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Random Nonsense

A comment on travel, training and in practice competition

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11 Comments
by
USMS Memberqbrain
, February 10th, 2012 at 03:04 PM (1016 Views)
I travel a fair bit and early in the year more so. Most of my trips are short and easy to work swimming workouts around, but during my Asia trip I didn't swim and then caught a cold shortly after returning, keeping me out of the water for 2 weeks.

Training and travel are not a good combo, so next focus meet I need to clear the calendar of travel leading up to the meet.

Other than missing 2 weeks of training I still averaged my normal yardage for the month of January. That is a nice example of GTD does not translate into performance.

Today we did our group sprint training day. There were about 5 lanes participating 4 people deep, the 5 fastest swimmers lead, then the next wave is the next fastest, etc, so the people you leave with should be similar in speed for racing purposes. There was a kick set with fins and everyone was using fins except Marge. Marge still lead her lane, and came in 3rd, beating two guys wearing fins. In my eyes, that is ridiculous.

As for getting beat, Marge has been beating me since I have gotten back in the water and Josh has been demolishing me. Two things happened during my break, I got a lot slower, and they got faster. Marge is an excellent kicker, easily the fastest in the pool with a ton of endurance. Wednesday I learned she was the fastest in the pool at strokes when she beat Josh in 75s IM sans free. I knew she was fast, but that surprised me. Speaking of Josh, Wednesday during a short set of 100s I was holding 1:08s while he must have been 1:03s. That hurt, right in the ego and Marge was right there with me, 5 seconds faster than a month ago.

I told Fort I wasn't blogging because I was doing boring stuff and swimming slow, but I would blog again when I could keep up again. That didn't really happen, instead we did sprint free today which I have a strong advantage over Marge in ... and Josh didn't show up.

Hopefully that was enough whining for Geek.

I have not been actually swimming slow, just slow relative to where I was early January. More training has been spent on endurance in the last few weeks and very little on speed. The lack of endurance is very apparent in my training when I try to go fast, #1 is fast, #2 is not. Without some depth, I see little reason to do LT work or dedicate entire workouts to sprints. Sprints and LT will be added back as the endurance returns.

Quote Originally Posted by qbrain
Goals:
-- Feb SCY meet
- 50 free: 23.99
- 100 free: 52.99
- 200 free: 1:57.99
-- Zones shave and taper meet
- 50 free: 23 low
- 100 free: 50 mid
- 200 free: 1:54
The Feb goals might be more realistic for Zones at this point.

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  1. pwb's Avatar
    Excuses, excuses. Training and travel can be perfect companions. Had you just poneyed up the $450 to swim in that Singapore 100M pool, you would have had the motivation to knock out 10 or 20K in a day just to get your money's worth.

    Stop having so much fun and making those of us who travel to pedestrian locales so jealous: stay home andd get in the pool.
  2. The Fortress's Avatar
    I don't think travel and training mix well either. Mostly because I like to have fun and enjoy the vaca when traveling and not worry about when I'm getting to the pool.

    I don't agree with your conclusion that you should do more endurance work at the expense of speed and LT work. I would start now. Sure, you'll be slow at first on the speed work. But that will change in a couple weeks. If you delay, you might just be slower for longer.
  3. qbrain's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by pwb
    Excuses, excuses. Training and travel can be perfect companions. Had you just poneyed up the $450 to swim in that Singapore 100M pool, you would have had the motivation to knock out 10 or 20K in a day just to get your money's worth.

    Stop having so much fun and making those of us who travel to pedestrian locales so jealous: stay home andd get in the pool.
    The real problem was I forgot my goggles, and when I found some swedes they were $20. I should have paid the $20 in retrospect.

    There are a lot of 50M pools in Singapore that cost less (like $1.50) than the $450/night room at Marina Bay Sands. Still want to swim there... still want to win the lottery.
  4. qbrain's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by The Fortress
    I don't think travel and training mix well either. Mostly because I like to have fun and enjoy the vaca when traveling and not worry about when I'm getting to the pool.
    Europe in April I won't even think about the pool, I will be too busy, but I take a lot of 3 day trips that I manage to swim during, but it isn't quality work.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Fortress
    I don't agree with your conclusion that you should do more endurance work at the expense of speed and LT work. I would start now. Sure, you'll be slow at first on the speed work. But that will change in a couple weeks. If you delay, you might just be slower for longer.
    It isn't that I am slow at the speed work, it is that I deteriorate quickly. I will add speed sets back to the beginning of my solo practices starting tomorrow, but I lack the endurance to hold my stroke and speed together for an entire workout of speed/LT like I was doing in early Jan.

    You would agree that it doesn't make sense to try to train sprint after my stroke has fallen apart, correct? I only have about 10 minutes of quality in the tank right now versus 45 minutes a month ago.
  5. The Fortress's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by qbrain
    Europe in April I won't even think about the pool, I will be too busy, but I take a lot of 3 day trips that I manage to swim during, but it isn't quality work.



    It isn't that I am slow at the speed work, it is that I deteriorate quickly. I will add speed sets back to the beginning of my solo practices starting tomorrow, but I lack the endurance to hold my stroke and speed together for an entire workout of speed/LT like I was doing in early Jan.

    You would agree that it doesn't make sense to try to train sprint after my stroke has fallen apart, correct? I only have about 10 minutes of quality in the tank right now versus 45 minutes a month ago.
    If your stroke is falling apart, maybe you're not taking enough rest between fast efforts? 10 minutes of speed work between 90-100% is a fair bit. I did 2 x (10 x 25 AFAP) @ 3:00 on Monday and was just dead after.

    And what comes first, speed or speed endurance? I think you may have to work on speed first and then develop the other.

    I would take Europe as a total vacation too. Walking will be your exercise.
  6. pwb's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by The Fortress
    I don't think travel and training mix well either.
    I kind of agree ... except that part of what I look forward to when traveling on vacation is the freedom to not have to do WORK and focus on things I enjoy. I enjoy training, so I like to train when I travel.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Fortress
    Mostly because I like to have fun and enjoy the vaca when traveling and not worry about when I'm getting to the pool.
    If training's not fun, why are you doing it when not traveling?
  7. The Fortress's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by pwb
    If training's not fun, why are you doing it when not traveling?
    I do like to train. You know that! Perhaps I should say I don't like to worry about training while in Europe or somewhere exotic/special. That's not to say I wouldn't find a time to work out. I just might not want to go to the trouble of finding a pool or doing a long swim workout. A short run would be endorphins enough.
  8. pwb's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by The Fortress
    I do like to train. You know that! Perhaps I should say I don't like to worry about training while in Europe or somewhere exotic/special. That's not to say I wouldn't find a time to work out. I just might not want to go to the trouble of finding a pool or doing a long swim workout. A short run would be endorphins enough.
    I get it. And I'll be the 1st to admit that many of my 'on the road' workouts (like today's) are of the 'maintenance" variety versus trying to propel my training forward. As for finding pools, it's probably already well established that I kind of like that challenge.
  9. The Fortress's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by pwb
    As for finding pools, it's probably already well established that I kind of like that challenge.
    You're a pool adventurer and addict.

    I am super deadly dull and like to train in my usual pool at the usual time after sleeping in my usual bed.
  10. chowmi's Avatar
    Qbrain, welcome to MY world! You cannot get discouraged over not putting in a pre-planned multi month training program to go fast at zones. One of the hardest things is to not get frustrated that aren't swimming as well as in Jan/some time ago, you were ready then, not ready now, you are backtracking, etc....some people can, most cannot, yours truly included. I fully agree with Fort that, depending on the circumstances, I would not trade speed/sprint for endurance. It's great to have that ideal endurance training and then into the perfect speed/sprint mode, but the reality is you are going to have these start/stops and sometimes several times during a season! I have found, that given my life cycle and work cycle, that I should be gearing for Oct/Nov and hanging on for early Dec meets, and that is the best time for to get season bests. Jan/Feb are a waste for trying to go fast times. There is too much going on with calendar year end and last quarter fiscal year end to focus on swimming. So instead, I should just swim to enjoy the break, and take a mental breather from the high concentration on WHen's My Next Meet? Then do a mini gear up for masters seasons March/April. And for me, maybe for you too, to realize that every "season" is different, and just 'cause the season culiminating meets never change dates, you have to make sure you have appropriate goals which don't conform to that entire 9 month SCY schedule! What you do YOY from the same meet could be very different, but the important thing is to set realistic and meaningful goals.

    Now, all that said, I have the exact same goal times in the 50/100 so we should be training together!!!!
  11. aquageek's Avatar
    Training and travel just requires a whole lot more planning. Add in kids and the planning requires a PhD. But, it is possible. This is why I ask for my wife's travel schedule for the coming week on Sunday afternoon, so we can fire up Big Blue and manage our workouts, and carpools.

    Hang in there q! Don't give up on the dream.