Training is Hard

Woke up at 5:30am today. Awesome!

In the water at 5:49am.  5500-yard workout.  Lots of focus on distance-per-stroke.  Last week it was really hard to lengthen my stroke, but today it already felt a lot easier.  I made up this workout last night.  Pretty basic:

Warm-up: 200 free, 200 back, 200 pull, 200 kick, 4x50 descend @ :45, 100ez. All w/ <=15 strokes/length.

Main Set:
5x200 swim DPS descend on 3:00, 14-16 strokes/length, 2:26 2:26 2:25 2:25 2:22
5x200 pull DPS w paddles, descend on 2:40, 12-14 strokes/length

Drills: 3x{100 fist drill, 50 swim, 4x50 drill/swim by 25 – 6 kicks/side, catch-up, R-arm, L-arm}

3x200 descend, hard, worry less about DPS – 2:22 at 15-17 strokes/length, 2:15 staying long but not counting, 2:09 just going for it

about 250 EZ

10x25 on :30 shooting for 12 or less strokes/length.  Managed to do 11 strokes on each while holding :17s.

cool down 250

I think that adds up to 5500.

Then I rinsed off, put on my street clothes, drove home again, changed into bike clothes and went into the Training Lab (a.k.a. my garage).  I pulled out a few of Matt Dixon’s workouts last night as they helped me greatly improve my power numbers and efficiency last winter.  Today’s adventure included lots of Z2 work at elevated cadences and Z3 work at uncomfortably low cadences.  It was a 90 minute ride with a lot of muscular fatigue but a bit less cardio stress.

I made it to the office in time for my 9:30am call, and now I have about 8.5 hours to change the world until it’s time to get back in the pool for swim #2 with the Pro Club Masters.

A busy, physically and mentally taxing day … but I wouldn’t have it any other way!