Monday-night swimming

The first of a new session (they come in series of seven or so), so the population had shifted a bit. (Also some marathoners absent--a lot of these triathletes are very regular and accomplished marathoners also, not a surprise...)

It was a very good workout, only afterwards I had a quick dinner with training partner L. as we are not going to have any runs together this week and the details of the workout perhaps slipped away from me! Let me try and reconstruct...

(I really am getting faster, BTW. My favorite moment was at a point where the slow lanes were doing 4 150s and the fast ones were doing 6 and I finished quickly enough that the coach told me to do a fifth one. He was just laughing when he saw how excited I looked! I want to get fast enough so that I can do the full workout with the fast-lane people! I think it will happen--I will not be in the real fast lanes, but I am near being ready to move over one slot, if it is a bit more crowded next week & depending on who's there I could probably be at the back of that lane--only of course really I prefer leading a lane--so we will see...)

Warmup: 200 swim, 200 kick with fins and board.

Technique set (with fins):

3 x (3 x 50 side kick, right-arm down and left-arm back; 3 x 50 "anchor drill," long dog-paddle down and short dog-paddle back; 3 x 50 "reverse" side swim [one arm at side, and breathe on opposite side from stroking arm)

4 x 150 (100 pull, 50 swim, concentrating on long reach and good catch)

Conditioning set (no fins):

(this is where I now can't really remember a couple pieces)

What was it?!?

Hmmm....

Something along the lines of 12 x 50, 20 x 25, is that possible?!? A lot of short fairly hard stuff, at any rate, and I think it was two separate bits of stuff rather than just one or the other... can't really remember now... enjoyable, though...

To end:

3 x 100 on 2:00, holding a fairly hard speed

Then 300 swim, at that same speed per hundred

I sort of messed this up through inexperience (also my cap fell off in the 300, it was distracting, I had to go and retrieve it afterwards from the very deep bottom of the deep end)--I paced off the people in the next lane, who are still just a bit faster than me. So I did not hold my time on the 100s (I would say it was 1:42, 1:45, 1:45--but I was having very hyperventilationish breathing on the third one, I should not have swum the first one quite so fast), and then I couldn't quite do fast enough on the 300. The others were aiming for 5:15, I would have liked to do that but I did 5:30. However it was a good hard swim, and next time I will just do the 100s a tad slower--really holding on 1:45--and then see how I manage for the 300...

I was in a lane by myself for most of the workout, once the technique part was over at any rate--there were few enough of us there that nobody even had to circle-swim. It's good, because you get a bit more coaching this way, very helpful. My technique has dramatically improved but I still have lingering problems with the same stuff that was holding me back months ago, in particular a tendency not to breathe quite early enough in the stroke, which leads to the left arm falling a bit in the water. My left-hand catch has dramatically improved, though--I must just keep on paying attention, those drills are really excellent for this stuff...