Fast Food Makes for Fast Swimming!

Somewhat of a lightly attended practice tonight. Either people were already leaving early for family Christmas traveling, or they were up skiing at Mission Ridge, which is only 15-20 minutes or so out of town. Only 11.5 miles from my house, and a gain of 3500 feet of elevation (1000ft. to 4500 ft.) over that distance!!
Hell of a hill climb on a bike, it's an average of 300+ feet every mile traveled, though most of the elevation gain is in the final 4-5 miles. I love the downhill coming home though! Wheeeeeeee!!!! Back in the summers during my college years I used to ride it a few times.


Warmup:
8 x 50 IM Order by 50s @ 1:10
8 x 25 V-Sit Scull @ 1:10
8 x 50 SDK w/ fins @ 1:00 Odds EZ/Evens Fast (or EZ for me)
8 x 50 Free Pull @ 1:00 breathe 3,5,7 by 50s
(1400/1400)

Test Set #1
10 x 100 Flutter Kick w/ board @ 2:00
went 1:37 avg, w/ 21 HR/10 sec.
kinda slow, but I was still nursing my calf muscle from the cramp it gave me last night. Sometimes those can hurt for a while.

200 EZ
(1200/2600)

Test Set #2
10 x 100 Free @ 1:30 Best Avg.
went 1:01 avg, w/ 28 HR/10 sec.
I believe this was my best avg. time in this. I was going 3rd in the lane following Jared, our 15 year old "boy wonder", who avg'd :58/:59, and the college boy Connor, who claimed to have averaged 1:02s. Problem with that is that he was leaving 1-2 seconds early on the interval, and I was on his feet by the end of the 100.

200 EZ
(1200/3800)

Evened out the lanes for a little "Relay Fun". We had enough for 3 relays of 4 people.

We did a V-Sit Scull relay by 25s, each person goes twice. At the midpoint of the pool, you must also do 2 1/2 rotations (spins) in v-sit, and continue onward down the pool. When you leave from the deep end, you must start backward on the blocks and attempt the best backward butt-dive possible. When done correctly, it's a pleasant experience.
We won this relay!

Bucket Pull relay by 25s, each person goes twice.
Hardest part of this is the transition of the belt from one person to another...especially in the deep water end.
My relay again won this one. Then coach John switched one of our swimmers for one from the "slower" relay.

Bucket Pull Relay again...same thing.
We ended up getting behind by almost a 25, partially my fault, as I couldn't get the belt through the buckle part on the first transition. I did swim Butterfly with the bucket though on both times in this relay. It's actually easier (I thought) than freestyle. I'm sure my upper body strength helped a little on this.

Finished off with a 200 EZ and home. Only 1 more practice tomorrow evening before the holiday break, when we return on Wednesday.

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~4200 Yards