December 2011

I was lucky enough to catch up with U of M Womens Head Coach Jim Richardson on Thursday.  Upon beginning my training at U of M, I quickly realized how valudable Jim is to all the swimmers at U of M.  Over the past few months I've truly valued the knowledge he's shared with me on a variety of training topics.

I chose to break away from the CW written practices to work with Jim today.  He recommended a VO2 Max set he has seen work well for his swimmers over the years.  After determining my appropriate paces using an excel spreadsheet filled with equations, he recommended I swim the 75's on the :41 and the 150's on the 1:28.  I knew those times were reachable but quite challenging.

5 x

25y easy + 75y pace
25y easy + 75y pace
50y easy + 150 pace

Each pace swim is "go on the next :10", which basically means you have around 10-15 seconds rest before you should begin swimming again.  The short rest is quite challenging.  I actually did well on the first set hitting my first 75 on the :41.5 and the second on the :42.  The 150y was harder at 1:30 but still within range of my target.  The 2nd round got predictably uglier.  I knew I would have a hard time holding those times with my training background.  My 75's crept into the :42 and then the :43 second range.  Not where I wanted them to be, but not embarassing just yet.  My 150's were a different story.  I've never been an impressive 200y backstroker, but the 1:36 time within my 2nd round was enough for Coach Jim Richardson to change the set for me.  I enjoy that Jim provides straight talk feedback.  He encourages me when appropriate and when helpful, yet simply explains that "Lets change the 150's for the rest of the set, you'll get there but you're not quite ready for this format yet".  It was an effective method of conveying that I just can't hang with the full set just yet.  He changed the remaining 2 rounds to:

25y easy + 75y pace
25y easy + 75y pace
50y easy + 50 pace

The 75's held steady at :42's and the last 50y pace was first a :24.2 and then a :24.5.  I think I finished up the set well considering my recent training background.  I think overall it was a great set.  I will continue to swim the set and make progress.

I consulted a strength coach recently to develop some core workouts I can do in the free time that's been created by my inability to practice with the team.  I have a 4 day per week rotating workout schedule for abs.  It involves some very difficult exercises.  The "candlestick" is really the only one I've found that I simply can't peform well at all.  It involves extending your torso and legs straight up so you're balancing on your head and shoulders.  You are allowed to grab the bench below you to hold yourself down.  At this point you keep your core and legs straight and SLOWLY lower feet to the ground.  It becomes harder the further away from 90 degrees (vertical) you get.  I get to about 60 degrees and my legs basically drop to the floor.  I give anybody credit who can do this exercise properly.  I have a long way to go!

I've started riding the stationary bike to improve my leg endurance.  Tuesday I did 15 minutes at level 12 maintaining around 100 RPM.  Thursday I only had time for 20 minutes at level 14 maintaining 95 RPM.  I really enjoy the bike, it's a fantastic workout and I believe it can help my kicking endurance.  Although my training situation is annoying, it's giving me a little more freedom in my workouts which is nice.

The sprint group I'm part of avoids aerobic sets like the plague.  Today we had 10 x 200y on 2:20/2:30.  We were able to pick our interval.  Although the set was written as a freestyle only set, I chose to swim it backstroke.  I knew the slowest possible interval of 2:30 would be a challenge since I haven't done an aerobic set in quite some time.

The set went something like this:

1 x 200y white pace @ 2:30
1 x 200y pink pace @ 2:30
8 x 200y best average @ 2:30 

This set got ugly pretty fast.  I started at a leasurely 2:12, then a 2:14, subsequently 2:16, 2:18, then 2:20.  At that point, I was directed to switch to freestyle on the 6th 200 in the set.  I reluctanly made the change and only switched back to backstroke on the last 200.  The entire set was not a proud moment for me.  It reinforced my feeling that I need far more aerobic work in my workout schedule.  I think I would have been better served by a more liberal interval.  I was getting around 10 seconds of rest for a 200 yard swim... not ideal.

Another day being the outcast.  Today was a race pace day.  An entire practice dedicated to elevating yourself to the effort and speed we will experience during a race.  The only space available to me was in the diving well.  Let me explain my training setup for today:

• I'm in the warm diving well, warm water makes you swim slower because your body heat maxes out quicker.  Makes you feel lethargic
• The lights are off above the diving well and yet turning on 50+ 400w metal halide bulbs hardly seems like a worthwhile investment in my 2 hour practice.  Therefore I'm training in dim lighting, more annoying than unworkable
• No backstroke flags.  I'm a backstroker, I need to know where the wall is.  A quick workaround I've frequently used is to just look for the pole which the flags are hung from.  Unfortunately the poles were missing today.  Therefore I need to swim an alternate stroke.
• I'm away from the team and coaches, nobody to motivate me or push me in any way.  I have to keep track of my own intervals and times.  Because of my placement in the pool area, I have a limited view of the pace clocks.

As usual, all of these situations have nothing to do with the coaches.  At this point even letting me train honestly seems like they're doing me a favor.  So to recap, I'm in a warm diving well with no lights, no lanelines, no flags, no other swimmers, no coaches and nobody timing me. I try to be positive but shortly after I enumerated all the distractions and negative points of today's training situation, I packed up my equipment bag and put it away.  I walked over to the head coach and let him know I though it would be better if I just came in alone sometime tomorrow (sunday).  He disagreed and urged me to stay and do the workout.  I agreed, grabbed my bag and did the workout alone, again.

Today I found some strength in totally ignoring the team during the workout.  While swimming I had to go out of my way to view the team. The water level in relation to the deck requires me to lift myself out of the water to check what is happening in the other pool.  I decided that rather than try to check where the rest of the guys were during the practice, I would swim entirely at my own pace.  This had it's benefits and also it's negative points.  I found that I could do the harder workout (Middle Distance) and add a little more rest in since I was doing it backstroke and butterfly, yet I knew I was not pushing it as hard as I would have been if I had been part of the group.  In the end I did get a great workout but still found myself very discouraged about my situation.

I'm very sore from weights and an ab workout I created for myself.  I also did about 5 minutes of a hip flexer workout that a guy who trained with the Navy Seals taught me.  I just demolished my hip flexers, it's really quite painful, which clearly means I need to do it more often!  If this horrible training situation has taught me anything it is to become more organized regarding my own workouts.  To me, that means beginning to gather all the best parts of what I've learned from CW as well as my favorite sets from high school and college.  I know I can train myself well, and although I don't want to, it's really looking like that might be my best option in the immediate future.  I'm looking into options, but I will leverage my own training experience to get through this.

Today I swam separate from the Sprint group, this will be a long 4 months.  It was a recovery workout which ended with a good kick set (below).  I'm beginning to push the limits with my underwaters.  I've learned that this team does not put as much of a priority on dedicated kick sets as I'm used to.  I'll need to work on my kicking within all swimming sets, arguably what I should have been doing for months (or years) now.  I still think there is a great value in kicking sets though.  Today I was going 9 dolphin kicks off each wall, quite an upgrade from my former 5 kick goal.  I'll need to get this number up to around 12.  Not just 12 kicks, but 12 GOOD kicks, which is my other difficulty.  I can kick forever, but actually producing massive propulsion is a different game entirely, a feat I've really only mastered off the start. 

So much to work on, good thing I have the rest of my life to train!  Unlike pretty much everyone I've ever trained with, I can't see myself ever quitting swimming.  Many swimmers get burned out, I just love it more and more.  My current training speed bump is a downer for sure but nothing can stand in the way of my love for the sport.  I'll get through this, 2012 Trials are important to me, but they won't be my last Olympic Trials, or my last important meet.  I'll figure this out and make it work for me.

Today I had a brief meeting with Coach Mike bottom and Coach Mark Hill.  The topic was how to handle the recent situation with my Olympic Training Waiver.  Last week my waiver was denied.  This means that since I graduated in 2003, I could have trained for the 2004 games (which I didn't) and the 2008 games (which I did).  Since I'm going for the 2012 trials, this means they are counting 3 Olympic Games so far.  This exceeds the amount to qualify for the waiver.  The massive downside that I'm not allowed to train with the U of M team.  This wouldn't be a huge deal except for the fact that all the other post grads have received their waiver and are training alongside the college team.  This leaves me training alone for the next 4 months with very few practices I can participate in.

Today was the longest practice of my life, it was 1.5 hours.  Statistically nowhere near the longest practice I've ever done.  My mind was going in circles trying to make sense of the short meeting I had with the coaches immediately before my workout.  Although this isn't the case, I feel like I just got kicked off the team.  Things were going so well and all of a sudden I can have no day-to-day interaction with the team I've grown close to over the past 8 months.

Although the waiver situation is cut and dry, I keep going over it in my mind.  Desperately trying to figure out why the rule even exists.

I feel like I'm back where I started, training alone every day.  I want so much to see the positive in this... like, I'll get to do more kicking! Yet, I know I'll lose so much elsewhere in my training, all the support, the motivation I gain from a group workout and the interaction from the coaches.  It's a sad day in my training.

My knee is 100%, I'll be back in the water tomorrow.

Atlanta was a very relaxing meet for me.  Ironically it was one of the biggest meets of my life with some of the fastest swimming I've personally seen.  With my knee injury both mentally and physically affecting my race, I had no expectations at all for my performance.  The benefit was that I wasn't stressed about my races at all, it was quite refreshing really.  I caught up with quite a few other swimmers I knew at the meet.  While in town I got to see a great friend and also enjoy my time with my teammates.  I took more of a service roll by driving everybody around to warmup and restaurants.  Naturally I took as many pictures and video as I could as well.  It was nice to offer that to swimmers with more important races than mine.  It was a great trip overall.  The warmer weather was a nice change as well.

My 100 back was really as fast as I could have expected it to be.  My knee was in pain for every day leading up to race.  It affected how I prepared for the meet most of all.  The morning of my race (7 days after I injured it), it actually felt quite normal and therefore probably had little to do with my overall time.  I think it mostly just negatively affected the week leading up to the meet.  I basically wrote the meet off as a mini vacation rather than a competition.

I'm back in Ann Arbor and ready to train.  Unfortunatley nobody in my training group swam well, it's alarming to almost everybody.  It's clear something needs to change about our training.  If it's not obvious, I haven't been entirely happy with the things we've been doing in practice lately.  I know I need different training than the other guys.  I don't know what changes the coaching staff has in store for us but I will be taking a more central role in my day to day training.  It will be an interesting hybrid combining the best of what CW has taught me along with some sets I know work well for me.  I'm excited to take my training in a different direction!  The next few days will be interesting from a coach/swimmer point of view since changes for the entire group are obviously needed.

It's good to be home

I swim the 100 back in the morning.  My knee is definitely not as pain-free as I would have hoped, it's been 7 days since I injured it.  Unfortunately I was only able to give it one day to heal, last Sunday.  I really think I just need to take a few days entirely off swimming for it to completely heal.  I'm still limping around.  I probably shouldn't race in the morning but since I drove all the way down here, I will give it a shot.  I would really like to be a 58.xx but I think that's asking a lot out of my body at this point.  I will take that first 50 out hard and try to hold on!