Swimmer as wind-up toy
by
, February 4th, 2014 at 08:13 PM (1680 Views)
I enjoyed a good swim at the PCB pool this morning. I came at 6am for the PCST masters workout, then stayed for some solo swimming. Here’s how it went:
Warmup: 5 x 100 lcm, odds FR, evens BK
12 x 50 various fly stuff @ 1:00:
4 FL kick on BK
4 1-arm fly
4 goggle drill: 1 stroke no breath, 1 stroke just bringing goggles above water, 1 stroke breathing with as minimal head movement as possible [I liked this drill, but left out the no-breath stroke, and upped the interval.]
4 x 150 BK/BR/FR
4 x 100 pull with bilat breathing pattern @ 2:00
4 x 50 sprint BK @ 1:10
That ended practice. I skipped the 200 warmdown, and did the following solo:
Extended IM riff
4 x 150 stroke sandwiches (FR/ST/FR) @ 2:50
4 x 150 IM @ 3:10
- 25 FL / 50BK / 50BR / 25FR
- 50 FL / 25 BK / 25 BR / 50 FR
- 25 FL / 50 BK / 25 BR / 50 FR
- 50 FL / 25 BK / 50 BR / 25 FR
200 kick RIM
6 x 200, odds IM desc. @ 4:00, evens FR pull @ 3:45 [3:33 on fastest IM]
Magic 700, alt. IM/FR
200 kick
200 warmdown + play
I was feeling fatigued and a little loopy by the time I reached the magic 700, and decided to just focus on the rhythmic elements of each stroke. I imagined my body as some sort of perpetual motion machine, all cogs and gears and levers, with each movement leading automatically to the next, and the next, and the next. I tried to imagine the forces interacting with my body—gravity, inertia, the resistance of the water—and to imagine my body working with those forces in various ways. It was a nice meditative way to end a long workout. I closed my eyes for much of this swim, and did not run into a lane line even once. (The lanes are wide here, and I had my own, so felt pretty safe swimming blind.).