Of Swimming Bondage

This morning
Nothing like a 5am work call to ensure that you're up in time for a 5:30am workout. I made it over to Burlingame with their boisterous crew and did this in SCY, finally producing somewhat respectable workout times:

• 1 x 500: various
• Set #1:
  
  • 4 x 50: on 1:00, drill
  • 4 x 100: on 1:20, descend free
  • 4 x 50: on 1:00, stroke choice
  
  
• Set #2: 2 rounds of
  
  • 1 x 300: pull on 4:00, was 3:20 on both
  • 4 x 75: on 1:30, kick
  • 4 x 100: on 1:30, descend 1-3, #4 easy
    
    • Still was technique-centric, but got down to 1:02s on the faster frees
    
    
  
  
• Set #4: 10 x 100: on 2:00
  
  • odds FAST: IM (1:05), fly (1:01), back (1:03), breast (1:16), free (0:58)
  • evens easy
  
  

TOTAL: 4,300 SCY

Commentary:

• The add-up 400 IM was 4:18, which is too slow for how this set was structured, but way better than I've been swimming earlier this week. Dream splits for race time are 0:58 - 1:03 / 1:14 / 0:58.
• And, again, this has to be one of the most "awake" crowds of Masters swimmers around. Thanks, guys.

Q1 Stats
While I'm a bit behind my slightly ambitious goal to be a Million Yard Man in 2012, my Q1 swim training stats bear out what I had intended and what I've been feeling:

• I am swimming more in aggregate: 10% more volume through Q1 of this year versus 2011. Note that 2011 marked a 20% increase in aggregate volume over 2010 (my previous long year).
• I am swimming more per workout: I averaged approximately 3,963 SCY per workout in Q1'12 versus 3,284 SCY per workout in Q1'11, a 20.7% increase year over year.

Now, I know that volume alone is not a predictor of success, but, when adding in my recent test set results and the steady improvement on them over the last 3 months, I know I'm in the best swimming shape of my Masters' career. Greensboro's going to rock.