Alex's swim journal

We're having a White Christmas here in Kenosha, WI. Flurries accompanied me in and out of the Y today; won't add much to the snow already on the ground, but it definitely feels a lot like Christmas.

Today I wrapped up my 14th straight day in the pool. I was really tired and probably should've just taken the day off , but tomorrow the pool's closed, so I wanted to squeeze in in few more yards before the stuffing begins. I only did 2000 today:

1000 free in 17:00
200 br/bk
2 x 50 fr on 1:00 (:40-:41)
4 x 100 fr on 2:00 (1:27-1:28)
300 free cool-down

Yesterday, even though I had done a 6000-yard swim the day before, I managed to get in 4000:

20 x 50 alt. kick w/ fins/free w/o (20:00)
10 x 100 alt. pull w/ paddles/free (20:00)
20 x 50 alt. back/free (20:00)
8 x 100 br (16:00)
200 fr (4:00)

In my 14 consecutive days of swimming I logged 47,600 yards (I'm over 40 miles again already for the month). This will be my Wisconsin Water Warriors fitness challenge figure for 2012. I hoped to break last year's 48,000 (logged in the first two weeks of November), but I had too many days with only 2-2.5K swimming this year. And now that I'm hitting my stride again, there are too many forced days off. August through October this year were "off-season" or recovery months for me (27-31 miles/month swum instead of 45-55), so my build up only really started in November.

I re-registered for USMS for 2013 on 12/22 (as it turns out, the same day I re-registered last year too!). It's not too early to start planning 2013, I ran into Scotty today at the Y and we're both planning to do the first WI masters SCY meet in mid-January, so we'll send in registration in a few days. I'm considering even doing something other than freestyle *gasp*. Maybe a 100 breast or 50 back. Definitely, one of my goals for 2013 will be to compete in a couple of other events besides distance free. I'm going to see if I can bring my 100-200-yard times down a little this spring. And, of course, my big goals are to knock time off my 1500-1650 and take big chunks off of my 5-10K times.

I'm also going to learn Fly in 2013... there, I said it... so now I have to do it. Hope my fellow bloggers will hold me to that one. 2012 was all about building an aerobic base and endurance, and learning the flip-turn. 2013 will be about technique, gaining speed, learning (or improving) the other strokes. Who knows, maybe there's an IM in my future?