Happy Birthday swim for Isaac

 This morning when I showed up to swim, the little white board on the front desk showed the water temp at 77 degrees.  I said "Woah, it cool today.  Love it!".  They chuckled.  Probably most people dislike when the water temp is cooler than normal.  I really do love it.  

Proud to swim in the best pool in Davis county.... Layton Surf N Swim!

Today is my son Isaac's birthday.  He turns 21 today.  So I added a set that involved 21....  In fact this

Isaac when he got a bike for his birthday as a kid.

morning when I woke up, I noticed he had texted me about swimming with me in the morning.  That would be so awesome!  He needs to get a suit, but hopefully he starts swimming with me!

Here is the workout:

Warmump: 400

• 400 IM Easy

Main Set: 

• 21 x 100's
• 4 IMs
• 4 kick with fins and snorkel
• 4 backstroke
• 4 Pull on 1:30 (got under 1:20 on these)
• 4 breast
• 1 one arm fly
• 1650 snorkel free - loved this!

Cooldown:

• 400 IM easy
• 50 easy

4,600 yards total

Then treaded with the 10 pound brick for 45 second.  Man that was hard!  I was considering another set, but just preparing for it, started cramping. 

Early Start

 Got up earlier than normal thanks to the dogs.  It was a very cold ride on my scooter to the pool.  Below freezing.  Good thing I bundle up well. During the end of today's workout, I went above and beyond the prescribed amounts because I was feeling so in the zone with the snorkel swimming.  Here's what I actually did:

Warmup: 500

• 300 easy
• 200 kick

Main: 3,700

• 10 x 100's pull free strong (1:20 and under on everything), on 1:45
• 400 kick 
• 2 x (200 free, 100 IM, 50 back, 100 breast)
• 1400 snorkel free (prescribed 1200)

4,200 yards total

Went home and created a Northridge swim team calendar to keep all the meets in a calendar format that is sharable.  Good day today.

Late Start

 Last night was Halloween night so I got to bed a little later than I'd like.  Had a hard time waking up.  But I eventually got my big butt out of bed.  I then had to go digging around to find my winter motorcycle gear.  It's below 40 degrees in the morning and I needed all my winter gear this morning, so I finally got it all together, and then noticed Oliver got up early and went to a friends house using my truck which has my swim bag in it.

So I went to get the swim bag from the truck which fortunately wasn't far, and made it to the pool at 8:15am.  Here's the workout:

Warmup:

• 300 easy

Main Set:

• 1000 Snorkel Free
• 400 kick with fins
• 4 x 300's pull - first 2 large paddles, second 2 smaller paddles on 5:30
• 10 x 100's - odd IM, even Free FAST!  Get under 1:20 on all.  Got 1:12 on the last one. 

Cooldown:

• 100 recovery backstroke

4000 yards total

The last 100 on that kicked my butt.  Worked hard, and felt great!  Got out at 9:55am.  Only 5 more minutes and I would have been kicked out.  Perfect timing. 

Halloween Swim

 Today I swam:

Warmup

• 200 easy 

Main:

• 4x50s free on 1:00
• 3x100s IM on 2:15
• 4 x 200s pull on 3:30
• 2x300s kick with fins 
• 400 snorkel free
• 2x300s pull
• 2x200s build on 3:30 
• 2x200s IM and free with costume
• 100 easy

Total: 4000 yards

Here is a little video of my shark costume swim: 

Increasing to 4K

 Today I planned out a slightly longer workout (10% increase):

Warmup:

• 400 Easy
• 400 Kick with fins

Main Set:

• 2 x (
• 400 IM, 
• 100 Easy,
• 300 -  4 x 75s Rolling IM, 
• 100 Easy,
• 200 Free Pull,
• 100 Easy
• 100 Breast/kick
• 100 Easy)

Cooldown:

• 400 Pull with Snorkel

4,000 yards total

Kinda felt Meh today. My shoulders felt pretty stiff.  Gonna take tomorrow off.  Got up early.  It felt good to complete 4000 yards before I even got into the pool on normal days. Was in by 6:40 and got out a little after 8am.

Being the bird of the water

 Today's workout: 

Warmup: 700

• 300 Easy
• 400 IM

Main Set: 2600

• 500 Snorkel freestyle
• 3 x 200's Free descending (3:20, 3:00, 2:46)
• 2 x (200IM, 100 Kick, 50 fast)
• 8 x 100's Desc 1-4 on (1:32, 1:28, 1:23, 1:17) on 1:40

Cooldown: 300

• 300 Snorkel freestyle easy

Total: 3,600 yards

Tread :30 with brick completely above water.  Goal was to do this 4 times, but only 10 seconds into the second set, my legs started cramping.  Need to do this more often, or do it near the start of the workout.  

• Today's Monday Motivation is the idea that we as swimmers, are the birds of the water for aquatic life.  They are looking up at their sky, and may be lucky to one day find someone up there at the surface swimming, looking down at them.  We live above the water in a realm that they can't survive in.  When we swim, we are passing through a barrier into their world.  We are the birds to them, which they may be in awe of. Be an awe-deserving bird.

Dude, don't be ashamed!

Marshy woke me up with his dog whine to go out at 6:20, so I got out of bed at 6:30 and got to the pool a

little early.

Warmup: 400 

• 300 easy
• 100 kick no board with fins

Main: 2800

• 3 sets of rolling 75's IM (fly/bk/br, bk/br/fr, br/fr/fl, fr/fl bk) on 1:30
• 1000 Free with snorkel (loved this)
• 3 x 200's pull on 3:00 (Got all on 2:40)
• 6 x 50's free - odd sprint! (:33, :33, :32) even active recover breast stroke

Cooldown: 400

• 200 IM easy
• 200 free easy

3,600 yards total

Last night I had a dream that I was asked to share a brief discussion on my religious beliefs at a MASSIVE event that Salesforce puts on called "Dreamforce".  I don't know why I was asked to do this, but I felt like it was a giant set up.  This would not be a topic at Dreamforce, but I definitely didn't feel saying "No" was an option.  Despite Salesforce having an equality group "Faithforce", I still felt like the company in general when I was working there was filled with a bunch of left-wing nutballs. And along with that a certain level of worldliness and cynicism. 

I could bear my testimony.  It's not like it was going to be a two-way conversation where there would be any kind of disputation going on.  Anyway, I was super nervous about the whole thing with the expected audience.  I woke up before I was able to deliver the address.  But was disappointed in my initial reaction. I should have been stoked to have been given that opportunity.   At some point in time every single person will know Jesus and the reality of his deity, mercy, and love.  Why was I scared to share that belief on such a huge scale?

Coaches Coin Concept

 One wonderful thing about swimming that I definitely don't experience while playing pickleball is that swimming allows me to meditate and think while I'm doing it.  When I'm playing pickleball, my mind can't wander and think calmly and conceptualize stuff.  You're completely focused on every aspect of the game.  Swimming laps is different.  I can think and meditate, and I absolutely LOVE that!

Today I was thinking it would be really nice to give all my swimmers at the end of the season a "Coaches Coin".  I've designed it and sent on the idea to OakCoins in Kaysville which will give me a proof and a quote.  I'm pretty excited about it. 

Here's today's workout:

Warmup: 700

• 300 easy
• 8 x 50's IM Stroke, Free

Main set: 2600

• 2 x 5 x 200's
• 1st Kick with fins/snorkel
• 2nd IM
• 3rd Freestyle
• 4th IM
• 5th Pull
• 600 Snorkel freestyle - It's these long sets where my mind really is able to go.  I miss doing long sets like this! I need to do more of these.

Cooldown: 300

Total 3,600 Yards

100 free sprint test today

 This morning I did the following.  A bunch of 400s:

• 400 Easy
• 400 Kick with fins/snorkel
• 400 IM
• 4 x 4 x 100's 
• 1st set of 4 free strong (1:28-1:29) on 2:00
• 2nd set IM on 2:15
• 3rd Free - kick with fins/board - no snorkel
• 4th  set 1st/3rd one sprint (1:10, 1:09), 2nd/4th free fingertip drag drill
• Very please with the 1:09 especially with the in water start, and I'm wearing a drag suit. 
• 400 free pull snorkel no fins (Freestyler paddles)
• 400 cooldown

3600 yards total

I acknowledge today that my body fat percentage must be prettay dang high.  I can float without even moving.  It's not like I'm in the GSL.  I feel good, but my fat amount should allow me to do some decent cold water exposure stuff this winter.  Gonna go fill up the ice pool in the back.....

Early Morning Swim

 This morning I took Cathi to the airport to catch an early flight to Houston to see Charlie. I dropped her off at 4:45am, so I drove straight to the pool afterward.

Warmup: 600

• 300 Easy
• 300 Kick with fins/snorkel

Main: 2400

• 2 x 5 x 50's finger drill free (start with 4 fingers, then 3, then 2, then 1, then fist swim) Slow but sure makes you glad you have fingers.  Amazing how much propulsion you get just having fingers.
• 2 x (200 IM, 50 kick, 200 Pull)
• 10 x 100's free on 2:00 Build

Cooldown: 300

Total: 3300

When I got out it was 6:45.  Most days that's when my alarm goes off and here I am getting out of the pool at that time.  Awesome!