Thank you Saline High School!

Due to a Water Polo Tournament, our post grad group was unable to train at U of M today.  Todd Brunty (Legendary EMU swimmer and Saline Head Coach) was nice enough to loan his pool to us for a few hours!  I was impressed how thankful our group was to Todd.  It made me proud to be part of a gracious and humble team.  Coach Brunty seemed to enjoy having a group of talented coaches and athletes in his pool as much as we appreciated the chance to practice there.

I arrived late to the pool due to an GPS error.  It seems that since the middle school took over the location of the old high school, at least half our team showed up in the wrong place.  I find it odd that the new Saline high school is about 8 years old and somehow this is still an issue.  Fun fact: while I looked for the build date of the school, I found out Saline High School is the largest high school in Michigan.  Once I got some phone directions from Todd, I eventually showed up at the right place and got changed for the workout.  I greeted Coach Brunty and stretched with the team for a few minutes.  During warmup the coaches flip flopped on what workout I should swim.  I had glanced at the workout and it seemed as though either would be good for me.  The sprint workout was definitely easier, and my "I can do anything" attitude steered me toward the MD workout.  When the coaches asked me my preference, I responded that I'd prefer the MD workout.  They supported my decision, perhaps reluctantly.

After a 25 minute warmup, we were ready to start the main set.  As a spoiler, I entirely underestimated the "300y white" portion of the workout.  This just ruined my set.  I chose the wrong workout.

The rounds went something like this:

300y white @ 3:30 + 6 x 50y @ :45

each round added more distance to the first portion and subtracted the number of 50's while adding to it's interval.  It looked manageable at first.  I was wrong.  I never swim "300y white" on a 1:10 pace backstroke.  That's not an easy interval for me.  Shortly after I started I switched to freestyle which wasn't much of an improvement.

I was last finishing the 300's each time and last on every single 50.  Neither was a surprise, especially since I was the only person swimming backstroke while others swam freestyle.  Still, my times were horrendous.  I never kept track of the 300's but the 50's were ugly.  I was pushing 28's to 30's on each one.  Very slow for me, bordering on embarassing.

As the set went on, I got slightly faster, dipping into the low 28's on the 4 x 50's on :50 seconds.  After some yellow pace swimming and a 300y white we had just 3 x 50's left.  I was finally ready to swim.  The coaches recommended "dive" on these which would have meant a backstroke start for me.  I declined because I wanted a consistent time compared to the rest of the "push" set.  The freesytlers were going :22's and finished with a :21, not too shabby for MD.  I actually finished the set quite well since it was a 1:05 interval.  Amazing what a little rest can do.  I went from :28 mid to:

#1 :25.2
#2 :26.1
#3 :24.4

I was proud of my last 3 swims considering what I had just been through.  It was a rough week for me.  I broke out of my mini taper from London, recovered from a wacked out sleep schedule, lifted hard twice and had some difficult ab workouts to swim a 24.4 from a push.  I'm so glad to have that week behind me and relax a bit this weekend!