50s backstroke

Last night was a fairly easy practice compared to what we did on Monday. We started out with 12x50 alternating 25 single arm fly, 25 freestyle for odd 50s and and 25 full stroke butterfly, 25 freestyle for even 50s. We did this on an easy 1:10. The next thing we did was a kick set which of course I elected not to go first. The main set was a set of swimming followed by sprint 50s of stroke. It went something like:
300 on 6:00
50 choice
200 on 4:00
50 choice
100 on 2:00
50 choice
1 minute rest
50 choice

Of course, I did them backstroke and I did really well it seems. For the 4x50 backstroke I did the following times: 39.6, 37.6, 38.0 and 35.9

The last one was really great. 35! I guess I'm not surprised but it bodes well for provincials if I can keep myself strong and healthy. I hope to be able to continue to swim well between now and then...

We warmed down with a 100 easy... overall I enjoyed this practice and hope to do something similar to it in the future.

Really hard practice last night

I must say that last night we did a really hard practice. The main set was 10x200 on the following intervals: 3 on 3:30, 2 on 3:15, 3 on 3:20, 1 on 3:10 and 1 on 3:00. I was actually okay for the first 6 or 7 reps averaging slightly under 3:00. THe last 3 reps I got really tired and had to let my lanemate Kyra go ahead of me as she was starting to catch me. It made me doubt my physical fitness as I really need to try and keep the same pace for all of them. I think the last 3 I did in like 3:05 or something like that, which could be worse I suppose. My goal for the next time that we do a set like this is to try my best to keep the same pace on all of them and no matter what happens, keep going first unless Kyra or someone else in my lane starts touching my feet. I need to be stronger mentally in sets like these and not give into the pain. Hopefully that will come in time with better fitness. I am going to be going to the gym tonight to do some heavy cardio work and some weights as well. We'll see how that goes...

XII FINA World Championships

I just want to let everyone know if they don't already know that the XII FINA World Swimming Championships are happening right now in Melbourne, Australia. Events got started yesterday and so far it looks like some pretty fast swimming is going on. Although there were a few surprises like Grant Hackett only managing a bronze medal in the 400m (lost to a Korean) and a few people being shut out of finals who were medallists at the world championships in Montreal 2 years ago. Anyways, here is the link to official results of the meet

http://www.omegatiming.com/swimming/racearchives/2007/melbourne2007/index.htm


Hopefully, Canada can win at least 1 medal. I know the competition is really fierce but we'll see what happens...

Surprising swim last night

Last night's practice was fairly uneventful for me except for the very end I must say.
In any case, I am wondering if I should permanently move up to lane 5 or 6 since I always seem to be running over people either in my lane or in lane 3 while I'm swimming. I find it distracting at times but on the other hand, it's a positive sign as it seems as though I'm getting faster or others are getting slower. I guess sometimes I fear that I will get run over on certain sets in lanes 5 and 6 (such as pull sets or kick sets) as I can't swim those very well. Those are one of the few types of sets in my lane where people can keep up to me or even pass me. Jody almost lapped me on the 16x25 kick we did yesterday.

Anyway, the very last thing we did yesterday night was a timed 100 with fins. I decided to do backstroke since I wanted to see what I could do with fins. Suffice it to say, I totally blew my expectations out of the water. Granted, the fins that I used were scuba fins and absolutely huge compared to the fins of everyone else but nevertheless, I still surprised myself. I ended up going a 1:05 for 100m backstroke with fins. That's really amazing! If I can even add 10 seconds on to that time by provincials and do a 1:15 with regular backstroke, then I'll be ecstatic! I guess time will tell to see how well I'll do.

Tonight I did a very short workout at the gym (only about an hour) but at least it was better than nothing. I am not too sore right now but we'll see how I feel tomorrow at swim practice.

Workout last night

Last night's swim workout was pretty challenging but I found the main set to be quite fun.
We started off with 12x25 on :40 doing the following:
1 swim butterfly, 3 butterfly drill
2 swim butterfly, 2 butterfly drill
3 swim butterfly and 1 butterfly drill.

Overall that set didn't seem too bad for a warmup.
The next thing we did was 7x100 on 1:50 choice or pull (needless to say I did easy backstroke for this)

The main set was as follows:
4x100 IM on 1:50
200 IM on 3:40
4x100 IM on 1:40

This set actually was pretty tiring. Fortunately, I made all the intervals on the last set of 4x100 despite the fact that I had to swim around people a few times as I was going on a faster pace time. I was averaging between 1:32 and 1:38 on all the 100 IMs for both sets and I did a 3:14 for the 200 IM.

We finished off the practice with 12x50 pull/choice on :55. That was not too bad and I was able to do them easy backstroke without any problem.
Total for this practice was 2600m. It's pretty good, definitely one of our longer practices to date. It's good that we're having these practices now so that we can get in shape for provincials.
I don't think I'll head to the gym today even though I have time since I seemed to have developed a cold and am feeling a bit sluggish today. I think I'm going to take it easy and go on Thursday instead.

Final decision for events at BC Provincials

I had a look again last night at the event list for the upcoming BC Provincials in Surrey to decide what events I want to swim. I must say this year the events are very poorly spaced out as some events like 100m freestyle and 100m butterfly were back to back (not that I'm swimming those races but it's a good example. A lot of people who swim one would do the other as well).
Anyways, after careful consideration, I've decided to enter into the following events:
Day 1 - 200m backstroke and 50m butterfly
Day 2 - 200m freestyle (swum as IM), 100m backstroke and 800m freestyle.

I realize that there is only 1 event on Saturday between the 200m backstroke and 50m butterfly but I figured that since my main event on the first day is 200m backstroke, the fact that I wouldn't get much rest between that and the 50m butterfly isn't that important since the race is only a 50 and I'm doing it mostly for fun.

On Sunday, I may or not may swim the 800m freestyle depending on how tired I feel. I will enter it anyway since it is the very last race and it doesn't really matter how I swim it. If I do swim it, I hope to go a time around 12 minutes.

Anyways, that's about all. I tried my best to come up with the best events possible based on the schedule they've provided. Let's hope that next year they come up with a better schedule that will take into account most people's event choices!

Hard Workout Wednesday and other news

I have to say that Wednesday's workout was really challenging for me. Our main set was 4x(3x100) on various intervals. Initially, I was going to go on a slower pacetime but my teammate Dan in the next lane was kind of goading me on to try and make the same intervals that they were doing. Never one to back away from a challenge (and also feeling like I would be perceived as a wimp if I backed down), I said yes. The pace times that they were going on were: 3x100 on 1:40, 3x100 on 1:35, 3x100 on 1:30 and 3x100 on 1:25. I didn't have any problem making the times until the last set. 3x100 on 1:25 nearly killed me. I did make 2 out of 3 (1st one I did a 1:21 and the 2nd one I did a 1:24 or 1:25) but by after the 2nd one, I was literally hyperventilating as my body was just pushed to the breaking point. The third one, I let my teammate Kyra go ahead of me as she was already catching me on the 2nd one and I didn't have any energy left to go hard on the last one. I ended up swimming the first 25m backstroke and swam the other 3 lengths easy freestyle. I actually felt quite ashamed of myself since I felt I wasn't able to make all 3 on 1:25. I just literally ran out of gas and air as well. Let's hope that I will be able to do a good workout tonight.
I haven't been able to go to the gym lately as much as I have wanted to but that is actually due to some good news. I got hired for a job starting this week and it's 15 to 20 hours a week at a school downtown. I have to buy skytrain tickets to get there since I don't want to drive but the pay is good and at least it's something. I hope that after June, it can turn into something more permanent. I'll know more by that point. I will still try and get to the gym at least once this weekend for a weight training session and do some cardio as well. Provincials are coming up soon and I hope to be able to get in decent shape. I certainly didn't feel like it after Wednesday's workout but I hope that can change.
On a side note, last night I made a bit of a blunder while cooking tacos for myself and my girlfriend. I had forgotten that I didn't turn off the element on the stove after I cooked the beef and I left a plastic bag full of tortillas on the element. Well, the next thing I know.. the bag caught fire and burned some of the tortillas inside as well. I was able to put out the fire but after I did and moved the bag from the element, I noticed that some of the plastic from the bag had somehow melted its way on the element and I couldn't get it off later. I think the element still works as I tried it later but it looks like crap. I guess I'll have to be more careful about things from now on in the future.

US Masters Short Course Championships

I was doing some research the other night about other possible meets that I could go to after provincials in April since it seems I won't be able to go to the Canadian Masters Nationals in Winnipeg in May due to financial reasons. I discovered that the US Masters Short Course Yards Nationals will be held in Federal Way, Washington (a suburb of Seattle) the same weekend as Canadian nationals. Since it's a lot cheaper for me to go to Seattle than it is to go to Winnipeg due to distance etc., I think I'll look into the possibility of competing at the US Masters SC Nationals instead. Apparently, if I only want to swim 3 races, I don't have to meet any of the qualifying times which is good because unfortunately, I don't qualify in anything for my age group. I have only swum in a yards meet once or twice in my life so I'm not even sure what I could do. I imagine it must be somewhat easier since the distance is slightly less.
I hope to maybe convince a couple of people from my team to go to the SC Nationals in Seattle. I'm sure they might be more inclined to do that than go all the way to Winnipeg... we'll have to see how it goes. I really hope that I'll be able to go...

Swimming well last practice

Well, I think I need to update this blog more often but something always seems to get in the way. Usually, I either forget to do it or just get interrupted with something that seems more urgent. In any case, I did find some time this evening to update.
My swimming has been going pretty well lately. At Wednesday's practice, we did a set of 5x200 on 5:00 descending each interval by 4 seconds as our main set. I decided to do it backstroke since it seems as if it is my best stroke lately. I did really good times and and was able to descend them perfectly. I started out with a 3:07, then a 3:02, 2:57, 2:55 and the last one was 2:51. That is only 2 seconds slower than my masters lifetime best that I did a couple of weeks ago of 2:49.67. I hope it is a good omen for provincials. Hopefully, I can knock it down another few seconds and go around 2:45. I would be thrilled with that. But even if I don't do that, I will still be happy since I accomplished my goal this year for masters which was to break 2:50 in the 200 back.

Yesterday was an absolutely crazy day for me. It was one of those days where everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. I woke up and tried to print out a resume for a job interview that I had and realized that I was out of toner. I quickly tried several different places to see if they had the kind of toner I need for the printer and I was out of luck, so I ended up not bringing my resume. I decided to take the skytrain to where I was going instead of drive since it was downtown and I don't like to pay for parking and all the congestion. The skytrain ended up breaking down for about 1/2 hour which made me late for my interview. I felt very nervous during the interview since I was kind of already in a flustard state of mine when I arrived. I found out later that I didn't get the job but it was not a surprise to me. Then, I go to pick up my laundry from the laundromat and several of my nice shirts are ruined with some kind of ink stains on them. I am not sure how that happened. Anyways, needless to say I was very glad when that day was over.
Today has been pretty quiet thankfully. I have spent the day mostly relaxing and doing some household chores as well as *finally* find a place that sells the right toner (too little too late I suppose). I also did some grocery shopping.
I hope swim practice goes well tonight. I really enjoyed Wednesday's practice, so hopefully we can do something similar tonight.