Room for Improvement

I’m trying to consolidate my posts so it’s less posting on here of my daily activities. Plus that’s kind of, well, weird for me too on one hand. I had a couple of great Masters workouts on Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday, Coach Cindy gave me some tips on kicking to use my entire leg instead of just my ankle and feet. She said that when I kick, I should feel it through my entire leg from the hip joint downwards. I tried some of what she said and noticed a difference. I am VERY appreciative of her also since I like to stay after 7 AM to finish the workouts, which she accommodated me. I ended up moving into one of the “middle” lanes and met a couple of really cool girls who joined me on where I was in the workout set. When I think of “pulls”, I still think of one girl who yelled out “PULL BABY!” 🙂

The only problem with pulls is that when I do them, I pull HARD. Some instinct in me which is probably why I pull almost as fast, if not faster, than when I do a regular swim. It’s probably a reason why I look like I lift weights too when I don’t.

Here’s Wednesday’s Masters’ workout (btw, 37 F when I entered the water and 35 F when I exited):

Interval	Description	Subtotal	Total
1 x 500	warm up	500	500
1 x 100	swim	100	600
1 x 100	25 kick / 25 swim	100	700
6 x 50	swim	300	1000
5 x 100	swim (ascending)	500	1500
1 x 200	pull	200	1700
4 x 50	kick	200	1900
4 x 100	swim (ez / fast by 25’s)	400	2300
1 x 200	pull	200	2500
4 x 50	kick	200	2700
1 x 100	swim (easy)	100	2800
3 x 100	swim (ez / fast by 25’s)	300	3100
1 x 200	pull	200	3300
4 x 50	kick	200	3500
1 x 100	swim (easy)	100	3600
2 x 100	swim (ez / fast by 25’s)	200	3800
1 x 200	pull	200	4000
4 x 50	kick	200	4200
1 x 100	swim (easy)	100	4300
1 x 100	swim (fast	100	4400
1 x 200	cool down	200	4600

On Thursday, we had Tom, the head San Mateo Masters coach. He watched me swim (as there weren’t a lot of people who showed up I think) and said that I’m “all over the place” when I swim and really need to start working on my stroke. I contacted Jamie to see if I could schedule a stroke lesson with him and he said that he’d love to (awesome!) so I can’t wait for that. Tom said that for long distance swimming, my upper body should be relaxed with most of my power and speed coming from my lower half. My arms were still sore from all the pulls from the day before so I didn’t make much effort on any of the speeds we were supposed to do on Thursday (anything really labeled “fast”). Tom had given me some tips on how to do a proper crawl stroke, which I tried to focus on that since he told me about it. I’m really looking forward to getting some time in the pool with Jamie to work on my stroke. I noticed even with Tom’s advice that when I tried it, my times were still on the 2:00 for 100 yards, but it was less effort to do so. In reality, I’m kind of embarrassed to have to work with someone on a stroke lesson after all the time that I’ve been swimming so there is a very short list of people that I’d be comfortable working on my stroke with and Jamie is one of them.

Thursday’s workout was (mid 30s temperature-wise again..wtf?):

Interval	Description	Subtotal	Total
1 x 500	warm up	500	500
4 x 25	drill	100	600
4 x 25	DPS	100	700
4 x 25	swim	100	800
2 x 50	swim	100	900
1 x 50	kick	50	950
2 x 50	swim	100	1050
2 x 50	kick	100	1150
2 x 50	swim	100	1250
4 x 50	kick	200	1450
6 x 75	pull	450	1900
1 x 100	swim (easy)	100	2000
2 x 100	swim (medium)	200	2200
3 x 100	swim (fast)	300	2500
6 x 200	swim	1200	3700
1 x 100	swim	200	3900
1 x 200	swim	200	4100
1 x 300	swim	300	4400
1 x 200	swim	200	4600
1 x 100	swim	100	4700

In other news, I got the login for my training portal where Jamie will be posting my workouts and whatnot. I got the login email along with a note from him saying that training workouts will start on January 1st. That works great for me so we can both get the holiday craziness over with.

I’m looking forward to 2013. I am pushing myself beyond my known limits physically, emotionally, and mentally. I’ll come out of 2013 having grown a lot in all three areas. I’m looking forward to it, but know that I have A LOT of work to do also. An 11-mile swim as a first open water swim is NOT normal and many people do only 1 – 3 miles, which doesn’t really require any kind of training. This swim is something that I WANT to do though. I’m lucky that I have awesome coaches and friends to help me along the way too. When I hit the water on August 17th, I’ll be for the most part alone with my support boat. The support boat will help with knowing that I’m not out in the water alone, but all of the determination and drive is going to have to come from me. They’ll help me get across by supplying food and nutrition, but they’re not going to help me actually swim it. If I can’t do it for whatever reason, they’ll be there to pick me up, but that’s it. I can’t do it without them, but most importantly, I can’t do it without me.