Fantastic Swim today.
Got in and warmed up with some spear switches and some strokign 25 yards. Spent a solid 30 minutes or more on stroke thoughts and some drills. First 10-15 minutes stroke thougths – separating water molecules, and slow handfuls of pudding. totally different feel with each one, yet both are important. Did alternating easy 50s of each one.
Then I knew I needed to start focusing on recovery, so I did an untimed progression until I was done of:
Tracing recovery rehearsal, right, then left, then both
25s of each, repeated a few times
Then swing drills, first with totally submerged arm. This was wierd because I was going so slowly but it really helped solidify the feling and position of the arm in recovery.
Then progressed to forearm in teh water, wrist at the surface, fingers at the surface ,then ear hops.
Then I did a few 25s of just slow wide recovery with ear hops. About then a swimmer with fins got in my lane, but turns out she could swim straight so it wasn’t a big deal.
After my stroke was feeling nice, I spent some time trying to decrease stroke count wiht sloooooowwww hand recoveries. Got down to about 12 and felt real unbalanced, so I went back up in 25s by 1 stroke each time.
Met a super friendly guy who chatted with me at the end of every 50, so I lost a bit of the feel, but that was OK. Then we raced for 1 50 and I felt pretty good that I could keep up well, he beat me by a half stroke, and I did about 20 strokes on each 25.
A bit more stroke work, then this TT workout:
Set at 1.20s
4×25
3×50
2×75
1×100
3 beeps for pushoff, rest 10 beeps between each set. Tried to keep SC at 16. Crept up to 18 for the end of teh75s and 100s, but rather than getting frustrated like I did in Coronado, I just used it as information. Identified that part of the increased stroke count was poorly timed turns and pushoffs. Remembering Mike Pigg’s comment that when he’s in the pool he tries to be the best pool swimmer he can be, I just tried to refine my open turns, push off in tempo and keep up with the beep. THis thinking helped keep me from being self-judgemental, which really helped my attitude overall. It became a lot more fun to see how I was improving in that specfic aspect….and keeping my stroke counts reasonable.
After a rest and a chat with Rod, I did 10×50, increasing the TT from 1.21 to 1.30, tried to lower stroke count. I was 16/17 for most of the set, but got down to 15 1/2 near the end.
I definately have a sweet spot in between those 2 tempos right now. SC of 16 still feels really good during my stroke work, but I’m not quite sure what my rate is. Something I’ll enjoy figuring out.
I finished with a 100 IM that felt really good, even the fly. A wide breaststroker got in my lane then (the flipper lady had left), and so I called it quits.
Enjoyed talking with Rod, who complimented my stroke and my training “regimen” when I explained the tempo trainer to him.
Saturday’s at 1pm, the JCC pool isn’t crowded, but it became so by 2pm
