Struggling to Get Back

Today I went for my first non-Hyack practice since the middle of January, setting myself the scaled back goal of swimming 2,600 meters, including a 400 fly ladder (w/fins) and a main set of 6x100 back. It must have been last night’s Friday Hyack practice going surprisingly well which prompted me to do so. After missing close to two weeks swimming I’ve managed for the most part to at least attend the thrice-weekly Hyack practices with decidedly mixed results. But last night I finally swam some decent times over a few 50 backstrokes which gave me a little psychological boost for my upcoming 200 meter back race at this Sunday’s swim meet. Unfortunately fatigue quickly caught up with me this morning and I left the pool with only 2,000 meters tallied.

I feel like I’m in limbo. I’ve drawn up a very detailed schedule of what I need to be doing and when if I’m to keep to my two year plan, and I’m not adhering to it. Right now I’m supposed to be building up the conditioning which I’ll be using in next season’s races and accordingly the plan calls for me to be swimming 20,000 plus meters a week. I need the kilometrage to correct my various stroke techniques, build my strength and endurance, and expand my aerobic capacity. These last three weeks, however, have seen me averaging only around 3,500 meters – completely inadequate for my purposes. I’ve even been missing some weight sessions which can’t be made up as they’re tied to the swimming season. The limbo feeling comes from getting ready to race an event (my 200 back) for which I’m clearly not prepared. No pace setting, no trial races, no race specific workouts of my own at all this past month. I still don’t know what my target time should be for the race. This is having an eerie similarity to my first swim meet last September and that meet’s 200 IM race. Not the comparison I want to make.