February 1, 2010 Morning Practice

I usually miss the "February Fitness Challenge" with my friends in Annapolis.  I miss it typically because the kids I'd be working with are starting their taper for the championship meets.  This year, however, I'm able to at least hang with my friends, and swim with people my own age... which is really becoming more fun.  While I won't be going for the upper reaches of what some of the swimmers will be shooting for (I think last year it was over 300,000 yards or more), I'm simply going to try to be consistent with the group as much as possible... taking into consideration all the other stuff I have to do.  So here goes, and thanks Al for a great start.

1,000 warm-up
I split it up as a 400 swim, 200 kick, 200 pull, 200 swim.

Main Set:
This entire set was on the 1:20 / 100 interval, so you had to really think heading into the odd distance swims:
300 on 4:00
275 on 3:40
250 on 3:20
225 on 3:00
200 on 2:40
175 on 2:20
150 on 2:00
125 on 1:40
100 on 1:20
75 on 1:00
50 on :40
25 on :20
100 easy kick

Main Set #2:
This is the exact same set as above, only this time pull.
The goal this year is to learn to swim smooth and easy, but if I'm going to put paddles on, I'm going to focus on the catch, using what I'm learning from the great freestylers we work with, and applying power.  Because of this, I decreased the intervals in this part.  All are on the 1:15 / 100 unless it's an odd number, then I'd round down to make the interval faster.  It didn't always work just right, but I think I got close.
300 on 3:45
275 on 3:15
250 on 3:00
225 on 2:45
200 on 2:30
175 on 2:00
150 on 1:45
125 on 1:30
100 on 1:15
75 on :50
50 on :40
25 on :20
100 easy kick.

I mixed in some other easy swimming between the sets, so total was about 5,300 yards.  A nice start.