October 2009

I had a chance to hop in with EMU on Friday and swam for an hour and a half. Unfortunately had to get out early for an appointment, I would have loved to stay in for the sprint set they were doing. Today I woke up early to join their Saturday morning practice. It was around 5,000 yards followed by 4x100's MAX on the 12:00. The team was relieved to see 4x100's instead of the typical 6x100's!

I arose extra early today to partake in my first morning practice in a very long time. Lately my 7:30pm-9:00pm schedule isn't working as well as I had hoped and I need to switch it up. Today's practice put a big smile on my face for a few reasons. I took my time swimming my workout, usually I'm rushed to just get in some yardage before I get back to work. With a wide open morning schedule, I was relaxed and swam at my own pace. I worked on speed kicking, pulling and vertical kicking.

I was disappointed to drive all the way to the pool for my evening swim tonight to find it closed for a high school meet. Missed another day this week. I need to plan my workouts much better.

I woke up from a nap this evening with some severe knee pain. I know for a FACT that I didn't hit it in any way recently. As I'm writing this I'm remembering that during work today I remained in a squated stance for a few minutes on end multiple times. Its hard for me to believe something so small could cause this much discomfort but there's nothing else to blame it on.

Shortly after arriving at the Milan High School, they informed us that the timing system was down but they would be hand timing everybody. I was disappointed but I had already come all that way to swim and wasn't about to leave. Apparently the people who pre-registered knew about the timing issue which was the reason for the drastically low attendance at 37 swimmers! Since there's always an element of human error to manual timing, combined with High School girls text messaging while timing, I wouldn't take the times seriously. It ended up being a mediocre meet for me.

I swam a short practice tonight at the Hartland Community Rec Center. I kept it brief since I have a meet in the morning. I topped off my practice with a few trips down the waterslide! I've always wanted to get a waterslide on video and tonight I made it happen with my waterproof camera. I'll process the videos and post them here! Below is a picture of the pool area:

I'm back in it! I've lost a pound each day for the last 4 days. I'm sure partially from the fact that I've averaged 17 hour work days, but I've also been eating plenty and in the pool 1 hour each day. I feel good and I'm happy to be down closer to my ideal weight. I'll be in the pool later and hoping to visit Coach Jones again today.

I have the Milan Masters Meet this weekend, I'm excited to race again for the first time in 2 months!

I had a chance to swim at my hometown Brighton High School pool tonight. As I enter the pool area I'm always greeted with fond memories of my age group swimming days. Although EMU's Jones Natatorium is my favorite pool, nothing quite feels like home like the Brighton High School pool. The few times I've practiced there since I graduated in '99 have been with the high school team in a structured training environment.