Take a dip in March!

[Veronica]

I swam 2300 yards today. I started off with a 3 x 200 warm up, s-k-p. Then I did a reverse ladder starting at 275 yards, then 250, 225... all the way down to 25. I took a minute rest between each swim and swam them pretty hard, averaging between 1:40 - 1:45 per hundred. I'd much rather swim a 1650 straight then do this. But intervals are good for you.

That last 25 was fun. I took no breaths and did it in under 20 seconds. :D 19.3 to be exact. I wish I could swim every 25 that fast.

A whooping 50 yard cool down and I was done.

Veronica

[Selkie]

V - If you can do 25 with no breaths, you need to do underwater dolphins!

My first swim of March was a little rough because I wasn't feeling well and the mucinex I took to get rid of post-nasal drip upset my stomach. Managed to slog out 2,100 yards before dragging myself in to work.

[HillSlugger]

I don't like doing 25's because I hate waiting and starting from the deep end of the pool. Also, the clock at that end has a very small second hand so it's very hard to see.

[Susan Otcenas]

I did my swim in the deep end yesterday. I felt like it was less effort to swim in the deep end than the shallo end. Am I dreaming that?

[HillSlugger]

I did my swim in the deep end yesterday. I felt like it was less effort to swim in the deep end than the shallo end. Am I dreaming that?

Maybe not. I know the pools they use for the Olympics are deeper than what we usually swim in but I don't know how deep they are.

[Urlea]

Isn't warm water heavier than cool? That might make sense for why the deep end was easier to swim in than the shallow Susan, but I'm not sure.

1250yds for me today, need to keep upping the swim distance for HIM training. It's been more gradual this yr. with all the ultra training my legs are more tired by the time I get to the pool, but today was an improvement. :)

[ktbikes]

I don't expect there would be much of a temperature gradient across the surface of the pool, since it would be fairly well mixed by all the swimmers, but if there was one, cold water is more dense and more viscous than warm water. Maybe it's a friction thing - the shallow bottom would exert a drag force (friction) opposing the water that you are pushing towards it. Plus the frequency of interacting waves would be greater since they would reflect off the shallow bottom and return towards the surface faster than in the deep end. Someone must have studied this - the physics of sports, etc.

[HillSlugger]

2500m for me today, including 2200 straight, my longest swim in a long while

[Selkie]

Thursday was crowded at the pool---kind of odd because it's been blessedly quiet most of the week. Ended up having to circle swim twice. I'm getting faster to the point where I am now able to swim farther in my allotted 55-60 minutes, so yesterday, I got in 2,220 yards.

[GLC1968]

Susan - the difference could be the way the jets in your particular pool are situated. I've heard that people purposely choose certain lanes in certain pools to minimized the impact from the jets.

Personally, I prefer swimming in the deep end. It feels more peaceful to me.


REALLY interesting swim class/coaching session last night. We did a lot of body alignment drills and as such, we were doing a ton of kicking. Our coach had us start (after a warm up) with just lying on our backs, arms at our sides, kicking the length of the pool and keeping our position as streamlined as possible. He said that we should NOT be trying hard and that if we were breathing heavy at the other end, we were kicking entirely too hard. I did as I was instructed, focused on the ceiling to keep in a straight line, and tried to maintain a constant relaxed pace (as much as I could tell). I get to the other end, lift my head, and find out that everyone else was still only half way across the pool!?! WTH? I checked, and I was not breathing hard at all! After everyone else go there, he explained to everyone how to kick and my odd speed started to make sense. I was already doing all that intuitively (I also have essentially flippers for feet, too). After the explanation, we did the same thing the other way and again I was the first one there with little or no effort. This time a few other people were there with me likely due to his instruction. This contined to be the case the rest of the class even as we added new features to our drills. I started to see how 'effortless' felt and how it worked into my form. This whole class REALLY helped me. I could REALLY feel how my body position should be in each of the drills and I cannot wait to get a chance to swim again to do them all again so that I can internalize the feelings.

Its like all of a sudden a huge flood light has been turned on! I can see how this class is going to help me tremendously in the coming weeks. Yay!

Funny point of note - there is a guy who was in the lane next to me who got dusted by me in the first couple of kicking drills. This guy looks very fit and is probably in his late 40's or early 50's. I think it bothered him that the fatest girl in the class (me) kept doing the drills faster than him. I noticed that he started working harder and harder and harder as the class progressed. We'd get to the end of the length for whatever drill and he'd be flat out panting! Poor guy - it must be hard to swim with his ego dragging him down all the time. :p

[tribogota]

hahaha, love the notion of people's ego dragging them down...as I swim with a bunch of extremely egotistical people who I mostly cannot stand. I think we are lucky that we get to jump in a pool with a bunch of potable water...and half the world doesn't have enough water for basic needs, so no matter how "horrendous" the situation is in the pool, I always tell myself that and immediately I stop being annoyed.

[Susan Otcenas]

GLC - I'm SO glad you're enjoying the class. I think Nathan is awesome. It doesn't matter what level of swimmer you are in that class. His teaching style and the core basic drills that he does will benefit you regardless. It's why I SO wish taking his class again would have fit into my schedule. I just couldn't get down there on a weeknight though. :(

[Susan Otcenas]

2250 for me today. Was supposed to be 2200, but after one of my 500s, I checked my watch timer and realized that I'd clearly gone over by a lap. Huh. I rarely lose count, but I obviously did today!

But it was a sucky 2250 overall. I felt like I was swimming through butter. You know you're having a bad day when the octogenarian water jogger's progress down the lane matches your own. :o

Susan

[Susan Otcenas]

Hope everyone is having good swims this week!

As for me - I found my kick! I'm usually not much of a kicker at all, but this morning, I worked on it and saw a definite improvement in my speed, while feeling less breathless on hard efforts. Wonder if I"ll be able to replicate it on Thursday....

[roadie gal]

Back in the pool yesterday after an almost 3 week hiatus (for the new tat to heal). It was sunny outside, so even though it was in the mid 30s I decided to go to the outdoor pool. Turns out it was a fine choice. The water was warm and the sun was nice.

I did 1800 yds total: 300yds, then rest, 200 yds, rest, 100 yds, 400 yds of drills and then 8X75yd with 25 seconds rest, and a 200 yd cooldown. I wasn't pushing myself because it had been a while and this was the longest workout that my coach had put together. I was very pleased when I figured out that in each of the intervals I'd done 1:45/100yds. For me that's a huge improvement.

Tomorrow I meet with my coach again.

[Susan Otcenas]

2300 yards this morning. Despite only getting 5 hours of sleep, I had a pretty good swim. Some days I feel like I'm just out there hacking through the water, but today I felt like I had a pretty good glide going on. :)

Jeff decided to amuse himself by swimming laps right at my heels. It motivated me to swim a little faster. ;)

Susan

[GLC1968]

Had another class last night (I also swam last Monday - 1000 m - but forgot to report it. It was a sucky swim so I didn't want to remember it again!).

Our normal coach was traveling with his swim team, so we had a sub. She was HARD! :eek: She worked with him in the Tuesday class, and then taught us on Thursday, so I don't know if he made them swim as much on Tuesday or not. Anyway, we did a LOT of drills and when I tried to count them all after the fact, I could tell that we did well over 1000 yards in the class which is highly unusual. I got a ton out of the drills though. She had us start with using swim fins and to be honest, that was really difficult for me. I go too fast with those things on that it makes it really hard to focus on anything else. It's great for finding flaws in my streamline position, but it's just too confusing for much else. I suppose I could get used to it, but I'd rather not. After we took them off, she had us just do 50 freestyle to get used to not having them on and it was so much easier for me! Weird, huh? Everyone else wanted their fins back!

Anyway, by the end of the class, I felt like I'd made some really great progress. I meant to count my strokes for the last 50, but I forgot. I have a feeling my count has gone down significantly after that class.

My next swim will be tomorrow morning, so I'm looking forward to repeating a lot of those drills and really solidifying what I learned.

[sgf726]

Our pools seemed busier than usually this week as well, not sure what's up.

1800yds for me last night - 200wu, then 5 sets of 200 pull/4*25 swim on the :30, 100cd.

My next meeting with my coach is Tuesday, looking forward to it. I feel like my stroke has improved allot, still need to work on keeping my head down when I breathe and kicking is still a challenge.

Sharon

[Selkie]

I've noticed that it's gotten busier at our pool since the beginning of March but hopefully, will slack off again since the weather is getting more conducive to outdoor activities (fingers crossed).

Got in a solid week---Monday, 2,200 yds and 2,500 yds for Tues, Wed, Thurs, and Frid. I'm going to be leaving for my long Saturday swim in about an hour or so....

Yesterday, a lady was telling me how she started TI classes and so far, she likes it (but she said it's "messed up" her swimming). To be honest, I thought she was a good swimmer before --- I've split a lane/circle swam w/her before---but she said that she's learning TI to get faster. Now I'm thinking again about taking TI lessons. I'm not really interested in getting faster but I would like to be more efficient. She said she'd let me know how it goes.

[GLC1968]

Did 1300 yards today - my longest swim yet. I actually could have gone longer but I was running out of time. I felt great though!

The first 10 laps or so were a bit choppy and difficult but after that, it got better. I forced myself to swim a 100 and then a little later, another one. After that, the 100's almost got 'easy'...it was clearly a mental battle. I just came to the true realization that I can swim 100 yards without stopping. I was actually tempted to try and go further, but I decided to leave well enough alone for one day. ;-)

[Selkie]

Saturday was a day for longest swims! I added 100 yds to my longest---went 4,100 yesterday, amazingly in the same amount of time it took me to swim 4,000 the previous Saturday. Had to circle swim for a bit, too. Today, I'm pleasantly tired/sore.

[kelownagirl]

Joining back into this thread. I've been swimming a lot lately but I'm still struggling at the same pace. I'm doing all the sets and drills from my training plan, my stroke is ok but my pull is weak. Does anyone do upper body weights to improve strength for swimming?

[tribogota]

Main set,
4 blocks of this:

100 kick,
300 free with pull
30 seconds rest

100 kick,
200 free with pull
30 seconds rest

100 kick
100 free with pull
1 minute rest

THe kick is fast, as in this is not social kick, time it if that will help you, should be about 10 seconds slower than your regular 100 free. Your legs should be very tired after only one hundred, thus the pull for free...
The free, faster as the length goes down, so the last 100 should really be fast.

[Pika]

Wow Tribogota! That seems like it would be a great swim workout- esp by the fourth set!!!
Our practice today looked like this
100 swim
100kick
100 pull
x4
Drills 8 x50 Drill as right arm/left arm/kick on side/count strokes

6 x 25 on 40 sec
main set
3 x 10 minutes descending
based on 1500 meter time- I tried to hold a 1:40 pace the whole way but my last 10 min was not descending:(
cool down

[GLC1968]

Did 1350 today. I could have done more, but I was getting kind of bored! I think next time, I'm going to make up an actual plan so that I have something to follow to keep my brain engaged.

I managed 6x100 with 30-1:00 rests between (which is pretty amazing for me) AND I did a 150 without stopping, too!

I'm also very consistent. My 50's, 100's and my 150 were all of the same pace.

[kelownagirl]

I did 2100m today. A lot of kicking sets in there. At the end I had to do 6X50 fast and I think I am finally seeing progress. Times ranged from :57-1:00 which for me, is pretty fast.

I wanna be like you guys when I grow up...

[roadie gal]

2000 yds today. I went out without a plan, and not feeling great. I'm PMSing so bad, and I'm so bloated that I thought my boobs would float away on their own. :(

I did manage to do a 400 yd interval and a few 200s, followed by random 100s and 50s. None of it was fast or pretty, but I just wanted to do the distance. I'll do something more organized today... if I can keep the boobs corralled.

[GLC1968]

Another great swim class last night. We worked on stroke technique some more (and breathing) with some additional alignment drills and things just fell further into place. I truly felt like I was gliding through the water with very little effort. I asked for assessment on my breathing since I felt more drag when breathing to the right than to the left and he said that I looked good both ways and that most everyone just has a better side. I also got complements from a couple of the other attendees that my stroke looked really good. Yay me!

I'm super excited for my next swim to put these things into place again. Seriously....I'm beginning to think that swimming is FUN!! :D