Swimming On My Own

Because Hyack Burnaby Masters only swim three times a week any Hyack who wants to compete needs to swim some practices on their own to properly reach race condition. In fact a couple in my lane swim extra practices even though they don’t compete. This Sunday morning I went to Canada Summer Games Pool, my local pool, for what is now a fairly typical workout.

6 x 200 warm up: (200 free/200 kick/200 back drills/200 kick/200 free breath 4/6 and another 200 kick). This is the warm up I do every time I’m on my own. The kicking covers back, breast, and fly which I randomly allocate between the three 200s, never more than a hundred at a time, and for the past month has been done without fins so they take some time (I used to use fins for 400 of the 600 meters but had to stop when I got my turf toe). The 200 breath drill is really a 2x100 as I always take a few seconds to rest at the midway point because my legs feel rubbery (by the end of the second 100 my arms don’t feel all that good either). The rest of my practices can vary but since I leave most of my anaerobic sets to Coach Reid and Hyack practices my emphasis tends towards aerobic conditioning and stroke technique. This morning my sets were:

4 x 300 back @ 5:15 concentrating on a long fluid pull with a good finish

4 x 50 fly @ 1:15 (w/fins) Another set intended to work on the length and power of my pull: I fished out my fins after a month of disuse to help, but about two meters into the first rep I discovered my turf toe was still around plus my foot immediately cramped as well. Consequently I changed it into a 8 x 25 @ 0:45

4 x 100 breast @ 2:15 only concerned with technique, with an emphasis on maintaining a proper kick (bringing the legs up, pointing feet outward, and a strong whip from the knees) but also trying at the same time to work on bettering my pull. Trying to work on two different aspects isn’t really advisable – my breathing, coordination between kick and pull, and body position were atrocious (even though there were a couple of times when everything came together by accident and I felt myself swooshing along like a water bug for a second or two)

8 x 25 fly @ 0:45 likewise adjusted for no fins. Was pleased with my pull this time around

400 free @ 6:30/7:00 Warm down. My workout allowed for me to include another 400 on 6:30 if I was up to it for my first 4,000 meter workout but I was sore after the fly and breast so I took the 7:00 interval and ended the workout at 3,600 meters. Time taken was just under an hour and a half.

My weekly meters over the past year and a half have gone up and down like a yo-yo. Starting from the 1,000 I was swimming every Sunday before I joined Hyacks I steadily forced my way up to 15,000 a week before overtraining left me beached for three weeks; thereafter I steadied my weekly meters at 10,000 until last year’s tax season, when they dropped on average to well below 5,000. After that I worked my way back up to 15,000 this past September and then in January this year made the big jump to over 20,000 meters a week, which I’ve maintained right up to this year’s busy season. For the next two or so months I plan to try swimming four times a week and keep my weekly meters as close to 15,000 meters as possible. If I can then I’ll be able to boost my meters right back up to 20,000 in June, and then hopefully proceed to 25,000 in September. Ultimately I want to reach or better 30,000 meters a week – but that might take a while.