7.2 mi easy run
1825 yd swim

2 x [500 swim + 50 kick]
5 x 100 on 1:30
50 kick
150 swim
25 kick



runs/total days/swims = 39/42/23

Tom - I used to have HS meets on Tuesdays and Fridays.
how does swimming works... it works like... you keep hitting your head against the wall and some random hits it feels good, so good, in fact, that you keep hitting your head against the wall in hopes of it feeling good again

---

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

Sprints for a Friday night. Great way to end the week, before indulging in some delicious uni (sea urchin).

Warm up
300 loose
4 x 100 (pull/kick/IM/pull)

Prep set
2 x {
4 x 50 (dive build/easy/push build/easy)
100 IM
2 x 100 warm down
}

Main set
3 x {
5 x 25 as fast as possible
325 easy
}

Cool down
8 x 25 back/free

Total 3250 SCM. I think coach took it easy on us on a Friday.

Mileage for the week was just under 10K. Felt great. Slowly building my way to 12K per week, and hope to be there by end of Feb.

3.5 mi run 32 min
625 yd swim

500 swim
50 kick
50 swim
25 kick

runs/total days/swims = 40/43/24

---

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

Crap. I just reinjured my knee, carrying the 2 year old down a flight of stairs. I thought there was no step down, but there was. Twisted my knee, first time that’s happened in years. Hurts like a MFer though.

Thankfully I didn’t drop her. Laying on the couch now with 2 bags of ice on it.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

oh no! I'm sorry :-(

---

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

It’s been a difficult week. One of our swim pod founders, Lynn Kubasek – 60 years old, succumbed to pancreatic cancer the other day. 4 months from diagnosis and 5 months from swimming around Manhattan Island. She was also a Catalina Channel swimmer.
We’re all just stunned and meetups have been difficult. Yesterday morning, I swam a bunch of sunflowers out to the buoy and placed them on top. They were still there this morning as the Pacific is currently more calm than many pools.
Today, I broke away from the group where they typically turn around and continued to the far Emerald Bay buoy, another 1200 yards. I needed time to myself and to push myself without having to wait on anybody. Almost 4000 yards in all.

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Proud member of FISHTWITCH: doing a bit more than fish exercise now.

I’m sorry for your loss. Sounds like a great person. None of us know how much time we have so enjoy each day.

I am wrapping up swim camp in Cancun....I got a bit sick mid week, so only did 1x per day Wed and Thu, but beat this stomach bug and fever and able to pile it on yesterday and today (last day).

I am heading out for the final session which will push me to 42km for the week which is the most I ever did. And a lot of this was pretty high intensity (higher than I would do). I shared my room with Cdn 45-49 record holder in 200IM/400IM/200fly/400 free/800 free Greg Streppel (who you may overlap in the same age group....he just moved to mine). Anyway, I learned a lot. I did get some beach jogging, a spin session and some weight sessions in too, so a a really solid week, but mainly other than swims, I have been in the hotel room recovering for the next session and just doing work for the office back home....pretty well no energy to do anything else if I am to make it to the next workout and survive it!!!!

OK off to the pool again. Will post pics when I get home.

Dev

Yeah, I raced Streppel a couple of times at Nationals. Well, when I say “raced” he was about 20s faster than me in the 400 and nearly a minute quicker in the 800.

As an aside, I’m trying to figure out how I can make the switch back to pure swimming. I’ve decided that I really don’t like triathlon all that much (pending my xterra debut, which may not be a great idea given my knee injury today)

---

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

It was pretty funny having Steppel in the lane beside me to see how a good swimmer moves...and he's totally not built like an elite swimmer. The guy is 5'8" and a 190 lbs BRICK. His feet must be 3 sizes smaller than mine and his hands are easily 1.5 inches of span smaller. the guy defies logic in terms of morphology. He was cranking out 10K days every day for 2 weeks (I arrived for week 2 of the camp).

As for your "switch back to pure swimming" at your level, triathlon may be more convenient. If you want to switch back to pure swimming, I would imagine to get to where you want to get to, you're going to need to do 2x per day. The problem of 2x per day is you have to at the pool twice, away from work or family. If it is 1 swim per day and another dryland workout of tri struff, that's easier to manage around life, especially given that you have young kids.

For someone like me, with a grown up kid and running my own startup company I can do 1x per day and dryland. If I was an "employee" 2x per day would be totally doable. But having done this camp, I don't think it would be that tough for me to be on the 30,000-40,000m per week training program after some adaptation versus my current 18-25 range. If I could get on the larger program, I'd just improve faster, vs the lower weekly hours/yardage. It's almost like I can only pick one tiny thing per month and spend the entire month trying to work on that, and then move to something else....more yardage means acquiring something new 2x faster in weeks! Real swimmers alread did that in college, so I suppose you don't need more than a few big weeks at a time since you have the skill already.

Greg will be doing all the same events as I am at provincials (200IM, 400IM, 200 fly, 400 free, 1500 free) in the same age group....it just means that I'll be further away form the top times LOL!

Damn, that is harsh news. Pancreatic cancer is crazy since it creeps up so fast and then almost nothing can be done to save the person. Really sorry about this.

When I say pure swimming, it’s at the level I was doing 2 years ago, which was around 5-6 practices per week. Usually 5 (sunday to Thursday with fri and sat off)

I have no aspirations beyond just doing it for fun, and going for some provincial records in my AG. I just missed the 1500 last year, I have until December of this year to get it before I age up. I find that triathlon is too demanding on my time to get fit enough that it’s fun. I’ll still ride once the weather gets better,

---

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

On Streppels size, the funny thing about swimming is that they do come in all sizes. The stereotypical swimmer is tall and broad shoulders, but then you have guys like Hagino 5’10. Obviously Janet Evans was small. The NCAA silver medalist in the 200y free (Blake Peironi) is 6’0 according to his coach (Although Blake claims to be 6’1, he isn’t. He went a 1:30.x

Cody Miller (the guy who’s channel I’ve been watching) is only 5’10 or 11.

There’s a lot of things more important than size.

---

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Sorry about your friend :-(

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Hey, let's get your ass over to Nationals for this year...end of May....The FIRST event of the meet is the 1500m free, so if you want to break your provincial record, that MAY be the best time to do it! It would be good to have some ST fishes there....plan your flights and I'll get you from the airport. Meet is Fri noon till Sunday evening, so I can even get you on Friday morning from Montreal airport and take you directly to the venue, although, you may want to not have to spend the morning flying if you want to break your provincial record in the afternoon. But we can split hotel costs and eat cheap to keep costs down. Streppel is going for the 50-54 record in the 1500 free too. I think my day 1 is 1500 free, 100 fly, 200IM. Day 2 is 100IM only. Day three is 400IM, 200 fly, 800 free....or I may do 400 free on day 2, but I care more about improving my time at 400IM and 200 fly over last year, so a light Saturday will be good. On day 1, I guess my main event will be 1500 free (the triathlete in me, says I should get that more respectable even in a 50-54 AOS tri age grouper context).

If you need to be there on Thu before, I have plenty of biz to do in Montreal so I can be there on Thu for work and pick you up Thu evening. I say you do it. We'll get you on that record run. It was good to be Streppel's whipping boy for the camp. I think I was the only guy who went to all the "2nd workout of the day" that he was setting. Workout one at 7 am, was set by Duane Jones from Technosport.

I think you need to organize the ST fishies swim camp in Bermuda at some point. That place looks awesome.

I’d love to be able to go to Montreal, I’ve been there for a couple of big meets (worlds in ‘14 and nationals in ‘15). Always had good swims there and I love the city. There’s a small group going from our masters team. But I have a family weekend planned, and that takes priority.

Training camp in Bda, hm? It’s an idea, not gonna happen this year but maybe in 2-3 years?

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I'm located in MTL. Still very new to this group and the sport in general, but if this ever happens, you can count on me to join in and lean on me for organization.

More the merrier!

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Not sure if this is the best spot to ask, but going to give it a shot....

So I recently started adding the drill where I'll use a buoy and put a band around my ankles to make sure I'm not wiggling or snaking too much in the water as I swim. What I have noticed is that I can really feel my lower half of my body sinking big time.

Is there anything specific I should to do fix this? Just swim with a faster stroke?

I'm not a great swimmer by any stretch, my last race was IM Whistler and I did it in 1h 12m. I'm not doing any fulls this year and am trying to focus on the swim and mountain biking. I've read this monthly thread a lot over the last year or two, but am hoping to be more active in it to get as close to that 30m as possible for the 70.3 in Boulder this year.

You want to be able to keep your legs up without going to a faster stroke. Try doing it as a catch-up drill (google if you don’t know what that is) and then gradually reduce the amount of catch up in your stroke. It might take some time, but eventually it’ll click.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Thanks!

that's a great drill.
in addition to what Jason said, think about pushing your chest down, and pulling with your lats.

---

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

Wow. Well, its been a while since I actually posted a workout. Mostly because its been a while since I actually succeeded at one. Last week was a disaster. Long story....basically, too much intensity AND volume on the Bike and Run = shitty swimming. Trying to get back on track this week, by returning to my normal schedule. I did actually swim 5x last week (Mon, Tue, Thu, Sat, Sun), just not very much. Saturday I got back on my normal schedule:

Sat:
4x100 (30s) desc 1:46/40/37/31
30x25 (15s) usrpt @ 18.0s failed at 9, 20, 26.
2x25 on 30 (22, 23)
100ez

Sun: Swim lesson with Bobby Patten. Bobby's pool is SCM (versus my normal scY pool).

200 ez
2x50 moderate (45s) focus on accelerating through the finish
2x50 moderate (43s) focus on extending out in front without shortening the finish and relaxed catch
1x100 moderate (1:38)

Three things came out of that:
1. I was back to scissor kicking on my left when I breath.
2. I was dropping my right elbow (non-breathing side) on the final 25 of the 100 during the initial catch. He said that by the time my elbow was even with my head I'd gotten the forearm vertical. But, the initial catch was "wrist only".
3. I was swimming kinda flat.

We really only worked on #3. He gave me a drill to do he called the "clock drill". Basically, he described it as this:

1. Straight arm recovery with the arm verticle overhead until it reaches a prescribed hour on the clock face (feet = 9, head = 3, overhead = 12).
2. Once the arm reaches the prescribed clock time, bend elbow and "spear" into the water at another prescribed clock angle.

We did this drill in steps:
2x25 (20s) recover to 12:00, spear down to 4'oclock.
2x25 (20s) recover to 11:00, spear down to 3:45.
2x25 (20s) recover to 10:00, spear down to 3:30.
2x25 (20s) recover to 09:30, spear down to 3:15....pretty much normal swimming.

The drill is done at close to normal swim pace. He did not have me slow down and do it "pretty". the first 2 25s were a little slower just getting the hang of the drill, after that they got progressively faster as I gained comfort with it.

We finished up with a 100 at moderate pace, same 1:38 as above. But, I was MUCH less out of breath (compared to the 100 at the end of WU. So, the pace was probably a little close to "ez" vs. moderate.

Other points we discussed:

1. Loose ankles when kicking---do more kick sets. I pretty much just point my toes.
2. Do the clock drill in warmup to get the shoulders rotating.
3. Do some backstroke on recovery days to help loosen the shoulders.
4. Anytime I feel the stroke starting to "come apart" do a couple strokes of the "12/4 clock drill".
5. I only dropped my elbow on that single 25m length, so not a big deal...but, something to stay focussed on.

Good lesson.

I've kept up with the running and doubled on Friday. So...totals:

Jan 23/28, 34kscy
R/D/S: 50/45/33 (ETA: updated post run)

Not a camp, but I just booked the family to go to BDA in March (over the break, March 18th - 26th) so the kids can visit their cousins and grandparents. Planning on getting in a good bit of swimming, in-between hanging out with the family.

Be happy to swim with you if you can make it down.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

4.3 mi run moderate
2125 yd swim

5 x 100 on 1:35
50 kick
3 x [100 fast + 50 kick] 1:18, 1:18, 1:19
10 x 100 on 1:45 focus on good technique
125 kick c/d


runs/total days/swims = 43/45/25

---

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