Training week

This week was the final training week on how to effectively wear the hat of an Admissions Representative for Southern Technical College. It was a good experience, and I am ready to rock and roll to help change people's lives by pointing them in the right direction.  The college is under new ownership as of last year and I can see the improvements they have made. Their goal is to help people begin new career paths with hands on training.  I listened to a few program directors discuss the details of the classes offered and they are very passionate about teaching and engaging students.   The instructors are professionals with real world experience in their specialty.   I think this will be a fun job and rewarding work environment. 

For this weeks swimming training it was a mixture of swimming LCM and SCY between FGCU and the San Carlos pool.

Tuesday 8/25

FGCU AM  - felt pretty tired today after Sunday's 10K

Warm

300S/200K/100 FRIM

8 x 150 swim @ 1'

8 x 150 pull @ 

6 x 150 FRIM/swim

100 scull

Wednesday 8/26

Masters San Carlos pool

Warm

500

8 x 50 @ 1' drill/swim

Once

3 x 200@ 3' free 

rest 1'

3 x 200 @ 2:45

rest 1'

3 x 100 @ 1:30

rest 1

3 x 100 @ 1:20

rest 1

Once - pull set

1 x 250 @ 3:30

3 x 150 @ 2'

4 x 50 @ 1' (swam as back stroke)

3 x 100 @ 1:45

1 x 200 @ 3'

1 x 300 cool

Thursday 8/27 FGCU

Warm 

400 swim

300 kick/swim with snorkel

200 pull

100 FRIM

Main:

4 x 100 (fist drill/swim by 50)

3 x 100 (catch up/swim by 50)

2 x 100 (L/R / swim (25/25/50)

100 build 

400 (back/free by 100)

400 (fins kick/swim by 50)

Pull set

50 @ 1'

100 @ 1:30

150 @ 2'

200 @ 3'

200 @ 3'

150 @ 2'

100 @ 1:30

50 @ 1'

200 cool

*I was hoping to get a double swim today by swimming during my lunch break for 30 minutes, however, the lightening cut the swim short and I was only able to get in a quick 300 yards!  

Friday 8/28 Masters - San Carlos pool

- The main set is is the infamous ladder set that I am SURE he (Sam) stole from Fernando Canales!!

Warm 

500

Peset:

6 x 100 (swim/kick/swim/kick)

Main

5 x 100 @ 1:30

4 x 200 @ 3:30

3 x 300 @ 6:30

2 x 400 @ 8' (optional pull)

1 x 500 (optional snorkel, fins, paddles)

cool 200

Happy Laps!!

Wow - it's Friday and it looks to be a full moon out there.  There is a storm brewing over PR which is heading our way.  We'll stock up on water & food just to be safe. We don't own a generator, so hopefully our power won't  go out.  

I'll sign off with a picture of Yigo.....in his teenage years, when he was my running partner. 

10K e Postal Swim

Your probably wondering, what is a 10K ePostal?  It's a swimming event that is organized by any USMS club and can be swum in a 50 meter pool.  Certain rules apply, such as you must have a lap counter that records every lap you must be registered with USMS. Otherwise it's pretty simple. For this particular ePostal, you swim the distance anytime between May and September, then you register on-line that you did it and record your time. Some do it for competition, recreation, fitness, or whatever your heart desires. It's a great opportunity to test your fitness. I decided to participate because I have never swum that distance, and wanted to get a feel for it. I am sure that doing it in a pool is very different than open water. I hope to one day swim 10K or more in open water. 

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!!

Backfilling the pool

It's been a while since posting, so I will catch up from last week and weekend.

The pool water at the HS is still freaking hot, but we manage to cover about 4K for Tuesday's practice.

Warm 
8 x 50 free
8 x 50 back
8 x 50 breast
8 x 50 fly

200 kick (mix front and back)
3 x 200 pull (descend by set)

Main - 32 x 50
4 times 
8 x 50
(#2 & #4 with snorkel, work on kick and high arm tempo)
set #1 and #3 @ :45 (moderate)
set #2 and #4 @ :50 (faster) 

cool 100

Happy Laps!

"When there are no enemies within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you."  - David Baird

Wednesday Practice - I met a nice woman name Sharon at practice who swam in my lane. She is returning to swimming after being away from it for 13 years. She grew up in FL and graduated from Cape Coral HS, so she was on home turf again.  I made this practice up for us. 

600 Warm
Main set - 4 times (1 x 200, 2 x 50, 2 x 100)
Round 1
200 Pull or Swim
2 x 50  (#1 head tap drill - #2 kick)
2 x 100 (50Ez/50F, 50F/50Ez)

Round 2
200 P or S
2 x 50 (#1 fist drill, #2 kick)
2 x 100 (middle 50 hard)

Round 3
200 P or S
2 x 50 (#1 single arm swim, #2 kick)
2 x 100 (back/free by 50)

Round 4
200 P or S
2 x 50 (#1 catch up, #2 kick)
2 x 100 (breast/free by 50)

200 cool

Thursday - study for medical coding test and had plantation shutters installed, plus the pool people came to back fill around the shell. Russ helped. 

Friday practice with FGC group:  I modified the practice to include more IM, so it's written with that in mind. 

Warm 
500 loose
6 x 50 @ 1' (drill/swim or stroke)

3 x
200 Free @ 3:20
4 x 100 odds IM / evens stroke/free by 50 @ 1:40

300 pull
4 x 100 (same as above)

400 kick
200 cool

Saturday I sat for the CPC test - hopefully I passed!

Sunday was a gorgeous ocean swim from Vanderbilt beach to La Playa with a small group of guys that meet weekly.  This is the perfect weekly ocean group swim, and will plan to join them again.  They have a routine, where by they swim from the Vanderbilt beach house to La Playa as a warm up and then return to Vanderbilt by doing intervals between the buildings. It was fun, as long as I was not swallowing a bunch of water!  LOL.  We went through a few schools of jelly fish which was gross. They didn't sting us, but we could feel their slimy bodies on our hands.   The next time I swim with them, I will swim twice as long by starting at La Playa, which is a great hotel/club where my parents are members.  I can valet park at La Playa, swim to the Vanderbilt staring point, swim to La Playa with the group, and double back again.  

This coming Sunday I'll be swimming a 10K e-postal swim at the Norris pool in Naples. It's the first time I've swum a 10K.  Some folks are swimming 5K, and only myself and one other person are doing the 10K. We'll swim it in 50meters.  

I wrote a nice workout for a rainy day - I haven't done it yet, so let me know how it goes for you.

Warm
300 swim
300 kick/swim by 50
300 drill swim by 50
100 FRIM

PreSet 4xs
4 x 25  @ :35
1. build
2. breakout
3. Fast
4. perfect and pretty

Main #1
Kick set
4 x 100 
#1 50 fast/50medium
#2 75 Fast/ 25 medium
#3 100 F
#4 100 Ez

Main #2
4 x 100 @ 1:30
2 x 200 @ 3'
400 @ 6'
2 x 200 @ 2:50
4 x 100 @ 1:20

100 cool

Monday I visited the FGCU pool!   The lanes were set up for 50m, which was great, and hardly anyone was there.  I just about finished a warm up of 800 when the guards pulled everyone out of the pool due to lightening 10 miles out.  Darn!

I paid for a membership and will swim there more often since it's a fabulous pool and the lifeguards are really nice!

Until next time!

Happy Laps!

Warm days and warm water

 Last weekend we made last minute reservations on a rainy afternoon to see 'Footloose' at the Broadway Palm for the matinee show.  The venue is dinner theater style, but you can purchase only show tickets.  Russ has been to the Broadway Palm more than a few occasions with his mom many many years ago. As he looked at the wall posters show ads, he commented, "I've seen that, and that.."

Here he is enjoying Christmas in August!

I gave the Seahorse statue some lovin'.

Everyone was finishing up their dinners just before the show began. The first half was fairly entertaining, however I was pretty tired from a hard and steamy bike ride, that I snoozed for a while. There were a few good voices, however I would not recommend the cast to audition for American Idol any time soon. I'd call the performance an off, off Broadway production. During intermission we decided it was time to cut bait and cut loose.  I had no idea that Russ never saw the movie Footloose, so when we got home, we pulled it up on Netflix and he watched it. 

Before heading home, we stopped into the Asian Leaf Market. This is a great market to purchase Mr. Brown's coffee, my favorite Ice Coffee of all time, which I discovered while living in Guam. Yum!!

Early Saturday morning around 6:50am, we were walking Yigo, and we see three large trucks (two were cement trucks) heading out way. Yep, they were the trucks that would pour the shell to our pool.  Russ watched the two hour process while I went for a bike ride. I don't have any pictures of the cement being poured. Here are the guys that came a few days later to remove all the wood and plastic from around the pool.  It's coming along. We are not quite halfway through completion.  Maybe it will be done by Labor Day and we will host a party!?

Monday evening swim at Cape Coral H.S.
Since the water temp is 93 degree F, the goal of main set was to stay on pace

Warm
400 choice
12 x 25 (25 stroke/25 free) @ :50

Main
12 x 200 @ 3 (I pulled the last 3)

600 (100 kick/ 100 choice swim)

4 x 75 (kick/drill/stroke) 

100 Fast

200 cool
(4600yrd)

Happy Laps!

"Be gentle with the earth"

I guess installing a pool, and disturbing the earth, is a far cry from being gentle with the earth.  Pipes are looking good in the spa!

The quote in the title of today's post is directly from the little book, "A Thousand Paths to Enlightenment."   I began thinking about food, sustainability, and the new laws that Paris, France plans to enforce starting next year to grocery stores, whereby grocery establishments will be required to donate much or all of their left over food to local charities. Fines will be imposed if they do not comply with the new policy.  Obviously there are many implications to this law, such as the private store owner who cannot afford to take the time to assign an employee the task of making sure his store's food is distributed out accordingly.  Food waste is a global issue, and I feel it is important to take steps to see to it that food that would normally be thrown in the trash, be given to those in need.   Over consumption, over abundance, and super sizing are directly related to consumers looking to get more for their money, which they do quite well when patronizing at stores such as Costco or Sam's Club. 

My mom hates shopping at Costco, and my dad loves it. Since she is not feeding a family of 4, she wants to purchase her groceries in small doses, thereby less waste. Yes, it makes sense to purchase dry goods to save a buck, such as coffee, TP, trash bags, and the like.  Plus if you are feeding 4 people, you can purchase a decent cut of meat, or fish for a pretty good bargain.  But then again, we run into the problem of being kind to mother earth, and taking into consideration all the water and grain it takes to feed and process that beef or that big tub of ice cream. 

Water - poor CA!   It's monsoon season for India now, and the water they get is vital to their crops. 

Did someone mention water??  Let's swim!

Tuesday I made an initial visit to the N. Ft. Myers Community pool. Nice place. They provide two lap lanes, a kiddie slid and plenty of shade. 

The workout was boring, but felt good!
500 swim
500 pull
6 x 150 snorkel (100 swim/50kick)
500 swim
200 back stroke

Wednesday morning - weekly Caloosa bike club ride from Winn Dixie. This was the second time meeting this group. We ride to Coconut point and back. Rather thank starting out with the hammer heads, Pam suggested to go out easy, then ride back with them, because they wait for her at the turnaround. That seemed to work out well. I could tell there was a lot of testosterone in the group of 6 guys.  Since they kept the cruising speed under 30mph, we had no problems keeping up.

Thursday AM
Warm
400 free
200 kick
200 (50 drill/50 swim)
200 kick
Preset: Pull
300  breathe every 3
200  breathe every 5
100  breathe every 7
Main:
2 x 175
2 x 125 (last 25 fast)
8 x 75 (2-free/back/br, 2-back, 2-50 breast/25 fr, 2-free)
6 x 50 fins 2 EZ 1 fast @ :45
cool 100

Happy Laps!

Seashore Swim Academy

Since Russ was out of town, I decided to stay a few nights in Naples and take advantage of swimming with T2 Masters on Friday morning for Freaky Fast Friday. Unfortunately we did not get to complete the workout due to lightening in the area. After everyone evacuated the pool, we were treated by the full moon rising over the pool.  It was a site to be seen, and coach Mike had his phone handy to take the photo. 

After a nice swim, I went to an interview with Southern Technical College for Admissions Representative. The lady interviewing me decided that she wanted me to meet the Exec. Dir of the school in the Bonita Springs location.  We scheduled that meeting for later in the afternoon, after I taught a swim lesson to a Mr. Daniel, the scientist. 

The swimming lesson was my first official Seashore Swim Academy lesson since living in FL.  It went very well, and he progressed from kicking backward to kicking forward. Be sure to LIKE Seashore Swim Academy on FaceBook!

I signed up to swim a Postal 10K on August 23rd. in Naples. That will be fun!  So far one other crazy person has signed up for the 10K distance. We swim it in a 50 meter course pool. 

The swim practice from Friday:

Warm
400 (breathe 50 R/50L)
300 pull
200 kick choice
100 FRIM

12 x 50 @ 1'
1 blast/1build/1ez  (blast is first 5-6 strokes fast or breakout)

1 x 400 free
(25 free/25 back/25 drill/rest 15s/25 fast)

12 x 50 pull @ :55
3 x: breathe 5/7/4/fast

we did not have time for this small set , so we went right into the next set, which we only did 1x due to lightening.
1 x 200 free @ 3'
1 x 100 free @ 2:20
1 x 50 free @ 90% effort 

Swum as a GROUP!
4 x
25 smooth 0/1 breath @ :40
50 breath 3/fist @ 1:20
25 tarzan @ :30 (fast drill)
25 SPRINT @ :15
75 EZ @ 2:15

300 EZ

Sunday was a 105K ride with a nice group of mixed cyclists. Mostly women, and a few guys. We ventured onto Sanibel, then eventually into Captiva. We saw two rose colored spoon billed birds in the Ding Darling Preserve.  I tried to get a photo with the phone, but it's not that clear. They are pink because they eat shrimp.

There are a few short stories that do go along with this particular ride.  To start with, about 8K into the ride, a young lady by the name of Denise stops suddenly and dismounts her bike, and starts yelling, "oh it hurts, my leg, I am cramping!"  She was a very tiny women, thin boned, maybe 100 lbs. wet. I quickly felt the need to come to her rescue with a cold water bottle that was not yet thawed out from freezing it the night before. I gently rubbed the water bottle on her thigh. I then proceeded to massage her quad muscle with a type of tragger technique. (hold the muscle and wiggle it from side to side) When I did that her response was, "Oh that feels so good!"  There was not much else I could do for her, and her cramp was not going to subside in a few moments, so she decided to turn back and head home. Apparently she was on holiday at altitude a few days before and had some other health issues she was dealing with.  Another 8K down the road and the ride organizer had a massive flat. She ran over a nail that went into her rim! Here we are waiting for her to change the flat.  

         

One group assisting in the process (East), the other group chilling out down the road (West)

Eventually the group needed to be split up with different speeds. The ride took much longer than I had anticipated, however I should have know that when it was advertised as a 'social' ride. Many photos were taken, and new friends were made. It's all good, happy to be on the bike, and hammer the over pass to Sanibel and back. 



Monday AM swim:

Warm (deja vu!)
400 Free (breathe 50L/50R)
300 Pull
200 K
100 FRIM

12 x 50 @ 1' - 2 moderate, 1 fast

4 x 50 fly-back @ 1'
4 x 50 back-breast @ 1'
4 x 50 breast - free @ 1'
(I call these switchers, but usually do them rotating)

3 x 200 P @ 3:20
breathe 7 5, 3 by 50, + 50 FAST

2 x 300 Free @ 4' or 4:30
2 x 150 Free @ 2:20 or 2:35

Rest :60

4 x 100 @ 1:30
4 x 75 @ 1:10 

*The 100s shoud be at perceived threshhold pace. The 75's should be a touch quicker but not as fast as you can go. The 300 should be well above perceived threshold pace and the 150s sould be quicker than the 300s, but not quite as fast as the 100s. 

200 EZ

No doubt, the most exciting event that took place last week was the initial construction process of installing our pool!  Basically digging an enormous hole in the back yard. 

It's going to take approximately 2 months to complete.  Summer is always a tricky time due to weather, which puts projects behind a few weeks.  It's all good though, and when it's done, Yigo will enjoy doing his laps!!

Phase 1 - The enormous hole!

"Mommy, when can I go for a swim??"  LOL!!