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.