It's been a while!

Apr
26

It's been a while!

Posted by Kevin Doak on Thursday at: 12:08am (April 26th, 2012)
It's been a while! It's been a while!

I'm happy to report that my training lately has been phenominal!  After a solid 6 months of exclusively SCY training, the switch to LCM training has been fantastic.  After a spirited speech by head coach Mike Bottom a few weeks ago, there was a significant increase in workload.  It was just what I needed to feel better about my training!

Last week the London 2012 clock broke the 100 day mark.  It struck me that a year ago at the 2011 Eric Namesnik Grand Prix I was staring at 470 days.  Time flies.  The day I took these pictures we were practicing when the clock turned from 94.00.00.00.0 to 93.23.59.59.9.  While we were swimming a structured warmup, everybody in the pool stopped.  I was confused until I saw everybody looking at the countdown clock with 20 seconds left in the 94th day.  As we waited for the clock to zero out I looked around at everybody staring at the clock and reflected upon this amazing thing I was part of.  When the clock broke the zeros, everybody cheered.  It was a really cool moment.  I thought to myself, this might be a once in a lifetime experience.  Here I am, in the best shape of my life, training with some of the fastest swimmers on the planet, cheering at an Olympic countdown clock.  Wow.  This really is an amazing time in my life.

I'm regretful that I haven't had time to post more in the last few weeks simply for the reason that I've had some of the best training stories of my life.  I've had some of the best and worst practices of my life.  I've had moments of personal glory leading kick sets against Olympians, only days later to find myself not only at the back of the lane, but probably the slowest swimmer in the pool.  All these experiences were amazing learning experiences for me.  I've felt pain in the last few weeks I haven't felt since last summer.  The long course meters training is an entirely different game and I love the challenge.

I've had some great LCM sets lately:

Race pace 3 x 100m @ 15:00
Backstroke - 59.1 (fastest practice time ever)
Backstroke -  1:01.4 (still darn good for practice)
Backstroke -  1:01.7 (I held onto it, not a bad 3rd race in 40 minutes)

Backend 100 Speed - 3x [broken 100m and then push 50m for time]
Fly - 27.7
Fly - 27.9
Fly - 27.7 (fastest push time ever and it was 20 seconds after finishing a broken 100m)

"Get out swim" which was a 50m kick for time... time to beat 31.7.  (I was assigned the fastest time to beat of the group) 
50m kick with a board from a push - 30.6 (lifetime best kick with a board from a push) 

There are so many more stories I can't remember but I've really been enjoying my training lately.  The team is great, everybody is swimming well and there have been some really impressive times from our race pace sets.  I'm excited to see what our team can do with some great LCM training!

Hi Luhny.

|