathon Swim (MIMS) on June 12 The Catalina Channel (a date has not been set as the tide charts are not yet available) looking for a date sometime mid to late July. The English Channel sometime between Aug 25 and Sept 10. My first Tampa Bay experience was last year as a 2 person relay with Patricia Sener. As the date for this swim was just over 3 months post-op, I wasn't sure I'd be in any kind of shape to attempt a solo, so I put out the word "looking for a relay-mate" on FB... got lots of responses, and Patty was the first and most enthusiastic! We had a great time in Tampa. This event seems to be a perennial favorite of many CIBBOWS swimmers, so it kind of felt like we were in Brighton Beach with palm trees. Patty was kind enough to let me swim the bridges (is that where the critters hang out?) This is a true 24 mile swim with no current assist, and early enough in the season to have plenty of time to figure out a recovery program for the summer's Triple Crown. I attempted MIMS in 2006 but resigned with a hamstring issue in the Harlem River. It was a truly nasty day (week), but swimming up the east river in that torrential downpour was quite wonderful. Last year, I had the pleasure of watching the swim from a press boat that followed John Van Wisse and Penny Palfrey. I am very excited to jump in again this year with so many friends included in the field. As mentioned above; the tide charts are not yet available to the pilots for the Catalina Channel, so booking a date is not possible. I would like to shoot for the third week in July, as that would pretty much be right in the middle of MIMS and the EC. This is the one swim that I have absolutely zero experience with. The furthest south that I've swum on the west coast is Santa Cruz. I've watched a few youtube vids and followed the reports and tweets of Anne Cleveland and Ahelee Sue Osbourn, but thats it. I know that of these 4 swims, Catalina is the most likely location for wildlife viewing. (not including tourists on the deck of the Intrepid) The English Channel in September will wrap things up if all goes well. Each of these swims promise to pose their own challenges, and I hope to gain valuable lessons from each for the next, so it seems fitting that the EC should be last. Stats for today: Waking pulse 39, and I weighed in at 173lbs this morning.... 10 lbs above my "fighting weight". For the last 2 weeks, I've dropped down to about 35,000 yds/week. It hasn't been easy to put on these pounds, and I would like to have a reserve of at least another 10 starting with MIMS. I have a phobia about weight gain and don't want to carry more than I will need to, but since it has been difficult to get to this point, I might try to hold on to it. So far it hasn't had a negative effect on my practice times.
In graduate school at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, a poet named Marvin Bell came up with a piece of advice that quickly spread like pink eye through the ranks of prone-to-writer's-block neurotic students like me. When you are having trouble writing, he suggested, lower your standards. I think this somewhat paradoxical maxim deserves a lot of serious consideration, especially by those of us prone to judging ourselves harshly. And I don't mean just in our literary endeavors, though god knows this has been one area where I have had to endlessly apply the motto. Swimming, it seems to me, is an excellent place to use the notion of lowering ones standards. Other candidates: the pursuit of a good night's sleep; the apparent musculature of your abdominal regions; life's overall sense of happiness; health; the SAT scores of your children; and the cleanliness of your underwear. Really, I ask you, where, in any of these areas, are you likely to go wrong by simply lowering, perhaps even abandoning altogether, your standards? A couple before and after statements might show how helpful this cognitive restructuring can be: Before: I must beat my swimming nemesis X by Y number of seconds in Z event, and furthermore, I must do a Personal Record best time in addition to this beat down of X. After: X can lap me--of what concern is this of mine? Before: I must get 8 hours of wholesome, refreshing sleep After: Thrashing fitfully throughout the night, slipping occasionally into spells of sleep apnea so deep that I stop breathing for four minutes at a time will allow me to train hypoxically while X is sloughing off and coddling his brain with oxygen and rest. Before: Underwear in its immaculate cleanliness should be as blindingly white as the beard of God, and, furthermore, it must be changed every five to ten minutes After: There is nothing wrong with earth tones for garments that no one but you will ever see. Lighten up! Before: I must be loved! After: There is nothing wrong with spending vast amounts of time annoying people, followed by even vaster amounts of time when it is almost as if you have become invisible to the human race, as if you don't matter at all, and never will! It is just a different part of the spectrum from being loved. A little shift over. At one time in my younger youth, I was convinced that the "lowering your standards" motto applied to those whose standards were so unattainably high in the first place that they were constantly setting themselves up to fail. In such individuals, I believed, getting rid of the most ludicrous of ambitions would free them up to accomplish more, not less, because they would no longer be strive-cringing in the shadow of their own self-flagellation cat-o-nine-tails poised to swipe. I was less inclined to think it applied to writers like this poet I met once on a bus, who informed me he had written 1000 poems, all of the very good, "but only about half of them extraordinarily good, and of these, only another half exquisite" and so forth, till he wearily acknowledged with his artist's weltzshmerzy soul that only a dozen of his poems ranked among the top the world has ever seen. And some of these, he admitted, didn't even rhyme! The self-satisfied, the smug, the lazy, the entitled, the deluded, the silver-spoon-mouth-plugged: surely lowering their standards would do such fellows no good at all, only make them that much more prone to self-congratulation for less-than-zero accomplishments. I am not sure when I realized that I was a member of this latter category. There was no moment of eureka or epiphany, just a slow dawning upon me (like when you realize the borderline enjoyable jazz music you turned on the radio 45 minutes ago has somehow transformed into cacophonous fusion that has been annoying, in a low grade way, the bejesus out of you for a good while now) that I have always been more or less smugly satisfied with my accomplishments, or at least lately I have been, even though there is no ostensible reason for such satisfaction! And this is when I did actually have an actual eureka moment. We can all benefit from lowering our standards, even those of us who don't really have very high ones to begin with. Sure, try to get better at swimming. Try to be a nicer person, get stronger, do good things, eat more exotic fruits and recovery potions, etc. ad nauseam. But realize that everything becomes easier, and your chances of true improvement almost always increase, if you take that little priestly superego guy, your internal editor, your homonculus that looks like you but sports a halo, or the soul of a kindly grandparent that comes to guide you in moments of trouble, or whatever other entity within you that says: you can do better!--if you simply take this well-meaning entity, place your hands around his or her strangely wrinkled neck, and choke it till even you can recognize the petechial hemorrhaging in the whites of its damnably judgmental eyes!
Sun Nov 8th, 2009 lifted weights after swim practice lat press leg press bench press lat pull TODAYS SWIM PRACTICE FOUR OR MORE SDKs off EVERY wall SCY noon to 1:15 Bridgette coached dove in on time WORE briefs today Larry did the postal 6k so Jon & I alternated 50's larry asked me to stick a kick board in the water on each 1000 and at 5500 so todays work out was 53 x 50 on about 1:10 with 1:00 break after every 9 held 30's to 32's MEETS: University of the Incarnate Word (SCM) Masters Meet Saturday, November 21 & Sunday 22, 2009 12 Days till San Antonio 2009 SPMA Short Course Meters Championships December 4th - 6th, 2009 at Long Beach http://www.spma.net/meetforms/2009/lbgscm.htm 25 Days till Long Beach
Warmed up with a 7:49 mile on the treadmill (Started at 7 mph and worked my way up to 9 mph.) Bench press: 2 sets of 75 x 15 Lat high row: 90 x 5, 2 sets of 120 x 15 Triceps pull-down: 2 sets of 40 x 15 Alt. hammer curls: 2 sets of 15 x 15 Military press: 2 sets of 40 x 15 Push ups: 1 set of 10 with bosu ball 1 set of 100 bicycle crunches 1 set of 10 back extensions
Updated November 8th, 2009 at 07:41 PM by elise526
RC/Dryland: bicycles, 2 x 50 chops on yoga ball w/3 lb weights, 2 x 15, thumbs up and thumbs down prone scapular scrunches w/3 lb weights, 3 x 25 3 position arm extensions, 3 x 2 x 15, each arm soft med ball toss against wall, 1 x 25 scapular wall slides, 2 x 25 seated straight arm dips, 60 x 2 x 25 internal and external rotators, 10 x 2 x 15, each arm 1 legged squats resting other foot on yoga ball, 1 x 15 (Just tried these out. I think Jazz is right, and these would be good to add in addition to the other squats I do) Swim/SCM/Solo: 800 EZ 10 minutes in hottub 5 minutes in steamroom ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Commentary: I might have indulged in some Patrick-like hubris yesterday in doing both hot yoga and a run the day after doing the P90X plyo DVD. My alarm rang at 8:00 to go to practice at Mason today, and I just shut it off and went back to sleep. I've been exhausted all day. So, I just did a mini RC/recovery swim that I probably should have done yesterday. I hope I don't have to take tomorrow off. I'd like to get in a short, but quality, sprint workout. That said, I think my legs feel stronger than they ever have from the plyos. I am, however, having a bit of left shoulder breakdown. I'm fairly certain this is due to failure to do adequate RC exercises. Whenever I get lazy and lapse in this area, I usually pay the price. (Hence, today's workout.) But Mr. Fort has been gone for 2 weeks, and sometimes I don't sit down till 10:30 pm. Unlike Chris, I can't get myself to do RC work at that time. And I don't think the yoga is aggravating the shoulder ... Bikram yoga doesn't have any of those umpteen thousand downward dogs they do in other types of yoga. Stretching: My husband mentioned that he had read an article in the NYT suggesting that dynamic stretching was no longer being advocated over static stretching. I'm not sure which article he was referring to. It could have been mentioned in the article on cooling down that was discussed on the forum. There were a lot of reader comments posted wrt that article. http://community.nytimes.com/comment...etching&st=cse
Practice was surprisingly crowded this morning. I think the wine tasting was so fun last night that lots of us wanted to come to workout to continue conversations that got started there. It’s always fun to see teammates outside the pool, and to have more than the few seconds between swim repeats to catch up on what’s going on in their lives. Here’s what I did this morning: 600 warmup (400 swim, 200 kick) 16 x 25 @ :30, 4 of each stroke, rev. IM order [I focused on body position on all 4 strokes] 4 times through (2 x 100 FR @ 1:25, 4 x 50 K/S @ :55) [After the first round I swam all the 100’s as 50 FR/50 BK, and set a goal of keeping them all under 1:15. Succeeded on all but 1 of them] 2 times through (200 IM, 100 IM, 50 BR, 100 BK, 200 FR) [These were all on fairly generous intervals. On all but the 200 FR I mentally rehearsed my technique keys for each of these events and focused on hitting them during the swims.] 4 x (25 moderate @ :30, 25 sprint @ :40) These felt fast and good. Warmdown A truly wondrous thing happened with about 15 minutes left in practice—sunlight shone into our pool! To comprehend how amazing this is, you have to understand that this pool, like many others in the city, is located in a basement and generally receives no natural light. There is a tiny row of thick glass tiles near the top of one wall that do connect to the outside world, but usually—maybe because of that wall’s compass orientation, or more likely because it is blocked by nearby tall buildings—no rays from the sun ever reach those tiles. Today, however, sunlight briefly streamed into them, and the pool was transformed. It was a beautiful sight, and gave me the energy and joy I needed to do those last two sets fast. I’ve been swimming at this pool since 1996, but I think that’s only the second or third time I’ve seen it sunlit.
I was tired from the meet. I was up late last night. We got up early this morning. The water was warm. I ate 2 large plates of Tex-Mex last night. I had a hang nail. The Paul Challenge Set was still no problem at 1:28 base SCM. Lazy wife had to adjust her cap ever 100 and still thought it was a pretty easy set. Warm up 6x100 odd free, even back Paul Challenge Set (2800 SCM) 4x300 on 4:24 5x200 on 2:56 6x100 on 1:28 Warm down 6x100 odd free, even back 4k total I used the GymBoss to keep track of the interval for me. It is a count down interval timer that you plug in the interval and the number of repeats, and it beeps or vibrates after every interval. Just set it for 28 intervals of 1:28. The only downside is, it is small, so you can't really glance at it to see the remaining time, but of course, it is designed to be worn at the waist for circuit training, not for poolside use. Lives in a ziploc to keep it dry.
AM: Hot Yoga Went to the 10:00 am 90 minute hot yoga class. This was my easiest class in terms of resisting heat stroke. As always, I'm pretty decent on postures with back bends involved and not so hot on balancing. But I'm improving slightly. Had my fav instructor Insel there today. Then I went to the last regular season soccer game for my 9 year old. The weather was gorgeous, my daughter rang like a gazelle (she's a natural wingman), and we had a little party afterward. My lunatic relay partners (who are co-soccer coaches) are anxious awaiting results from the Wrightsville Beach ironman tri taking place today. PM: Run: Wasn't sure what exercise to engage in this afternoon. Given the beautiful weather, I opted for a run. Did my usual 5 mile trail loop. The first mile was mildly tortuous after my manic plyo session yesterday and yoga this am, but then my legs relaxed and I felt pretty strong. I still walked a nasty up though. Meets/Times: I understand that there is going to be a meet here in PV the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend at the Freedom Center called the "Crawl Brawl." It was supposed to be in meters, but it was switched to yards. God forbid we swim SCM ... This is slightly ameliorated by the fact that there is now going to be a SCM meet at Wilson High School (site of the Fall Ball). Unfortunately for me, it appears to be a one day meet only the same weekend as NE Champs in Boston. On a happy note, the IL TT chair corrected his TT submissions and included my LCM times in the 100 fly and 200 back. Mary Beth W. assured me they would appear in the final LCM rankings. Whew! Off to dinner with friends ....
50 free: 24.20 -- Last meet: 24.41 -- Masters best: 24.14 (Zones last April) 100 free: 53.43 (Master's best) -- Last meet: 54.04 About my stroke: Friday I was asked when I was using the new KPN stroke. I thought this was rather strange, but some people think I am more talented than I am. I only have one stroke at a time, so I am using the wide entry, front quadrant stroke, which (to me) is a radical departure from head entry, rear quadrant I was doing a month ago. About the swims: Our old master's coach is a long time age group coach and has something to do with the National open water team. I didn't chat on the wall enough to get the details, but I know she is invited to parties with Olympians and I am not. The review of the swims is from her and I respect her opinion. The 50 was a good solid swim. Decent start, good break out, got out on top of the water, had a decent turn and a strong finish. My turn over is too slow and my turns could be faster. She was thrilled with this swim. I was happy with this swim, I was just looking for a solid 50 after the stroke changes to see where I am at. The 100 was similar, but I swam a gradual decline. She said I really need to focus on hitting my 3rd 25 and my 3rd 50 of my 200 solidly, and not slide from 2 to 3. About the meet: This was a much better meet for me just from a comfort standpoint. I was down on deck, and there were no parents. The kids had no problem with me being there, and the size difference is much smaller at an A meet. One of the guys I swim with is a coach, but I had no idea until I saw him on deck. A coach of another team came by to chat. His fastest swimmer is a Master's swimmer and he just wanted to say that he was glad to see me at the meet for whatever my reasons and that when his swimmer Chris gets in with the kids or races against the kids it is a great motivator for the kids. Friday night one of the older kids sat on the same bench as me that was off away from all the action. We had a friendly chat, made a few jokes, he slept on the bench for a while, got up made the joke "Welp, it's another swim meet" because it had been about 2 hours since we had been in the water and it would be another 15 minutes before he swam. Lots of waiting. Nice guy, ended up getting 2nd in the 400IM. As I walked up to the blocks for the 50, the timer goes, "Wait, aren't you 12 & under?" Everyone had a good laugh. After my 50, a guy stepped up to me as I was climbing out, patted me on the back "Good swim, glad to see you here." He was probably in his 40s and swam a 22.55 two heats after me. Today in the 100, I was in 5 and 4, 5 and 6 had a race to the finish. After the swim, the guy in 4 gave me a backhand punch to the midsection (might be a guy thing) and said "Great race". Overall, a very positive experience. Next meet is a masters meet! Three or four events in a few hours I am looking forward to it. Recovery tomorrow with Paul's Challenge set
Updated November 7th, 2009 at 06:28 PM by qbrain
Saturdays usually find me at ballet class. For the past few weeks, though, while rehabbing some Achilles tendonitis, I have been doing a floor-barre class instead. If you’ve never heard of floor-barre, it’s a really fiendish set of exercises done lying down that are designed to work most of the major muscles essential for ballet—abs, adductors, glutes, and “outward rotators,” ie those hip muscles responsible for turning your legs outward like ballet dancers do. It’s only an hour class, but pretty intense. My first meet is two weeks from today—the Bearcats Sprint Meet at Baruch College in Manhattan. I will be swimming 50 FR, 100 BK, and 100 BR, and probably two relay 50s. My last meet was in June, so it’s been a while. Here are the things I need to do between now and then to feel confident at my meet: 1. Work on my backstroke starts. 2. Do some sprint BR, and continue BR turn work. 3. Do some fast FR from a dive. 4. Practice some FR turns at 50-sprint speed. 5. Scout out Baruch College pool for a quiet place to cocoon during meet. [In addition to sitting with my teammates and/or meet buddies, which I do for most of the meet, I generally like to find a little corner away from the action where I can go when I need some focus time before my races. Since my team practices at the Baruch pool, I can scout this out ahead of time. The diving areas of pools often work for this—empty plastic hot tubs or spaces under trampolines provide promising spots—but Baruch has no diving boards. I’m sure I can find a spot somewhere nearby, though.] 6. Decide on meet suit. I’m going to my team’s wine tasting tonight, then to our Sunday morning workout tomorrow. Should be an interesting combination!
Just the usual 2000 yards with the girls today. Nothing fancy, I let them pick the drills. Now on to house cleaning. YUCK!
Sat Nov 7th, 2009 Trained with UT MEN MEETS: University of the Incarnate Word (SCM) Masters Meet Saturday, November 21 & Sunday 22, 2009 13 Days till San Antonio 2009 SPMA Short Course Meters Championships December 4th - 6th, 2009 at Long Beach http://www.spma.net/meetforms/2009/lbgscm.htm 26 Days till Long Beach FOUR OR MORE SDKs off EVERY wall TODAYS SWIM PRACTICE SCY BLOCKS 8:00 - 10:00 Eddie & Kris coached UT Swim Center main pool north end Swam with UT men dove in 8:06 had to park far, team dove in around 8:04 WORE briefs warm up missed MAIN SET several rounds of 150 200 skipped a few 50's 2 rounds of 2 x 50 k on 50 100 k on 1:40 2 x 50 k on 45 100 k on 1:40 2 x 50 k on 40 100 k on 1:40 eddie said I could do what I wanted but I did the set 1,200 k assigned 6 x 50 did 3 x 50 changed into my oldest B70 main set quadrathlon UT Men wore briefs did 150's of each stroke, I did 50's we went in 6 or 7 heats of 6 lanes 1 & 8 were swim down lanes off blocks coaches go Eddie timed me swam down around 150 to 200 after each swim 50 fly 23.4 50 bk 24.5 went too deep on start 50 br 29.3 50 fr 21.9
5x100 FR@2:00 300 Kick 200 Drill 2x200 FR Pull@3:30 2x100 FR Pull@2:00 2x50 FR Pull@1:00 200 Easy 1900 SCY Indoors Solo started the pull set thinking I could do 5x200 pull...after 2 I changed the set...still not ready for that much.
P90X: Too busy to hit the pool or gym today, so I decided to do the P90X plyo DVD late this afternoon. It's 60 minutes, with about 15 for warm up and warm down. It's a pretty butt kicking intense workout. My thighs were definitely burning at parts, and I ignored the "now speed it up" instruction that came at several junctures. I can see where people say this is a fat shredding/calorie burning workout -- you're really working all the body's large muscles. I didn't feel the need for a heart rate monitor, which they recommended. My heart rate was up, but not super high. Next time, I'll probably try to do the individual plyos more intensely. I wouldn't recommend jumping into this workout without having done some plyos beforehand. Of course, you can do it in a modified/easier way. It felt l like an hour of squats! I am wondering how the legs will feel tomorrow ... And I did not hit pause even once! Here's what's in the workout: The exercises are grouped into rounds, and each round gets repeated once. The breakdown is as follows: 1) Jump squat, run stance squat, airborne heisman (lateral leaping), swing kick 2) Squat reach jump, run stance squat with direction switch, double airborne heisman, circle run 3) Jump knee tuck,* jumping lunge, leapfrog squat, twist combo 4) Rock star hop, gap jump, squat jack, military march 5) Run squat with 180 jump, lateral leapfrog, monster truck tire, hot foot 6) Bonus round: pitch & catch, jump shot, football move (60 seconds each)** * This plyo is the hardest in the context of the workout. It's so hard to do them continuously. And jumping from a standstill is harder than squatting first. * Out of pure stubbornness, I didn't do the catch and pitch. Seemed too irrelevant. So I did jumping jills during this part. But I liked the jump shot and football move. An description of how to do each plyo is found here: http://www.fitnessdestinations.com/p...2-plyometrics/ And other descriptions of the DVD: http://workoutjourney.com/p90x-plyometrics http://stanford.wellsphere.com/exerc...-2-of-12/20499 I don't have any other P90X DVDs. But my son said they did the Ab Ripper DVD at his dryland/weight training practice for crew. Even he admitted it's hard, so I'm assuming that's true as he's tough as nails. My brother, who has lost 20 pounds on the P90X program after being lazy with two toddlers for a few years, says the Core Synergistics one is pretty taxing and effective as well. I'm fairly sure there's nothing in either one that you couldn't do on your own. Death of Squats: Got this email from the company I bought my power wheel from. Can it be true, Q? http://www.functionalstrengthcoach3.com/squats.html
Updated November 6th, 2009 at 08:32 PM by The Fortress
"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order" - Alfred North WhiteheadMeet Entry Event Order Our next step this year was to finalize the meet entry and submit it with our application to receive our sanction. The meet entry first designed and developed during our initial meet has remained essentially the same each year since. When the procedures, policies, etc. were first put together for the meet, I decided (since I was the first director) to design and run a meet the way I thought it should be. Although not a meet-aholic, I did have some definite ideas on how not to run a meet based on what saw at our local ones. The order of events was one item to take a fresh new look at. First, I like to swim all breaststroke distances, so I wanted all stroke events to be spread out. I attend a local SCM meet every spring where two breaststroke events are separated by only one event, despite hitting the meet directors over the head every year to get them to move one of them. I did not want anyone whining at our meet, so the order was developed to benefit those who like to swim all three distances of one stroke. Second, some swimmers like to swim all 50s, and some nuts like to swim all 200s. These were spread out to allow swimmers to do so. Since the 500-free tends to drag on and is popular (we were the only Potomac Valley SCY meet offering this event), it was placed first to get it out of the way. If it was last, a lot of people would leave before the end of the meet out of boredom. The best attempt was made to separate stroke events from IM events, since almost every IMer has at least one good stroke event to swim. Ever been to a meet where you did not sign up for two events because they were too close to one another, and then discovered at the meet that there was a break between them? Our break in the middle of the meet would be clearly indicated on the meet entry to prevent those surprises. We planned the coconut relay for the end of the meet, and wanted swimmers to stick around to enter it. I tried a little meet engineering and swimmer manipulation. With the 50-free being the most popular race, it was placed as the next to last event, to keep a large number of swimmers around for the fun relay. The last event was the 400-IM to give the awards table time to enter the previous 50-free results. One final note about the event order. All local meets I attend have the same event order year after year after year after year. Unfortunately, this prevents me from trying certain events because they are too close to my prime events. Our Tropical Splash event order is changed every year. A few events like 500 and 50-free and relays remain constant in our order, but all others are rearranged annually to keep the meet fresh, and to give swimmers a chance to try other events. This year after the order was finalized and sent in for the sanction, I took another look. There were more longer events in the first half and more shorter ones in the second half. Oh well, maybe this year I will get our first complaints about the meet order. And maybe the sprinters will stick around to the end to "swim with the 'nuts." BOOK OF WISDOMCome up with some way to keep the meet fresh every year.Come up with a good event order (or end up discouraging swimmers from entering.)
Updated November 10th, 2009 at 06:58 AM by Rnovitske
Did a 10k recovery run at a 9:40 per mile pace. Beautiful day to do a run with the leaves starting to peak. Swam an easy 1800 yards while team was practicing. Got to do some starts with the team. The coach noted that my reaction time was slow but my jump off the start and break-out were great. This is good to know. Hope to work a little bit on the reaction thing.
I slept in Thursday. I swam Thursday night on my own before pilates. I had just over 30 minutes. I was planning on running before pilates but my running shoes were at work (beside my purse oddly enough). W/U 200 FR 200 K 200 Pull 200 FR 6 x 50 done as 2 x (50 fl, 50 br, 50 fr) on 1:00 25 fast - went :15 50 fast - try to go 25 time x 2 +1 went :31 100 fast - double 50 time and add 2 - went 1:09 - felt awful I was thrashing - blech! I've gone 1:04/1:05 in practice before. 75 ez 3 x 50 ez fl, br, fr Hour of pilates on the reformer. LOVING pilates. Hope to try hot yoga this weekend now that I'm back and back to 100%. My plan for tomorrow is to get up early (yuck) and swim. Then go back to bed then run a couple of miles. Sunday I want to run and do hot yoga. I'm trying like crazy to get in shape for Long Beach. Events at Long Beach: 100 Free (Friday) 50 Free & 50 Fly (Saturday) 100 Fly, 200 Free, 100 IM (Sunday)
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