12/18/02

Tough one this morning, I guess after the fun day we had yesterday, we had to pay for it sometime.

900 Warm-up

3 sets of the following:
300 free on 4:15 - I was allowed to do this pull, so that I could kinda cruise it put my focus on the other parts of the set. Being a stroke swimmer, I certainly appreciate this option, as it takes the pressure off trying to put too much effort into something I won't be doing much of. With the BIG paddles on, I just tried to not keep my stroke too long, I was trying to maintain 11-12 strokes per lap, and hold the 100's around 1:15 - turned out to be closer to 1:10 at this stroke rate, but I'll take that.
200 IM on 3:00 - I really had to focus on using my body on the fly to maintain the stroke, especially on the last one. The breaststroke still feels very sluggish. Really trying to focus on a small pull and small kick. When I get tired, I still revert to my old stroke where I really put a lot of emphasis on how much I get out of my kick, rather than how little resistance I can create WITH the recovery of the legs.
100 Kick on 2:00 - basically, tried to maintain my 1:25 per 100 breaststroke kick goal. I just don't want any 100 kick I do to go over 1:25, and hopefully I'll be able to work it down from there. It also certainly kept the heart rate up.

10 x 100 - 4 on 1:30, 4 on 1:25, and 2 on 1:20
I put on my paddles and pull buoy again, and did these 75 free 25 breast. I had some room in the lane where I didn't risk hitting anyone with my breaststroke pull, so I took advantage of the space and tried to save more of my energy to keep the breaststroke a little quicker. Felt pretty good, but as I was gearing up for the last really fast 25, I just plain ran out of steam, and had NO pop to the stroke.

Again, I'm going, the group is tons of fun, and I've got a LONG way to go. I did find out today that the Christmas Party is Saturday, and of course, I'll miss it. So all this work and I don't get to take part in the reward of meeting everyone socially. In time!