Heading to Bullhead city this weekend as I have to get my boat serviced might get in a lake swim on Mohave //

Glad you are getting in some consistency and moving up the paces. I was just in Laughlin for a week and swam at a really cool pool in Bullhead. If you have the time, they have a lap swim from 10 to 10;55 and I believe a 1 to 1;55 too. Also an hour in the evening sometime, but I never swim late anymore. It costs a buck if you are a senior, so the cheapest pool in the country!!! I think it is just called the Bullhead aquatic center, but look it up if you feel like getting in some SCM.


I left all my swim stuff in the other car, so cobbled together an old buoy, crappy drag suit, and some big goggles for todays swim:


100WU
28x100 as 7x(3x100 swim or buoy@1;40/100IM or Back/breast@2;00) swims(1;22 to 1;19's) IM's(1;23/22/22/22) BK/BR(1;32/1;29/1;35, got hot and blew on last one)
5x50 buoy@;50(40's)
3150SCY in 59 minutes


I usually break up things with kicking, but just a lot of swimming today feeling medium after 3 kinda bad days...

I think with this lockdown three, I know how to get my brain thru them. I just have to make it to June 1 and by then the open that is 20 min bike spin away is open 24x7. So only 7 weeks to go even if they don't open things back up, which is highly unlikely given vaccine rollout.

Keep posting your workouts. My masters coach had us do 125's as 100m free, 25 stroke on groups of 4 and I asked her if I could do them 100IM+25m stroke as the interval was 2:30 and I had time, so she allowed me to do that modified set which was kind of fun

so it was

100IM + 25fly
100IM +25 back
100IM + 25 breast
100IM + 25 free

repeat above 4 times for 2000m !!!! You can try that on your next visit (probably on 2 min for you).

Haha. Dev! I love it. Great set.

Prob too much IM for me! I’m a wimp!!

Next speed session is Thursday am (gulp)

I can almost feel my calves cramping now.

Daved

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http://www.theundergroundcoach.com

yeah, it works out to 2000m where it is exactly 500m of each stroke. I had some folks in my lane doing 100 free-25 stroke and initially I was following and one of the ladies lost count (because of the departure from each side) and then just told me to lead, because by seeing what stroke I was on, she could not lose track of her free (its actually easy to lose track when you forget which side of pool you started on).

Yeah the last two years I've meant to visit that pool but it mostly vacation time out there and its 20 minutes each way driving. My place is a mile from the lake and I can jog down and swim and then jog/walk back to the house. I found a cool website with thermal images of the water temps on the lake and it shows its up into the 60s now and it is hot this week so I hope to have decent conditions.

That sounds fun T, where is your house there, on Lake Mohave or closer to Bullhead? We had a house in Bullhed for about 15 years, my folks eventually retired there for a decade or so. And yes, if the water is low 60's, it will be a lot more fun to just jog down and swim in the lake. I have often jumped into the river at Bullhead to do an endless pool workout, that place can rage when they open up the dam!!

So jumped into Palmdale today and was pleasantly surprised that it was only 84 or so degrees. Still not cold, but it felt great as compared to how it normally is. Dan was up for some 200's, so I did a big breast/IM day today.

8x100, odds swim@1;40/evens breast@2;00(swims(1;26/24/22/19) Breast(1;37/32/30/28)
8x200@3;20, every 4th IM@4;00(buoys-2;47/46/45, pulls 2;34/33/32) IM's-(2;46-2;49) 200IM kick
4x100 odds pull@1;30/ evens breast@2;00(pull-1;16's) Breast(1;37/1;30)

I went out in 36 on the fly in 2nd IM and just imploded, worked me for the rest of the swim too. I think to do some super high quality race stuff and descend, it has to not be part of a set that is also keeping my HR high.

Another landlubber-in-dire-straits post.

Moved my bands to my remote-work area. Literally anchored them to my desk so I can do 15 minutes here and there.

I know this is post is not an according-to-Hoyle workout, but it's all I have:

20 mins of 1 min interval full stroke w bands
5 mins of sculling w bands
5 minutes strength work w bands.

0 yards.

Great work tho Monty...

I had a similar situation today as you did, ie paying for an effort mid set for the rest of the day!

Ok here was the set:
3 rounds of:

2x50 max sprint on 1:30
1 x 25 max sprint on :45
2x50 max sprint on 1:30
1 x 25 max sprint on :45
100 ALL OUT
300 easy

Now, do I lay out all my excuses now? or later? HA!
I do think, the vax shot is still messing w HR. I could not recover today as I normally do. HR just would not come down. Even on the 50s with over a minute rest.
Yes there was 800 warm up prior with a set of 4 x 50 doing some alactate work to get the sprint muscles awake.

Round #1 we both were pretty good. He was 25s on each of the 50s and I was solidly in the 26s. Just at his shoulders reaching for the wall. It was, I must say, both surprising and fun to feel more competitive w my buddy. On the 25s it was head down, 1 breath and just go. Im pretty sure I was 11highs and 12s for them all through the set. The 100 on the first round was just nasty for both of us. He went a 56 and I was 59(high). It was so painful!!! Coming off that second 25 max sprint and only about 30 sec rest before an all out 100. I was thrilled to break a minute.

Round #2 was a bit of the same. I was there in the 50s. The 25s just were going for it. And the 100 was better at a solid 59(low)... I want to give myself a 58 but I just cant. No "coaches" watch for me. Ever. But when I looked up and could see the clock, it stayed on 59 for a very full second.

Round #3 we were both wondering why were there. The 50s were more of the same but I was def another 1/2 second back. 27s on these. The 25s I got myself pysched for the first one. I told him I was gunning for him and just emptied myself on that. I was right with him. 11 sec. Then I paid for it. The next set of 50s I held on. Thought it was good. 27s high. But it was a super struggle. That last 25 was a 12 but it was not pretty. And I could see the perverbial piano falling from the sky before I even pushed off for the last 100. I still dug deep and was a 1:02. Considering that was faster than week #1s 100s with more rest... Ill take it. But man, the lactic acid on this set was brutal. Even my buddy eric was a couple seconds slower on the 100s.
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So we did have time to then grab boards and do 6 x 25 max sprint kick on :50
This was not nearly as painful as other times. (are my legs stronger) but eric is so fast its just amazing. The first one I hit 16seconds. I was at erics knees. Then after that it was 19s the whole way, no matter what I tried.

OK... Thats it for speed session....ah shit, what are on? #7 i think.... Phew.
All for now.

daved

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http://www.theundergroundcoach.com

I have three workouts on rowing machine that I do that are roughly 20-22 minutes (4000m-5000m) with warmup and cooldown....any longer and my brain blows up

• 8x400m hard/100m easy....my 400m row is like a 100m swim. These are done at 3.8 to 4W per kilo
• 2x1000m hard, 1x1600m hard, 200m easy in between. These are 4-6 min at 3.5 W per kilo
• 10x300m as 100m buid, 150m all out sprint, 50m easy. During the 150m which is around 30 seconds, hold 300W which is 4.5W per kilo for me

After this is done, I do 10 min of stretch chords, push ups, lat pulldowns, and dumbell free weights (standing on one leg att a time, so a bit of a core workout).

I am toying with geting a Concept2 Ski Erg and equiping it with swim paddles which a bunch of people have done as it is a lung and core buster while working arms and had a great transfer to the pool.

I am 7 weeks away from open water worst case, 5 weeks best case. Our lockdown is supposed to end 5 weeks from now, but pools never open the next day anyway.

The 1600m on the rowing erg I treat as a virtual 400IM. Each 100m is 25m virtually in the pool, so I visualize going through all 4 strokes and pacing. I take the first quarter a bit harder because you can't do fly that easy, half as a build between virtual back stroke and virtual breast, and then last quarter open up the tank on the virtual free.

Or some days, I treat the 1600m as a virtual track mile for running. Just depends on whether I want to race Phelps or pretend my last 1600m is going toe to toe with Mo Farah in the last 1600m of a 5000 track race :-)

3500SCY. Swam with a masters group (only 5)

300S/200K/100P
4x[200P, 200build, 200 fast. on 15 seconds] 1:00 between rounds. Was doing the 200S inn2:40-5.
4x[50K/50S] on 10 sec. 100 easy

Given the 1 hour limit they do less pulling and kicking than I would do and a longer main set with less rest, so it’s good to swim with them once a week.

I haven’t been following, but why is Ontario and other provinces so restricted? Usually Canada has their act together. I’m grateful I’ve got steady pool time and looking forwards to outdoor and OWS in a few months.

Its up at the lake. there is street you turn right just before the park entrance station. You can see the homes about a mile in the distance. Per google earth its about 2000 meters down to the water from the back yard there is a maintenance road i have hiked it many times. I am 1/2 owner of a wakesurf boat and my boat partner owns the house. If you have instagram you can see a few clips taken on the boat Lakemohavelife

I got a balance board for my birthday its a real workout i do 10-15 minutes a day. My feet and legs are sore in the morning when I wake up. I don't know if it will help my swimming but I'm going to stick with for a couple months and see what it does.

I was going to masters 1x per week and we did almost no kick work mainly because the coach realized that most of us were going in and out of lockdown constantly and generally any fitness we were doing was leg oriented, so I think she had us doing hard 25's, 50's, 75's, 100's and 125's mixing drill, free and strokes. We had zero kick work, zero pull with paddles, barely any pull with buoy, and no fin work....just real swimming probably to make the most of time in the 1 hrs slot.

In terms of Ontario being so restrictive, you could say generally Canada had a decent act together for most of the pandemic, but what we really needed to do was to seal air tight like Oz or NZ. Our Eastern provinces did exactly that and they have almost no cases and are living "normally". From Quebec all the way west, it was effectively free for all traveling around the world and importing the virus and variants, constantly, until the border was tightened in Jan too little too late.

So between a leaky border (noting everyone south that we travel to in USA and Mexico and all the way to central and south American was waaaaaay worse, and all the locations Canadians travel to in Europe were waaaaaay worse), we imported enough contantly and spread it locally constantly that a third wave was unavoidable in the presence of low vaccination rates. We made ourselves sitting ducks being ready to get shot by virus coming in, or vaccines not sheilding us (actually a combo of the two).

In any case, the end is in sight after this lockdown (4 more weeks) and more vaccinations ramping and we'll swim anyway in open water in 1.5ish months. My stress level from being pissed off goes up at the start of every restriction regime and then I accept it, and work life with what I get. So the last week I was "more pissed off" but its out of my system and I'll watch you guys swim, stay in shape and be ready when we get back in!

Dev: Thanks for the background. Hang in there, and when you get back in the water, give yourself some time to get back in swim shape. It took me about 8 weeks last summer after being out for 4 months (with lots of bike miles) but I’m old and only swim 10k to 13k a week.

yeah, I missed Mar-mid June last year and it took me till Sep 1 to get back in a groove where my 200IM and 100IM times were similar to pre pandemic. Then we hit another shutdown Dec 24 to Feb 22 (2 months) and as I was XC skiing a ton, I hit my times in 4 weeks. This lockdown likely 6-8 weeks in my estimation and mainly going to be running+biking+rowing. I was really feeling like I was coming into something good on my breast stroke just before lockdown, likely because I was doing a lot of skate skiing which kind of helps the same body orientation....maybe you can see it in this image during he hill climb motion in skate skiing crossing over to breast stroke

Water was still about 84 or so, so digging it for now. If I ever got 81 or better temps, I would be on fire!! Big fly day today, figure I got to really up the mileage to get any semblance of being able to relax through a 200. The 100's today were brutal on me, and from my 50 speed they should not be;

3x(3x100s@1;40/100IM kick@2;30/100fly@2;00) swims(1;23/23/22)buoys(1;22/20/19)pulls(1;15/12/10) Kicks(1;54/54/51) Fly's(1;28/1;25/1;22) 200IM kick easy(3;57)
4x(200p@3;10/50fly@1;20) pulls(2;29/28/29/27) 50's fly(36+'s)
4x25fly@;40(17's)2x50 buly@;50(38/36
3100SCY in 60 minutes

The difference in my stroke on my 50 fly's vs the 100's feels like two completely different strokes. I'm sure with rest and a taper the 100 would be ok, but not the 200 yet. Just really a struggle..

Gosh Monty, i think even the best slog through a 200 fly so dont be so hard on yourself.

Great swimming.
84 degrees is... toasty.
Is this pool outside?

I swam today.. a super lazy 2500 with some mix of kicking and sculling. But generally just plodding through. Looked for some easy speed on some 50s at the end but it was more difficult than i planned so i backed off.

Gotta say, and I know it was a big week of training for me after the week off post covid shot... but 100% that shot is affecting me and my recovery. My HR just doesnt settle like it did pre vaccination.

I hope that goes away.

daved

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http://www.theundergroundcoach.com

Haha....you are a post vaccination long hauler. They probably never tested the vaccine on a specimen like you and probably most normal humans don't notice the delta, but you're not doing normal human things!

As temperature dropped I'm getting some serious mileage in now - getting up to 5-6 km in a pool session with a few more km open water afterwards on my training days.

YIKES DEV!!!
dont plant seeds in my head.

Yeah I am def not doing normal stuff, even for me right now. But Im hopeful this is very temporary and will pass w a bit more rest.

Going long on the bike today, all low HR. Hoping to get this under control

daved

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http://www.theundergroundcoach.com

I figure it is your immune system just building up to the injection. Normal people would not notice what we would because we're at the edge of the performance envelope. Normal people may say, "yeah I was lethargic for 2-3 weeks afterwards, not quite normal". You or I can just look at the time clock at the end of a 100IM and quantify lethargic in measurable ways. No study would capture that.

They would have to do a study with high performance athletes to actually quantify the lethargy during the immune system build up period, and I would guess for everyone white blood cell count goes a bit higher, so that itself would mess with blood chemistry. If WBC count is up for 1-4 weeks, while you are fighting the "infection" (artificially injected), then the lethargy/slow times are totally explainable.

I would love to see if Team UAE Emirates have had this tracked as a team. They all got injected with Sinopharm on a training camp in Dubai (they are the only pro cycling team fully vaccinated from what I know), so this team ALONE would have the best controlled study of impact on high performance athletes with Sinopharm. I am sure they are tracking various blood chemistry numbers (as I woudl imagine pro teams would do anyway) and also tracking wattage numbers.

Got a coveted Sunday slot today, huge swim meet taking up the entire big pool. But good news is that they at least bring the temp down to 82 for these meets, so it was like heaven to me! Only drawback now is that they went from 75 minutes to 60 now, and no break between sessions either, so no lallygagging. Whole workout was main set, mix of distance free and IM.

500s@7;30(7;01)100IM kick@2;30(1;54)400IM(5;58--1;32/1;32/1;37/1;17)100IM kick@2;30(1;57)
500p@7;00(6;24)100IM kick@2;30(1;54)2x200IM @4;00(2;52/2;53)100IM kick@2;30(1;58)
500p@7;00(6;21)100IM kick@2;30(1;56)4x100@2;00, odds IM/evens pull(IM's-1;22/1;21)pulls(1;15/14)
3300SCY in 58 minutes

Pretty remarkable how quickly I can recover at sea level and cooler water, and how much better I feel 3 hours later too..

3300 SCY
5x300 IM on 5:00 (4:25-31) cheated and 25 yds fly and 50yds one arm fly.
3x100 IM K on 2:15
4x200P on 3:00 (2:31-4)
4x50K on 1:15
8x50 on 50 (38s) 100 easy

About 4 weeks ago started back in 25 minutes of weights/strength work 3x/week after last 12 months off (gym closed + lazy). Slowed down my swimming, but feeling stronger in the pool. so should see it helping speed and faster swimming soon.

Monty your IM training times are looking sharp. That cooler water will help you even more if you could train in it regularly

7 mi run 64:24, 2200m swim, strength
back in the pool after a week of not swimming for various reasons (none of them especially good)

2 x [1000 swim + 50 kick]
100 c/d

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Forgot to post my last week's workouts, here they are:

Tuesday:
main set
4x500 as 400 cruise, 100 hard
5x100 keep the speed of the last 100's from set before
2x50 easy
3300 scy total

+4.5mi run

Thursday:
main set:
5x[ 400 pull strong, 100 kick, 100 swim]
3700 scy total

+30 minutes on the bike
+15 minutes on the treadmill

Friday:
speed work, some 25's, 50's and 100's fast/max effort
2100 scy total

+ 4.5mi run

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