Group Swim Training - Mar 25

I was looking forward to swim training today with the team, and actually felt pretty good, considering I had done a mile yesterday during my own exercise session. Unfortunately Murphys Law have a way of playing themselves into my sessions more often than not! I discovered since the last time I had done my laundry, my swim trunks had a tear in them! What a way to blow fifty bucks! :(

Since those were special tri-shorts, one can only find them at specialty sports shops, so I chose to drive to the nearest one in Sterling Heights. Upon arriving there, Murphy hit me again, since they had all the sizes except the one that I wanted. Reluctantly I drove over to their Royal Oak store, to pick a up a pair that they are had verified was available and then drove to Bloomfield for my training. Suffice to say, I was late and people had already finished their warm ups and were moving on to their main exercises. I did a super fast 200 yd warm up (8 laps), and then we had time trials for doing 1/4 mile stretches with 45 second breaks in between. I was having some trouble breathing properly, for some reason there was water going into my mouth everytime streaming from my head that I came up for air. I could not figure out what was happening, till I finished the warm up and realized that the goggles were somehow off and gathering water which would slide down my face into my mouth everytime I rotated for air. Once I fixed that, things seem to go somewhat smoother. However what I did notice was that the water was really choppy and I had to compensate for shorter breaths than usual.

The second 1/2 mile I timed at 9:30 secs, and the following consecutively at 10:30 & 10:30, which is somewhat slower than last time, but atleast I am consistent. The main reason was that we were taking breaks. Had I kept on going consistently, I would have stayed in rhythm. I also realized I got into a rhythm during the last 1/4 mile, where my breathing was consistent with my rotation and there was no water going into my mouth anymore. I did use my shoulders a lot more because they were sore everytime I finished a set. I still need to work on my form, but I think I am pretty much there with the stamina.

We wrapped up with some drills and a 50 yd cool down that I did lying on my back in the water. I realized I could consistently breathe and keep going, which might be a plan-b if something goes wrong during the race. The 50 yd cool down I did at race speed, but I realized it was not as fast considering I was tired and my strokes felt heavy.

The total yardage covered this week was quite good:

warm up: 1 X 200 yds (8 laps)
sets: 4 X 400 yds (72 laps)
cooldown: 1 x 50 yds (2 laps)
drills: 1 x 200 yds (8 laps)
fast lap: 1x50 yds (2 laps)

Total: 2100 yds (92 laps)

That is significantly more than actual race distance, where I will be doing 1650 yds (0.9 miles or 66 laps), but the idea is to build endurance so that when we exit the water, we have energy in reserve for the rest of the race. The more we practice on our technique, the lower the times will be as well as the amount of energy we spend. I still need to go find a coach to help me out with my technique in the next week or so.

My knee sprain still hurts, but hopefully with the knee brace that I will start using tomorrow while running should help out. Stay tuned to find out what happens! ;)

The idea was to do them at race speed and beat the time I had done last week during the time trials. Since I was so much in a hurry to catch up, I never took the time for the first 1/4 mile stretch that I did.