A rough Saturday practice

It's been a rough few weeks.  A month ago I was feeling amazing in the water.  My practice times were impressive and my confidence was high.  In the weeks that followed we did exactly what I've been waiting for, we got WORKED!  The last two weeks haven't been incredibly hard, in fact last week was a recovery week.  This week was back to normal but honestly I never really recovered from the 3 hard weeks in a row.  I really need a few days for my body to rebuild.  This feeling comes at a perfect time.  Next week I head to Charlotte for the first time to compete in the Charlotte Ultraswim Grand Prix, a legendary (in a sense) meet.  We will hold off the weights in the coming days and I will plan on resting a day or so before the meet to get ready to race.  Especially exciting is the fact that this meet will offer the 50's in each stroke!  I've been dying to get a time in a 50 fly and 50 back!

Back to my Saturday practice.  It started bad and didn't get much better.  Borderline embarassing.  It was a set with 3 rounds, each different:

Round 1
65m Dive 100 pace @ 1:15
50m Push last 50 pace @ 1:00
25m Dive all out

Round 2
35m Dive 100 Pace @ 1:00
35m Dive 100 Pace @ 1:00
50m Dive 100 Pace

Round 3
35m Dive 100 Pace @ 1:00
1 x Power Rack with full weight
25m Dive at 50 Pace

Most swimmers did pretty well on this set.  I should have taken the day off.  I knew I was broken down but I was optimistic going into the set.  I pushed myself as much as I could but there wasn't much left in the tank today.  My first 65m felt like I was working way too hard.  My feet flipped at a 28.8.  not an entirely horrible split but it took a lot out of me.  After a 15m kick out, we cruised back to the wall for our 50m "bring it home" swim.  This last 50 meters is meant to test how you will bring your 100 meter race home.  I've never been good at finishing 100 meter races and today it showed.  I had almost nothing left when I STARTED the 50 meters.  I touched in a very sad 32.5.  I knew it was going to be slow, but I'm pretty sure some of the breastrokers beat me on that one.

After that sad start to the set, I decided to switch it up to butterfly.  Last weekend that theory worked great for me.  My backstroke was feeling bad, I changed it up and swam very well.  It didn't work as well this time around.  My butterfly felt pretty good the first 35m but was a real struggle on the second 35m.  By the time we got up on the blocks for the timed 50m I knew I might be doomed.  Other swimmers were :27's, my teammate next to me was a 29.5 and I touched in a 30.0, probably the slowest fly (dive) split of the day.

The third round was just as messy.  I stuck with butterfly on this round.  Lucky for me the 35 dive was not timed but I felt as though I held it together for the most part.  I quickly strapped into the power rack and pushed off.  I was pulling the entire rack, somewhere around 100lbs.  It felt like it took forever, probably only about 10 seconds, but they were loooong seconds.  As soon as I finished the rack I hopped up on the blocks to swim my last 25m of the day.  I finished in a 11.9 against my teammates 11.5. 

At the end of the day, I'm not sure I beat anybody in any stroke.  I have good days in the pool and bad days.  I finished with a smile on my face and enjoyed practice but it was a bad day for my times.  I need some rest, some food and a few days off.  I look forward to the meet next weekend and resting a tiny bit.