November 2009

Over the holiday, my best option is to train with a local High School. I swam around 3,500 yards with them yesterday. It was a solid workout for me with a few challenging intervals on an IM set. Overall it was a good workout. Later in the day I did weights at home and some ab exercises. I feel empowered lately. My renewed interest in serious training along with my personal victory in training on Tuesday by dropping 4 seconds on my animal kick set has left me with a very positive outlook for my future swimming career!

My athletic motivation is on fire lately. I have a totally renewed interest in becoming the best swimmer I've ever been. I have some interesting training ideas I'll be implementing. Ideas I've personally never heard of anybody trying. I find myself thinking about swimming and training just as much as I was leading up to the 2008 Trials. I see the differences in my daily life, I make time to lift, to stretch, to rest and to swim. I'm excited to see what else I can accomplish :)

I had set a goal back in October 2008 to break every single lifetime best time within 12 Months. It was a lofty goal, I knew that going into it. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't achieve my goal. But at the same time, I didn't really give myself enough time to ramp up my training and attack it the way I would have liked. The actual result was that I broke 16 of 23 Lifetime Best Times in 12 months. Still not too shabby. The events which I didn't achieve Lifetime Bests in are:

50 Free SCY (0.03 off)
50 Back SCY (0.56 off)
100 Back SCY (0.99 off)

Well it doesn't take much to tag a lifetime best in the 50 Breast... it was quite an ugly race for me, but I bested my 2007 time by 3 tenths and brought my 30.69 to a 30.32! The rest of my races all felt great but I had mediocre times. Videos on the way.

I'm on day 4 of my renewed interest in swim training. I'm hurting pretty bad, I've been running a short distance each morning and swimming at least 3,000 yards along with vertical kicking. Today I'll do some more dryland and prepare for an easy day tomorrow in the pool leading up to Sunday's meet in West Bloomfield. I can't imagine I'll swim very well on Sunday since I'm a little broken down, but I'll do my best as always. I'm actually gonna try to swim the 50 Breast! It's been almost 3 years since I first swam it and I'm looking to lower my pathetic time of 30.69.

I woke up early again and ran 2 miles to the pool. I was cautious not to push the running too much after my ankle injury. I did some dryland once I arrived and then jumped in for a 1 hour, 3,200 yard workout. I finished up with some vertical kicking and ran back to my car. I'm off to a great start with a renewed drive for bettering myself! I've impressed myself by fitting in swimming around my always busy schedule and no other priorities have suffered!

By the way... These are some COLD mornings to run!

Prior to the Coach Jones service at EMU, I had a chance to practice with a friend (and current EMU swimmer) Tim Everett. The pool staff had just switched the pool from short course to long course, so we modified the intervals accordingly. It turned out to be a much harder set than expected. The long course just tore me up.

I finished the 2200 meter main set of 100's with two "All Out" 100's on the 2:30. As expected, they were pretty ugly, I felt like I was drowning. The first was a respectable 1:07 and the second was a 1:21... ouch.

Although it was expected from people close to the situation, I'm saddened to report that the Father of EMU swimming, Coach Mike Jones has passed away. I've been told he was with his family during his transition and he felt no pain.