Tonight I finally figured out why my coaches have been telling me not to breathe my first stroke off the wall. All these years I thought it was purely a style thing… getting used to not breathing so much. No! There’s actually a reason behind it. And, as it so happens, it coincides with the things I’ve been practicing lately. I’ve had a problem with sloppy flipturns, but I’ve been working on it. Specifically, I’ve been working on flipping over straight, then pushing off on my back and rotating back to normal during the push-off. Well, as we worked on our break-outs tonight (first stroke as you come up from a push-off), Coach Durant showed us why you shouldn’t breathe on your first stroke. You see, your first pull from streamline position should be with the deeper arm while you are on your side. It makes a huge difference. And that’s why this is so funny to me. For years I’ve been trying to not breathe off my first stroke, but I think I’ve been pulling with my shallow arm, completely defeating the purpose of not breathing that first stroke.

Warm-Up (1450):
1 x 400 Free
6 x 75 Free/Back (5 strokes, switch, 5 strokes, switch, etc.)
6 x 100 Free on 1:45 (2 white, 2 pink, 2 red)

Open Turn work (10 x 25)
Break-Out work (10 x 25)

Final Set (400):
16 x 25 Free Sprint on 0:45 (one direction to the feet, the other direction from a dive)

Tonight we worked on sculling. My arms are hurting just thinking back on it. I hope I recover before the Icebreaker Triathlon on Saturday. After all the sculling, we did some more head and body position work in the shallow end until time ran out.

Warm-Up (700):
1 x 400 Free
4 x 75 Free on 0:10 rest

Main Set (1400):
6 x 100 Free on 1:45 (2 white, 2 pink, 2 red)
4 x 50 Sculling (head-forward, hands in front)
1 x 100 Pulling
4 x 50 Sculling (head-forward, hands at hips)
1 x 100 Pulling
4 x 50 Sculling (feet-forward, hands under hips)

Head and body position work in the shallow end

We spent about half the workout tonight working on head and body position in the shallow end of the pool. One of the key things most of us were doing wrong was rotation. Unlike walking, in swimming your arm matches the leg that is moving forward. When your right arm extends, your right leg goes forward; when your left leg extends, your left leg goes forward. It felt awkward at first, but I think it started to help us improve our stroke count by the end. Another thing I need to work on is keeping my head down and not looking forward all the time.

After our work with head and body position, we finished things up with a killer relay. I went in lane 1 with Paul and Gordon (a new guy that is quite fast — swam for Timpview in ’93). All the other lanes had 4 people, so we were fortunate enough to get to go 4 times for every 3 that the others went… and somehow we still won.

Warm-Up (700):
1 x 400 Free
4 x 75 Free/Back (5 strokes free, 5 strokes back, repeat)

Head and Body Position work in the shallow-end

Main Set (400):
8 x 50 Free on 1:00 with fins (counting strokes)

Relays (200):
4 x 50 Free sprint on 1:15

It’s been so warm lately that I have been riding my scooter to work and tonight I rode it to practice. Charmaine’s brothers Rob and David are in town and they all went to Ogden to surf the standing wave. It was a little cold on my way to practice, but it wasn’t bad on the way back. I’ll probably ride it every time Charmaine misses practice (which isn’t often).

We finished up practice with a set of relays. It was a lot of fun, but it really took everything out of us. I guess that’s the whole point. We push ourselves harder when there’s a little friendly competition. I led our lane, followed by Sean, then Mark, then Sabrina, and Dagon brought it home. We each swam two 25s each race, so we had a slight break, but it wasn’t enough… especially by the third race. Our lane won the first race, but we got spanked on the next two. And for that, we don’t get treats next practice, but everyone in the other lane does. We’ll have to find a way to win next time. I don’t know how I’m going to beat Paul though. He is fast.

I split lane 3 with Paul. I could barely keep up, especially on the monster kicking, but somehow I managed to leave on time, every time. If that wasn’t enough, Sabrina and Chelsea were doing the same thing in lane 2, on the same interval, and both of them were killing me too. I guess my kick is really weak. I’m glad I have these guys to push me along.

Warm-Up (1000):
6 x 100 free/back (5 strokes free, 5 strokes back, repeat) on 0:10 seconds rest with fins
1 x 400 pull/scull (75 pull, 25 scull, repeat)

Main Set (1925):
12 x 50 monster kicking on 1:10 (last time my interval was 1:20, so this was a big step up for me)
12 x 100 drill/back (50 vertical ice, 50 full-stroke backstroke) on 1:40 with fins
1 x 125 easy

Relays (150):
2 x 25 free (5 people, each swimming 2 x 25 free)
2 x 25 free, back (1 x 25 free followed by 1 x 25 back)
2 x 25 corkscrew (this made everyone sick)

The days of taking it easy are over. Coach Durant started the night off by telling us his new plan to give us lane assignments. I got placed in the lane with Dagon and one of the new guys (I’m terrible with names). They were both extremely fast.

I watched myself on my flipturns tonight. I think I flipped over straight every time, then pushed off upside-down, and flipped back over after pushing off the wall. I’ve really improved that part of my turn. I’m still having a problem with breathing off the wall. I keep taking a breath before taking a stroke and tonight I realized just how much of a difference that makes. Sabrina was in the lane next to me and we were head-to-head coming into the wall on several occasions, but she always came off the wall much faster than I did. I’ll work on breathing now that I’m feeling better about my rotation.

Warm-Up (1300):
1 x 400 Free
4 x 75 (25 free, 25 back, 25 free) on 0:10 rest
6 x 100 Free (2 white, 2 pink, 2 red) on 1:40

Main Set (2150):
4 x 150 (100 free, 50 back) on 3:00
4 x 25 backstroke drill choice on 0:30
4 x 150 (100 free, 50 back) on 2:50
4 x 25 backstroke drill (kicking on our side) on 0:30
5 x 150 free on 2:45

Drills:
3 x Power Turns

We had 15 people tonight. I can’t keep up with all the names, but it’s great to see so many people enjoying swimming. I spent most the night in a lane (not the Axe Grinder!) with Dagon, Sabrina, and Jeff. We were just doing drills, but we really pushed ourselves. At one point we were more than 100 ahead of the other lanes.

We learned a new backstroke drill tonight called Vertical Ice. I’m not sure I can explain it very well, but here’s my attempt. You take 3 full strokes and then freeze when you have one arm fully extended above your head, the other arm sticking straight up, perpendicular to your body, and you kick 7 times, then repeat. This helps you with your rotation, as you’re supposed to be completely rotated when you freeze. Luckily we did it with fins.

We finished up the practice with some Hammer-Downs without fins, which was a lot of fun. We started at the back wall and pushed off under water, kicking half-way across the pool without coming up. At mid-pool, we began treading water with our arms fully extended above our heads. This is a challenge, especially while trying to catch your breath from kicking your way out there without coming up for air. After treading water for 10 seconds, you put the “hammer down” and sprint at full speed back to the wall. We did that 6 times on 1:30.

I noticed that my “swimmer’s elbow” started to come back after those, and I think it’s related to pushing it as hard as I can on the sprint portion. I’m not in pain or anything, but I can tell my elbow isn’t 100%. I guess it’s good to narrow down the times when it happens so I can figure out what I’m doing wrong that causes it.

Warm-Up:
1 x 400 Free

Drills:
20 x Backstroke flip-turn work
2 x 300 Drill ( 2 x (50 Free, 50 Vertical Ice, 50 Free) )
2 x 200 Drill ( 50 Free, 50 Vertical Ice, 50 Fly drill, 50 Free )
3 x 100 Drill ( 25 Free, 25 Vertical Ice, 25 Fly (full), 25 Free )
6 x Hammer Down ( 12.5 underwater kick, 10 seconds tread, 12.5 sprint freestyle )

Warm-Down:
1 x 75 Free easy

Even without Wade and his son, we still had 14 people tonight. That’s a good group. We even had a full spectrum of skill levels. The drawback to having such a large group is that I can’t tell you all the people that were there tonight. I doubt I even saw all of them. But I can tell you that one of my neighbors showed up. We may even wind up car pooling with him at some point.

For most the night, I was in the Axe Grinder lane with Andrea, Chelsea, and Sabrina. We were doing backstroke drills and I want to point out that the Axe Grinder is not the best lane for that type of activity. Several drills required us to circle clockwise (swimmers usually circle counter-clockwise), which put us going down against the wall, then trying to push off the back wall without hitting the ladder, which is next to the lane-line. This usually meant someone would push off from about the middle while those coming down were trying to avoid grinding their fingers off against the wall (also coming down the middle)… it wasn’t pretty. I saw Andrea and Chelsea collide, and I smacked into Andrea, and I hit someone (still not sure who) when I pushed off once. But we managed to survive.

Warm-Up (600):
3 x ( 4 x 50 sculling and pulling (1/4, 1/2, 3/4, all sculling) )

Main Set (1800):
4 x 50 backstroke kicking one-arm streamline on 1:20 with fins
4 x 50 double-arm backstroke on 1:20 with fins
4 x 50 backstroke “swim the rope” (use the lane-line to pull faster) on 1:20 with fins
4 x 25 full-stroke backstroke on 0:30 with fins
4 x 50 backstroke kicking one-arm streamline on 1:00 with fins
4 x 50 double-arm backstroke on 1:00 with fins
4 x 50 backstroke “swim the rope” on 1:00 with fins
4 x 25 full-stroke backstroke on 0:30 with fins
16 x 25 freestyle kick on 0:45 (no fins)

Every couple months we subject ourselves to a 30 minute time trial. The goal is just to swim as far as you can in 30 minutes. Coach Durant was hoping for a good turnout for the time trials, and he got what he wanted tonight. I believe our final count was 13. We had 3 new people. One of them was a 16-year-old kid that warmed up in the Axe Grinder lane with me and Jeff, but then he moved over with the 2 new girls for the time trial.

I really wanted to know my time at the 400, 800, and 1650 marks. I remember that I looked up at the clock to see my times at each of those intervals. I even remember that I was happy with my times, but I don’t remember what the clock said at 400 and 800, but my 1650 time was 20:48. I guess it’s possible that I was off by 50 (making it a 1600), but I was still happy.

Jeff was in my lane and he was clicking the lap button on his stopwatch each 50. He ended up with 36 laps and I passed him 4 or 5 times. Andrea and Chelsea were in the lane next to us and they were really doing well. I think I only passed Andrea 3 times, and she stayed right with me the last 200 or 300. It was all I could do to pull away as the clock ran down. You couldn’t ask for a better group to swim with!

Warm-Up (2000):
8 x 100 pull (75 free, 25 sculling)
1 x 200 easy
4 x ( 4 x 25 (free, scull, free, back) on 0:40 )
6 x 100 free on 2:00 (2 x white, 2 x pink, 2 x white)

Main Set (2200):
1 x 2100 on 30:00 (time trial)
1 x 100 easy