What is it with old people and warm water?

Gotta love it when fat old people tie an inflatable thing around their waste, move their legs in the water and call that a workout. Then they have the nerve to complain when the water is below 80 degrees. The reason I'm so rude, is today's pool was hot! I asked the lifeguard what it was and he said 85 degrees.

So the Layton pool is now succumbing to warmer water now. I'm telling you what no more am I going to do long swims at Layton. It's fine for maybe an hour swim, but for two or more hours, it's to fatiguing to swim in water that starts to cook ya! I'll be going to SDRC on long swims from now on.

Today's workout was cut short. I planned on 10K and ended up doing 6.4K. I just didn't have the energy.

800 (200 drill kick pull swim)
5500- 1000 :30 rest between sets
900 hold pace
800 hold pace
700 hold pace
600 hold pace
500 hold pace
400 hold pace
300 hold pace
200 hold pace
100 FAST!

My pace on these sucked! My right shoulder was not as good as last night, and I pulled a muscle in my neck this morning and I'm stiff on the left side now. I also had to help Cathi clean the church at 9:30, so I figured 6600 yards was good for today and cut it short (Sorry Coach! But I did do an extra 1500 yesterday too.

300 really, really easy. can use equipment

total 6600 yards

Total for this week is 23,500 yards.

I think I'm going to start taking cold baths. I'm getting nervous about swimming in all this hot water that its acclimating me the wrong way!

1500s

1000 - 4-4-4 w/ drill mixed in
4500 - 3x1500 Descending 1-3 (21:27, 21:08, 20:53)
100 warmdown

5600 yards total @ SDRC. The pool is so much colder than Layton. More underwater lights and the pool is so clean. Layton's pool has dirt and junk at the bottom and the water has a foul aftertaste. If I lived in Bountiful I'd be a lucky man. But I'm happy to have it be my secondary pool. In fact tonight, I got another 25 punch card. Which should last me for another six months or so.

Cathi gave my right shoulder blade some serious deep tissue massage last night. It felt like there was a third shoulder blade in there the knot was so big! But tonight's swim was great! I focused on sticking to bilateral breathing and not making my pace go so fast that it forced me to increasing the frequency of my breathing. I stayed loose and focused on a long, extended reach, and keeping my pace relaxed and strong at the same time. It felt really good. I'm hoping tonight she works just for a few minutes more on it. I can tell it's still there, but so much better.

Tomorrow morning I'm doing another 10K yards at Layton.

Coastal Water Temperature

I will be tracking and creating a weekly almanac of temperatures from the California coast. Here are a couple of links to the areas I'll be tracking and recording. Watch for a graph in a couple months once I get some data. The reason for doing this is so that I can really know what to expect (roughly) what water temps are for 2011/2012 when I really get serious.

This is a great site for getting the current water temperatures from San Francisco area -> http://www.wunderground.com/MAR/PZ/530.html
From LA/San Diego Area: http://www.wunderground.com/MAR/PZ/655.html

Where does this data come from? Well it appears to come from the National Data Buoy Center. I don't think someone goes down to the water an plops in a hot tub thermometer and reads it every day. The link for showing all the buoys in the Southwest California area is: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/maps/Southwest.shtml

The reason I'm doing this is to get an idea of a location of where to do some serious training. There are many factors to consider, and one of them which I can monitor from my seat here is temperature.

Coach Pedro told me:

The temperatures vary from year to year. By roughly estimating the temperatures until May, because of the montains runoff, can be in the low to mid fifties. By May the temps start climbing to the mid fifties..By June, or July they may start reaching the high 50's. August September and beginning of October some years goes to 60 or low 60's.

Another major thing to consider is support. I'll need to find a group of swimmers, or another support system. Preferrably something cheap. I can't afford $200 - $300 excursions and only 3 miles at that. I just need either a buddy in CA who has OW experience and either has swum or plans to swim Catalina Island. Who lives along the coast somewhere who already has a group established that swims together and doesn't charge people to join.

Is that me being in dreamland?

600 - 12x50 6 easy warmup, 6 descend 1-3 two times. :55
2400 - 12x200 3:00 strong pace bank

I decided to take one extra minute at the halfway mark for rest. I wasn't feeling so great. I was getting these between 2:40-2:45 and banking by just a couple seconds. I first thought I'll split this into fourths, and then thirds, but was able to put off the extra minute rest to the half way point. The second half went a little better. I was able to bank 15 seconds up to the last set. But my times weren't impressive. 2:45. My shoulder blades are stiff. I really need to get a massage, but can't afford the $30 to get one right now. Hopefully Cathi is feeling charitable tonight and I can get some knots smoothed out.

900 - 12x75 pull with ankle band recovery on 1:10
50 - 50 all out sprint be well under 30 (Landed on 28 something).
150 warmdown.

total - 4100

Got in much earlier and was out of the pool by 8:10. Other than my shoulder blades hurting from the start of the 200's, it was a good workout.

I'm worried about getting cold water exposure. The pool is so warm, and I need to get to the point by July that 55 degree water isn't too big of a deal.

Excuses, Excuses

So last night I stayed up late watching Biggest Loser which Cathi recorded for me. It's my favorite show. Didn't get to bed till about 10:30pm. Slept in a little and got to the pool late. Because of that, I had to cut the workout short because I couldn't be late to work two days in a row. I was late yesterday cause I had to install a new dishwasher in our house to replace the one that died and left blood all over the wood floor in the kitchen, which is warping the wood floor!!!!!

Anyhow so today's workout was only 3000 yards. I had planned on doing 4100 yards, but had to leave early. Here's what I did:

500 warmup
2400 - 3x {400 on 6:00 Pulling, 8x50 on :50}
100 EZ

3000 Yards

Now get to bed at a good time and get up when the alarm goes off instead of hitting snooze a dozen times!!!!

Banking 100s

400 (100 swim kick pull swim)

3500 - 5x [5x100 1:30 bank] [8x25 back on :30] take extra :15 between these
300 warmdown, down breast arms w fly kick back breast arms with free kick

total 4200

Some guy next lane over was holding @1:20 bases on 400 free sets. Pretty impressive. Shared a lane with Shiny. Today's workout was kind of easy. I was banking pretty much on every set. And I shortened the rest time from :30 to :15 in between each major set.

Got an email from Neil Phillips last night. He's the first guy to swim the length of Bear Lake. He was warning me about the sun, the currents and the cold. I'm getting excited for it.

Man I'm beat!

I printed out today's workout and even made notes on the second set with the ladder with expected estimates of each time. When I went inside I noticed I didn't have the printout. I went back to the car tracing my steps and couldn't find it, so its a good thing I studied it out. I did the following from memory:

1000 - 4-4-4 1:30/100 yd base
6000 - 1000 moderate :30 rest on all moderates/strong
800 moderate
600 fast! :45 rest on all fasts!
400 fast!
200 fast!
200 moderate :30
400 moderate
600 strong
800 fast! :45
1000 fast! REALLY FAST! record your time.

On the first 1000 (14:32) last 1000 (14:57) What! I totally kicked it on that last 1000. I'm thinking I did 100 too much and here's why. At around 600 yards into it some stupid lady got in when I was on my way back. I was already sharing a lane so I was just to one side the whole time already. Well I almost ran into this stupid lady, but missed her and kept going. I wasn't about to throw away the most import portion of today's workout. When I flipped and came back I passed her on the left. I think she realized this wasn't the lane to be in and she only did one length and moved over to another lane with another senior citizen. I really pushed it and was very disappointed that I didn't keep better track of my yards. I'm thinking I got close to 13:20 or so if I didn't do an extra 100.

(+100)

100 EZ

1600 - 4x400 descend 1-3 and hold. 3 and 4 FAST! Got 5:19 on the 4th set. I wasn't overly pleased with that time, but I'm telling you my arms were beat from set one! My triceps felt like they were full of lead.

100 EZ

1000 - 400 free ez, 300 kick, 200 back, 100 one arm drills

100 EZ

total 10,000 yards

Today's workout was tougher than Mondays! And this was over a mile shorter. I think when I'm required to push myself faster than my base, it really takes a toll. So maybe that's something I need more of is sprint sets that are longer than 200 yards. I'm happy I got the yards in and while I didn't really give up, the times I got were a little slower than I desired. So I'm a little disappointed.

But this week has been a great week. I've put in 38,300 yards this week. Not too shabby.

Friday evening at SDRC

500 - 200 free, 100 back, 200 (50 swim-kick-drill-swim)
4000 - 4x1000 descend 1-4 1:00 rest between sets (14:37, 14:25, 14:02, 13:25)

I really like these sets. As you can tell I really took the sets seriously in their speed. I really took the first one nice and easy. I should have taken my heart rate after each set! Each set was dramatically more intense than the previous one.

500 - 20x25 down fast, back easy on :30 (got :15-:16 on fast, :19 on EZ)
200 warmdown

total 5200

Looking forward to tomorrow morning's 10K swim. Tonight's workout was fantastic! I was pleased with the last 1000. Tomorrow I have another fast 1000 to do and my goal is to get as close to 13:00 even or under as possible.

Swimming tired

Today's workout was tough. My arms felt like rubber. Heavy and tired. I still went hard, just didn't exceed my expectations.

1000 - 400 swim, 300 kick, 200 pull, 100 drill
1500 - 100 on 1:30, 200 on 3:00, 300 on 4:30, 400 on 6:00, 500 on 7:30
1500 - 500 on 7:05, 400 on 5:40, 300 on 4:15, 200 on 2:50, 100 on 1:25

Doing 100s on 1:25 is tough! I got 1-2 seconds rest is all on the first three, but by the time I got to the 200 and 100 I got no rest, and on the last set was at -2 seconds, so I was a little disappointed, but that's the point of swimming with less and less time, to push yourself beyond your comfort zone! I was huffing and puffing on todays workout!

100 Grandpa swimming (fat boy breaststroke)

total 4100

No shiny today.

Texas 25s

I got to watching a couple different Channel Crossings on youtube and started getting butterflies thinking about my day in the channel. It made me eager to get back in the water so I did another small workout this evening.

I prefer swimming in the morning cause lap swim goes from 5:30 to noon and I have more freedom, but in the evening it's only open 9-10 and I can only swim for an hour max. So that leaves swimming more than 4000 yards out of the picture in the evening. So tonight I didn't focus on distance, but on speed and technique.

1000 - 4x4x4's. 100's on 1:30 and 50's on :45 go strong
1000 - 2 x 500 kick with fins.
500 - 20 x Texas 25's - STRONG! on :40

2500 yards (and some change)

Still planning on swimming in the morning so I better get to bed!

This was supposed to be easy

400 - (100 drill kick pull swim)

2100 - 3x700 pull w/ band relaxed pace on 10:15
1200 - 2x600 medium pace on 9:00
500 - 1x500 strong pace (
100 warmdown

total 4200

Even from the start of the 700 pulls, my shoulders and lats were sore. I think Monday's long swim made me a little stiff. By the time I got to the 500 it wasn't as bad.

I got an email from John Quackenbush yesterday. I asked him about info on the Bear Lake Swim. I was thinking about the double crossing idea. John's friend did a one way width crossing last year. According to his route, there is a pretty strong current going North to South. That is a concern when going perpendicular to it. So John has been trying to convince me to just to a length swim which he says is almost the same as a double width crossing. Considering the constant fight with the current, he's probably right. So I'm thinking through the logistics of doing that long of a swim. 20 miles is a long way! But going with the current should help.

Easy as 123 (as in 12,300 yards)

I ate like a total pig this weekend. I ate junk, and lots of it! I need some major punishment. Although swimming isn't really punishment, but a reward. But I can't think of anything else I'd rather do to work off extra calories consumed.

Here's what I did:

1000 free

1000 - 5 x 200’s pull on 3:00

2000 - 5 x 400’s on 6:00

500 - 9 x 50’s breast, back, back free on 1:00, 50 ez

1000 – 2 x 500’s kick with fins

1200 - 16 x 75's middle 25 only 2 breaths on 1:15

600 - 6 x 100’s free odd – normal, even – drill on 2:00

1500 – 500, 400, 300, 200, 100 free on 7:30, 6:00, 4:30, 3:00, 1:30

500 – 10 to 1 breath 50’s free on 1:00 (bank)

Really easy until I got down to three breaths per 50. Had to take one extra minute on the last 50 so I could do it. Glad I did cause I was able to do the last 50 on one breath (@ 35 yards)

600 – 2 x 300 IM (w/o fly) on 5:00

2000 – 4 x 500’s (first two pulling, second two normal) on 7:30

On the last set of 500's instead of doing 500 straight I decided to do 5 x 100's free descending on 2:00 (1:35, 1:25, 1:21, 1:15, 1:10) That was a great move cause instead of feeling like "blah" with my shoulders aching, I was able to focus on long strong pulls and picking up my pace so I could get a great sprint in at the end. And boy was that fun!

400 – 8 x 50’s drill (one arm drills)

12,300 yards total

Didn't get any shoulder aches until the 2nd to last set (4x500's). Instead of associating that ache as a negative thing, I started to feel a little glad to have it cause its not the kind of ache I get every workout, only on long ones. So the more I have these shoulder aches, and get used to them, the less of an issue it is. This time was less of an issue from last time, thanks to the modification to 100's descending instead of just plugging away slowly.

What a great workout! It took me 3:35 to complete this workout. Now I have the rest of the day to work on other projects.

600s

300 - 100 free, 100 back, 100 choice
3600 - 6x600 on 9:00 (got @8:30 on each)
300 - 100 free, 100 back, 100 choice

4200 yards total

Felt lazy mentally on the 4th set of 600's but I sharpened up and got back into the groove. Good workout.

Since I have Monday off work, I'm going to swim 12K in the morning.

My feelings about 2010 are very mixed. While I'm excited about doing the half ironman in June. I'm eager for it to just be over because I'm ready to fully dedicate myself to swimming. I've really enjoyed the winter so far with all the swimming. I'm worried that in a couple months when I start biking more and running that I'll have to swim less. So because of that concern, I'm looking forward to June to come and go. After that I don't have any triathlons prepared, just open water and masters swimming plans. I think I'll keep it that way. I'm really looking forward to this summer where I plan to swim a double crossing of the width of Bear Lake (around 14 miles).

One Hour Postal swim

Coach JaGal had me swim this. My goal was 4200 yards. I ended up swimming 4255 yards (3890 meters). I had Austin be my counter.

I really felt good the whole time. I had to switch to single sided breathing (alternating which side for each length) at about one mile into it, to get more oxygen for the prolonged swim, but never felt overly fatigued. I really picked it up at the end. I was happy with the swim. I did the best I could.

The pool sure was crowded tonight!

Jacob's first mile

This evening Jacob came with me to the pool. He wanted to earn his Mile Swim badge for scouts. I told him he had to swim non stop. No holding on to the rope, the side, or stopping. He did just that. He did quite a bit of elementary backstroke, back crawl and a little breaststroke. I made him sprint the last 25 yards with front crawl. He ended up doing 36 laps (1800 yards) Talk about getting it right on the buzzer.

While he swam in my lane with me, I did this:

4000 - 40x100 strong pace throughout on 1:30 bank if you want (banked :15 throughout)
150 Warmdown

total 4150

Can anyone even swim that far?

Last Saturday afternoon I took Jacob and his friend, Corbin Harmer swimming. We were talking about the mile swim badge that scouts can earn. Corbin said, "1 mile? Can anyone even swim that far?" I had to chuckle at his simple respect for distance swimming.

Today's swim was fun! Lots of sprint work.
500 - 200 free warmup, 100 back, 200 free
1050 - 3 x {6x50 on :45, 2x25 fly on :30}

Was able to hold the times on these even though I was huffing and puffing especially on the flys. I'm not much of a flyer anymore.

50 easy
600 - 12x100 odds moderate, evens fast! on 1:30
100 easy
200 - 4x50 fast! on 1:40 lots of rest, make them count! (got all @ :30)
500 - 10x50 drill choice on :50
100 - 2x50 fast! 1:40 (:30, :28)

I really wanted to go faster than :30 on the last one, so I went berzerk on the last one. Fun!

300 warmdown

total 4000

What a great workout. I was in the end lane that is like 1 1/2 width of normal lane. Two ladies got in next to me just before the 50 sprints and they were wearing the float belts and just "jogged" in the deep end to the other end. I felt bad cause they obviously didn't appreciate my sprint sets with the waves and splashing. But if you're going to get in the pool, your hair is most likely gonna get wet.

Evening swim

While the boys were at WFTTC I did this:

200 warmup 50 kick-drill-pull-swim
30x200 (5 pull, 5 pads only, 10 descend 1-3 and hold to 5, two times. 5 pull, 5 pads only) pull sets on 2:45, descend sets on 3:15

The first 10 of the 200s with pads were good and I was getting 2:45 with plenty of rest, but after the descending sets I wasn't getting much rest at all. The descending sets were tough cause I was already tired. I didn't get much to eat today and I was low on energy. But I did get them faster. Got the 4th/5th ones right around 2:36-2:38.

total 6200

So I did 10K today including this morning's workout. Not bad.

Good swim

Today I came up with this one. I got in the pool a little later than desirable, but I did finish and didn't make any excuses.

1000 - 4x4x4
1000 - 2 x 500 kick with fins
1000 - 5 x 200's free descending (2:55, 2:50, 2:45, 2:40, 2:36)
500 - 5 x 100's free descending (1:40, 1:25, 1:18, 1:16, 1:13)
250 - 5 x 50's free descending (:45, :40, :38, :36, :33)
50 breast

3800 yards total

Planning to swim at SDRC tonight while the boys are at the club. Also am planning a long swim tomorrow morning. Then take Corbin Harmer swimming with the kids tomorrow afternoon for some stroke practice. So my skin is finally getting some good water exposure!

Anger Management issues

This morning before leaving to go swim I woke up Austin to review his homework. Needless to say he didn't do a big portion of it and he also had trouble locating some of his other stuff. I spent a good hour helping him correct his mistakes and in my frustration and ranting kicked a chair with my steel toed boots on and cut the top portion of my foot with the inside edge of the steel arch. Ouch! I really need to control my temper. Plus it didn't help that I only got 4 hours sleep last night. I was busy creating a massive spreadsheet for scouts.

So today's swim was cut short as I was already seriously late for work, but I didn't want to go to work in the rage that I was in. I had to swim, so I only ended up doing 2700 yards of this prescribed workout:

500 - 10x50 down drill back swim warmup :50-:55

1800 - 6x { 200 fast on 2:45, 100 normal pace on 1:45)
400 - 8x50 kick w/board, odds 20yds 'tombstone', rest normal, evens normal. on 1:20

stopped here, but here's the rest I was supposed to do:

900 - 12x75 (5 fast pace, 1 easy) :10 rest on first one, then have that as your interval, add :10-:15 for the 1 easy one. these are the same pace as the 200s!
400 - 16x25 3 sprint, 1 easy, mix up strokes. :30
100 - 100 warmdown

TOTAL 4100

Castaway Cay

This morning Cathi and I got up and ran the Disney Cruise's Castaway Cay 5K run. It was very windy. So much that they cancelled all of today's excursions on the island. We could still go to the beach, but Austin and Jacob were especially disappointed as they missed out going para-sailing which they had reservations for.

The 5K was easy. My pace was slow and just kept going. After we got the kids ready and had breakfast we headed to the beach. Cathi knew that I was especially excited to get in a good swim. The water was cloudy. The sand was white, and the water about 75 degrees. A little cool for kids who didn't really feel like swimming, but perfect for distance swimming. The water was very choppy because of the waves and wind. But we were in a bay so it could have been worse had we direct exposure to the ocean. We could see waves pounding the barrier of rocks way up ahead.

I got in and swam the perimeter of the swimming area and back. It took me 8 minutes. I figured it was about a quarter mile to do one lap. I did 5 laps and had taken in some seawater once and gagged. The water like I said was pretty choppy, but I kept my arms high on the recover and made sure to turn high enough on my side to breathe as to avoid getting water in my mouth.

Every few laps Cathi would have one of the kids bring a water bottle out to me where I did a couple of mouth rinses and took a drink. I did 12 laps. It took me 1:18. I figured it was close to three miles. With the wind the air temperature was cooler than the water temperature. Not ideal swimming conditions, but perfect for channel training. Although 3 miles is not even scratching the surface.

I was mindful to watch for fish underwater, but I didn't see a thing. It would have been cool. I had my water proof camera available in case there were schools of them. But not so, not a thing.

I'm definitely going to need to do this more often to get used to the seawater. My tongue felt swollen and a bit burnt by the time I was done. Had a fun time though and it met my expectations.