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Fast Food Makes for Fast Swimming!

Sat, Feb. 23, 2013 7:00-8:00am Swim-a-thon Complete!

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USMS Memberjaadams1
, February 23rd, 2013 at 03:30 PM (2337 Views)
I ended up getting a pretty favorable group of lanemates for my swim today. 4 guys, (Myself, Jared – 15 year old H.S. State finalist in the 500/100 Breast, Alex – 17 year old H.S. State relay swimmer and good 500 swimmer, and Henry – 14 year old guy I’d been training with all season)

Was out in a ~5:40 at the 500. I stopped for about 15 seconds somewhere around the mile point (+- 200 yards) to stretch out my muscles, and let Jared go by me. He got too far ahead of me for any draftwork to come into play, but I kept an eye on him to attempt to keep him close to me. A couple more stops somewhere around 2500 & 3000 for a goggle clearing. These few stops were only for a few seconds at a time, so my body wouldn't cool down any. Somewhere in this area I did a 200 alternating 25 Back/25 Free, and it felt awesome to do something different, plus get unlimited oxygen for a bit. My final stop at ~4000 (~46-47 minutes) to ask how many lengths I was at. My daughter yelled out “158!!”, so 1050 yards to go!!

I figured I could count the final 1000 (and came close). I ended up passing Jared back around 800-900 to go in the swim to regain the "lead" in the swim. He was very thankful that I was there for a little draft he told me at the end. I was feeling strong now knowing how far to the end, but when you're just swimming back and forth with no idea of where you are in a swim it gets hard to keep going.

About 400 to go, I really started the countdown, and my pace was picking up considerably at this point. The final 200 felt like a race (somewhat), and was happy to be basically done with this thing. Jared’s mom stopped me on my final 50 flip turn (since I miscounted) to say we had just completed the 200 lengths. Jared was a few yards behind me. I looked at the clock and the minute hand was still shy of the hour mark, so that part alone made me really happy!

5,000 Yards completed in 58:40 this morning!

Alex was about 400 Yards behind us, and Henry was about 500+ behind us. We all worked well together in the lane, and coordinated passing attempts to not make anyone have to stop. It was high-5s all around at the end. We even got in another 400 cooldown before anyone else was remotely close to finishing the swim.

Throughout the swim I was watching the pace clock and could see I was going 1:07-1:10 per 100 at varying points of the swim, so knew I was basically on track to my goal of under 1 hour. It sure hurt like a mother though!! This is the reason I don’t sign up for the USMS long distance postal swims, and probably why I don’t truly enjoy OW swimming. I may be good at pool distance swimming, but I think I’m built more for the “shorter” long distance.

Did a 400 warmdown of 100 Free/100 Back to finish off the day

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5400 Yards

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Categories
Swim Workouts , Daily Practices

Comments

  1. joel schmaltz's Avatar
    Bravo James! If you can still lift your arms, be sure to carb up a little.
    That is a lot of work in 58:40. I couldn't deal with a long swim like that. Not my gig. Nice job!
  2. jaadams1's Avatar
    Thanks Joel!! I actually wasn't too fazed by the swim, probably since I'm used to doing the 6000 yard swim nightly. The gatorade and other juices after the swim were quite refreshing though.
    I truly didn't enjoy the swim. I'd rather being doing a series of repeat intervals where I can stop between them, adjust goggles, talk a bit, etc.
  3. StewartACarroll's Avatar
    Is it that you enjoy talking or is it you enjoy listening to the giggly girls talking

    Nice job on this set. Looks like you could go at least 5200 on the one hour postal if you so desired. It is funny how an equivalent workout with different sets, distances, strokes and drills feels so much different from the equivalent distance straight. I have similar sentiments to you and prefer a set based workout.
  4. slow's Avatar
    Good swim! Yeah, I am not a huge fan of long continuous swims in the pool but sometimes it feels good to pound things out.
  5. rxleakem's Avatar
    Dude, you survived the hour swim! Nice yardage. Next up, 10k postal?
  6. jaadams1's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by StewartACarroll
    Is it that you enjoy talking or is it you enjoy listening to the giggly girls talking

    Nice job on this set. Looks like you could go at least 5200 on the one hour postal if you so desired. It is funny how an equivalent workout with different sets, distances, strokes and drills feels so much different from the equivalent distance straight. I have similar sentiments to you and prefer a set based workout.
    I actually do enjoy listening to what the girls have to talk about. It keeps the 2 hours quite interesting. And they don't seem to mind saying some of the stuff in front of me either. It doesn't embaress me like it does to some of the boys. Plus a few of the girls vent their frustration to me rather than getting in trouble with the coach. I just smile.

    The one hour postal will NEVER ever happen in my book. I honestly can't stand these "non-stop" swims. The best thing about the swim-a-thon is that it's set at 200 lengths, so you have a definite ending point. At least as you get nearer, you feel like the end of a race and begin trying to get there faster.
    In college I did the same thing, I could do great on a 3,000 for time swim, but on a 30-minute swim for distance I never did very well comparably.
  7. jaadams1's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by slow
    Good swim! Yeah, I am not a huge fan of long continuous swims in the pool but sometimes it feels good to pound things out.
    Thanks! I do like to pound out the yardage as well, but more in terms of things like 5 x 300s @ 4:00 type of swims rather than one long distance shot.
  8. jaadams1's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by rxleakem
    Dude, you survived the hour swim! Nice yardage. Next up, 10k postal?
    I survived the "under 1 hour" swim. I could've stuck around and swum another 3000 or so during the 2 hour window that our group had allocated to us, but I decided to jet.

    There is no way I would ever doa 10K postal, or anything remotely close to that...at least in the near future. I know I'm good at distance...but I keep my distance to a minimum as well!