Swimming this week and this weekend.

Overall this past week, I had a fairly productive one as far as swimming goes. This past Wednesday, we did some tiger sprints as well as a broken 200 IM (Some people decided to do a 400 freestyle pull for time). The tiger sprints were definitely challenging. We had to swim underwater without fins for one length and then sprint back as fast as you could. I did manage to make to make all the first part of the tiger sprints underwater without taking a breath so that was good. The broken 200 IM was actually quite exceptional. If the time I did for that is any indication about how I would do in an actual race, then I would absolutely blow my time from last year away. Last year my best time in December was a 2:59 that I did at the UBC Meet. The broken 200 IM I did a 2:43 from a push. It broke down as follows: 38 for 50 fly, 1:30 for 100 (50 back and 50 breast) and a 35 for 50 free. My best ever time when I was 16 for a 200 IM was a 2:33. So the fact that I could do that time now is pretty amazing really.

On Thursday, I went back to the gym to lift some heavy weights for both upper and lower body as well as do some cardio work on the cross trainer. I like it better for cardio work than a treadmill as it's less hard on the joints. I really pushed myself especially for the weights. For the lat pull downs, I am doing around 145lbs now for 12 reps. By the last one, I can barely move my arms, so that's good. Most of the other machines (leg extensions, bicep curl, triceps etc.) I was doing between 80 and 115 lbs, so hopefully I'll be able to build up further strength.

As a result, I was very sore for Friday's practice. My swimming wasn't terribly slow but I didn't feel that great in the water. We had to do a set of 18x50 pull on descending time intervals, starting from 1:00 and going down to 40 seconds. A few people attempted 35 seconds, but I don't think I will be able to do that quite yet. Who knows in several months though. I did make all the intervals which is good.

After swim practice on Friday night, my girlfriend and I went out for a late night dinner at a place on Kingsway in Vancouver called Top's Restaurant. I was doing research online for some 24 hour restaurants close to here and I found one on Kingsway not too far away in Vancouver. We went there and found it to be very pleasant. I ordered a Mexican Primavera dish which basically is Penne noodles in a primavera sauce and ground beef with taco seasoning mixed in. It tasted really good. We also had a starter dish of some pita and hummous.. man, that was the best hummous I had ever eaten ever in my life. It was so awesome!! I would totally recommend this restaurant for anyone who is out late and want to have a good place to eat. They have a wide range of items on their menu and the prices aren't too expensive either.

Today, I didn't do too much. I pretty much slept until noon and then did some work on my computer downloading a few things and watching a couple of movies. I was I managed to get all of the Trailer Park Boys episodes on my girlfriend's new computer so I'm sure she'll be happy about that.

Tomorrow, I think I'll mainly focus on my preparation for my classes for next week and then go back to the gym in the evening to do some more weights and cardio.. hopefully it will go well.