Last week swim practice attendance was sparse. The first opportunity I had to get back in the water after last Sunday was Wednesday. Yikes!! I swam with FGC masters and the practice was as follows:
Warm
500
Preset:
6 x 100 (right/left/F/Ez)
Main:
3 times
4 x 75 swim
2 x 50 stroke or free @ 1'
4 x 25 kick fast
600 choice/pull
200 cool
"Plan, Prepare, Succeed"
I am really excited about having a membership for the FGCU aquatics facility. The pool is fantastic and offers 50meters (for now) as well as 25yrd.
Gorgeous pool - notice the storm clouds!!
So for Thursday's morning practice...keeping it long with a little fast stuff to prepare for Sunday
Warm:
300 swim
300 (50back/50 free)
200 swim
200 (50 back/50 free)
Snorkel/fins/paddles
400
300
200
100
10 x 50 (25ez/25F) @ 1'
100 ez
2xs
200 pull strong @ 3'
2 x 100 moderate @ 1:40
300 cool
"Ride the wave of change"
Friday after work I attempted to get in a swim in the afternoon at FGCU however, mother nature shortened the workout due to lightening within 10 mile radius.
Saturday morning I made the early trip to Naples to swim there to loosen up for Sunday's big 10K. Coach Jenna had a great 'sprint' practice for us with lots of 25's. To her dismay, the pool was arranged LCM for Sunday. The group still did the practice as written. I think it's a great speed workout, and she gave me her copy of the practice. I swam about 2500, and didn't do al the speed work for the 50's to conserve my energy for the next day.
Warm up:
300 swim, 200 kick, 200 pull
Kick: (fins)
4 x 100 (75K/25S)
4 x 75 (50K/25S)
6 x 50 (odd: kick, even: swim)
Main:
16 x 25 @ :35
e/f f/e e f
8 x 50
odds sprint flags to wall
events sprint flag to flag
8 x 75
e, 50e/25f, 25e,50f, f
8 x 100
75e/25f, 50e/50f, 25e,75f, f
Warm
200
"It takes the same amount of energy to be unhappy as it does to be happy"
I was fairly nervous about swimming the 10K, since it was the longest distance I have ever swum at one time. I had the fortunate opportunity to speak with Fernando and asked him his advice about the distance, and he suggested to think of it as one of two ways. #1 swim it as 100 x 100 on a set interval such as 1:30 or 1:45, or #2 to swim 30 minutes straight, then take a water break, and repeat. I decided that swimming for time was going to work for me, and upon further contemplation, I decided to swim 2000m at a time. Which will break it up to 5 x 2000. That seemed simple and a good way to break it up, as well as a loose way to measure it for water intervals.
My mom and I shopped at Whole Foods for what I thought would be good nutrition during the swim. I decided to bring breakfast bars, animal crackers, and two servings of baby food fruit puree as well as two bottles along with a bottle of mango orange juice. That should be PLENTY of fuel! I hate using 'GU' because it's really not that healthy for the intestinal track in the long run.
This type of event is kind of like running a marathon, since it's almost a 3 hour event, and what we put in our body days before is just as if not as important than the night or morning before. I had a nice dinner of salmon, potatoes, and veges. Breakfast consisted of oatmeal. Fernando suggested oatmeal as the fuel of choice.
The swim began at 7am, which was great, so that the sun would not be a huge factor. I liked the fact there there was a disco ball suspended in the middle of the pool, however, I am not quite sure as to why it was put there. If the sun hits it just right in the evening it can be quite a distraction to the swimmers. It is pretty though when the lights reflect on the bottom of the pool.
I show up to the pool with my little cooler full of fuel and water at 6:40am feeling confident yet confused as to which suit I should wear, my 'race' suite or my regular stretched out training suit. Fernando advised I wear what is most comfortable, so I went with the training suit. A few of the ladies swimming the 5K opted to wear their 'race' suit in order to prevent a wedgie effect from their regular suit. I didn't think I'd have that problem, and didn't want my straps to dig in to my shoulders. I made sure to put bag balm on my lats just in case.
About 6 people signed up for the 5K and 2 people (including myself) signed up for the 10K. I was lucky that John showed up to volunteer as a counter, otherwise I would not have found one! Kuddos to John, I owe him a six pack for sitting on the side of the pool for almost 3 hours watching paint dry! LOL!
We took a group photo, got into our lanes (we each had our own lane), and off we go! I started off so easy that I felt like I was floating and it was the fastest 1st. split of all my splits by 1 second. As I said, I'd swim 2000m, then take a water break. You'd think that counting 20 x 100 is easy, but it's easy to day dream in the middle, and wonder if that was lap 3 or 4?? My first break was at about 35 minutes, and John informed me that was 2200. Okay, I mis counted, not a surprise. The next break was at 4200m, and the third water break was at 6400m. During this break I told John that my mom will be coming and that she looks just like me, but she will be limping. At 8500m I saw mom and was so pleased! I then realized that I was the only one in the pool! All the 5K swimmers had gone home, and the other 10K swimmer decided to call it quits at 5K. So here we were, John, my mom, the lifeguard (thank you), and me, just swimming up and down a long lane line.
It was not as hard as I thought is was going to be to complete the distance. Maybe I needed to go faster or harder? I was happy with how I felt, and my time. My splits were fairly even and ranged from 1:35-1:37. Although, there were two times that I posted 1:42 and not sure where that came from!? I could feel my shoulders get sore, especially since I have lots of grinding in one from a bad bike crash, and it's not the shoulder that has the grade IV separation. The weird thing is my foot bones (metatarsals) feel painful after pushing off the wall during the last 2K.
At the end of the swim, John was ready to make alike a bird and fly. I was ecstatic to finish, as was my mom. We were a little unsure of my final time, so it was up to me to count up my cumulative splits once I got home. After I added them all up according to what John recorded, I finished the 10K in 2:43.22.X9 and my 5K split was 1:22.15.
That's a fairly event split!
For a long time swimming, what does one think about? Most of the time I was thinking about my stroke, my hand placement, my catch. I'd say to myself, "am I catching the water like Michael Phelps would?" Probably not. The rest of the time, I'd just check in with how I was feeling to make sure that I would not bonk or cramp, or just enjoy the sensation of swimming.
It's all good and I'd do it again in a heartbeat!
Happy Laps!!
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