Saturday Swim

Warm Up:

• 5 x 100 easy @ 1:30
• 200 kick

Main Set:

• 12 x 200 @ 2:55 (aerobic pace; 80% effort)

Finishing Up:

• 300 kick
• 5 x 100 pull @ 1:30
• 50 easy
• 4 x 50 @ :55 alternating butterfly/freestyle
• 50 cool down

I was real stiff after my warm up.  I don't swim much in the mornings, and it's hard for me to jump straight into the pool and get going these days.  My lower back stiffened up this particular morning, but I survived, and at some point around halfway through my main set, I started swimming a little better.  Not faster, per se, but more comfortably and with less perceived effort.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the entire workout was keeping things cool and controlled at the start of the main set.  My friend Ben and I have been swimming a lot together of late, and a goodly amount of that has been shorter, more competitive reps--still 2400+ yards, but 100s not 200s.  What I've learned is that I can hold a good, working, tempo-type pace for maybe 1700 yards, and then I'm gonna pop.  So today's goal was to not do that, to swim a longer, more even, more aerobic set, and do it comfortably.  I was partially successful in that I swam stiff but at about the right effort level for the first four or five reps, and then I loosened up and swam more comfortably--but at about the same pace (~2:33)--for the next five.  After that, I started getting tired and had to really work just keep my stroke from coming apart, but by that time I was approaching 3000 yards total, and anyway, I still managed to gut it out and keep my splits right at or just a hair above 2:35.

Kicking was fine.  I kicked dolphin kick as a way to work my core/abs, and I pulled without issue--if slowly (~1:20/100).

Of the last four working 50s, I really only worked the two butterfly reps, going :34 and :35, respectively.  That's not too bad at the end of a workout, but it's also nothing to write home about.

That's it.  The Greenwich Point One-Mile Swim is in July, and if I'm gonna race at all this year, it's gonna be there.  I'm still not married to the idea of racing (or not racing), so at this point, I'm just taking it a day at a time.

Also, if you're wondering, I weighed in at 193.0 lbs after practice.  You figure I lost maybe 2 pounds of water weight in the pool, and I'm basically holding steady at 195 for the season.  That's a pound heavier than I was two years ago, but it's not exactly bad or anything.