Day 5: Recap

It was my 5th day training with Club Wolverine Elite.  This was the first day the entire U of M team joined the group.  The evening session began with 40 minutes of dryland training.  Overall I'm on par with everybody with the exception of pushups.  They suspend rings (much like gymnastics rings) two feet above the ground and you prop your legs up on a railing while doing suspended pushups.  The hard part is that the rings move quite a bit so you need to not only lift your body but stabilize your arms from moving.  It's tougher than it sounds.  The rest of the dryland was difficult but not impossible.  I will be feeling it tomorrow!  With the full U of M team in the pool we went from 2 men per lane to four men per lane.  I was pleasantly surprised that a swimmer came up to me and introduced himself.  It was so nice in fact, I thought for a minute I might be getting pranked.  After talking to him for a few minutes, my suspicion was gone and I realized he was just a considerate person.  I talked to him about the team and the training trip to Colorado Springs.  He was a good resource and I appreciated him introducing himself.  Shortly thereafter we got in.

75% of the practice was great, it was difficult but I made all the intervals and held my own versus the other swimmers.  I was in the middle of the pack most of the time but I went 3rd or 4th in the lane since I wasn't familiar with the workout set terminology.  I did a lot of looking around during practice to ensure I was doing the right thing at the right time.  I found myself comparing my speed and form to others around me.  The remainder of the practice was threshold.  Threshold is my one true fear.  It basically represents going all out (in most cases) for long distances (for me).  It tests, and somehow is supposed to improve endurance.  To me, it's just pure hell.  We had 2 x 400's and 4 x 200's.  I made all the intervals by :10 seconds but there was a period of time, about 10 minutes, where I can say for SURE that I was definitely the slowest swimmer in the pool.  I was feeling pretty pathetic for the last 200's.

I pushed through it and felt more pain then I had felt in a while.  My left shoulder began falling apart just like it used to in college.  There is definitely something wrong in there somewhere.  My right shoulder is invincible by comparison.  I never feel pain in my right shoulder.  Any freestyle set over 200 yards/meters makes my left just burn.  It's been that way since middle school, and I'm sure before then as well.  I swam as hard as possible to finish the set.  Since I was an extra swimmer in the lane, I wasn't paired up with anybody in the lanes next to me so it also felt like I was swimming alone for most of the set.  When I finished, I heard two swimmers say "good job Kevin".  It took me by surprise and also immediately made me feel welcomed.  What impressed me is that I only introduced myself to one swimmer, yet two said "good job Kevin" simultaneously.  This means that at some point, one swimmer asked another who I was, the swimmer relayed my name (which he remembered somehow) and then they both congratulated me on a tough set.  That made me feel good, even though I had some slow times.  I'm impressed with how this team supports each other.

The team manager came over to collect heart rate information from us.  We take heart rates for :10 seconds.  Most people reported "25" or "26"... when it came to me, I was embarrassed to report "28".  This means that not only was I one of the slowest swimmers during this set, I was also working the hardest to even achieve what I did.

As nice as it was to swim with the team today, if today was my only tryout day, chances are I would get cut.  I'm still feeling mostly positive about my chances but I have a long way to go to be at the level most of these swimmers are at.