This was posted just recently to both Twitter and Facebook by Mel Stewart (Gold Medal Mel)…
I’m looking for more substantial confirmation, but as it stands this is very big news!
If you want to follow Gold Medal Mel on Twitter you can do so here
Well I guess in all honesty the whole weekend was lazy. This weekend Pismo Beach is hosting its annual car show and my pool happens to be at the epicenter of the parking mess. They stopped letting gym members park in the lot back on Thursday! The whole 5 Cities area that I live in is home to maybe 50,000. This event brings an extra 100,000 so you can imagine the mess. As a local I find it best to just pretend Pismo doesn’t exist again until the car show is over.
While I wait for everyone to leave town I have had aquatic endeavors on my mind… I bought a new suit and a pile of swedish goggles in various colors from Swim Outlet. I’ve also been researching stand up paddle boarding (SUP). It’s basically riding a giant surf board with a paddle. Supposedly it is an excellent core workout on top of being a lot of fun. I’m thinking about getting out there and renting a board and getting some lessons locally. See if I dig it. I live and work close enough to the beach that I could run down at lunch on the days I’m not swimming and paddle around and surf a few waves for 45 minutes and rush back to work just in time. Anybody have any experience with Stand Up Paddle Boarding? I’m highly curious.
Today was another lane lineless day in Santa Maria which is fine by me. Our little open water simulation is totally fun. After a 200yd warm up we did 5 laps around the pool (~145m/lap). After that it switched over to a relay type of set. 2 in one lane and 3 in the other, we went IM order out and free back (1st guy fly/free, second guy back/free, etc.). I really liked this because it gave me a chance to do some starts and some short, fast swimming. We cycled through for 10 minutes. I pushed most of my turns pretty hard, it was a lot of fun. Next week workouts should be back to normal, but I’m glad I got to mix in a few out of the ordinary workouts like this!
I spent a little more time with my new H2O Audio Interval water proof iPod thingie tonight, and so far so good. My only real gripe with it when I first tried it out was that it kind of drifts on the back of your head when you’re swimming. Not in an unusable way but in a slightly irritating way. I think I’ve found my fix for it though… a basic latex cap.
When you throw a cap over the top of it it’s not going to go anywhere. The cap isn’t going to exert enough pressure on the buttons to randomly change the song or the volume on you. Plus you can still use all the buttons through the cap.
I would assume this wouldn’t necessarily work for everybody. If you have a lot of hair this may be a no go. However if you have short hair, or no hair like me, this is a pretty good way to make the H20 Audio easier to use.
Anyways, back to actual swimming… tonight I did a real free flow kind of workout. I started with about 25 solid minutes of swimming with my music playing. I would have gone even further without stopping but I accidentally swallowed some pool water… gross. My day would have been complete without drinking health club water. After my mini break I did a reverse 400 IM. I followed it up with a sprint 50 fly and then a few hundred more yards of freestyle to cool down. Tomorrow I should be down in Santa Maria for a workout there.
I don’t think my current home search is going to turn up something this cool, but a boy can dream right? If I end up buying a place without enough yard for a pool I guess I’ll just have to find a way to put it on top of the house, why not?
Anyways, we were faced with a lane line-less 50m pool so we ended up doing something kind of fun and a little out of the ordinary. We swam around the edges of the pool instead of just back and forth. It had a total open water lake swim type of vibe. There was a good breeze running that was pushing some water around. There were 3 of us and everyone swam 2 laps and sat out one. At all times one of us was on deck watching the other 2 swim. I could have done this all day. I mainly swam free but I did sneak in about 50m or fly and 50m of backstroke.
200 warm up
about 10 x 145m open water-esque circles
1620m total
Today I was in Target and I was surprised to see a small display with H20 Audio products. They had their headphones, cases that attach to goggle straps, and arm bands. I’ve always wanted to try out some of the latest generation waterproof music devices but I’m highly skeptical of how well they work. A long time ago I had a late 90′s Speedo brand waterproof radio that was a total hunk of crap that kind of soured me to the whole idea. Anyways… I saw their display and my impulsive nature started to kick in, I decided that this would be a belated birthday present to myself. The H2O Audio Interval itself is $79.99, not cheap by any stretch of the imagination but much less than a lot of the other aquatic MP3 players… The catch is that it does not come with the MP3 player! It’s just a waterproof case with integrated headphones, you need to supply your own 2nd Generation iPod Shuffle. At the moment you can pick up a Shuffle for under $50, I got mine for $48.79. So total price was $128.78 plus tax which is about par for the course when you compare it to other systems.
When I got home I opened everything up and read all the directions. I didn’t want to make a dumb mistake that cost me an iPod, even a cheap one! The Interval’s directions recommend doing a soak test to make sure the unit works before you insert the iPod. So I got a small container and filled it with water and left the Interval in there while I loaded up the iPod. I made sure to hold the Interval underwater for a while (it floats) and play with all the buttons. After about 30 minutes of messing around with iTunes I took the Interval out of the water. After drying off the case I opened it up. Totally dry. No leaks. Now that I knew it actually worked it was time to take it to the pool.
At the pool I got the unit strapped to my goggles (TYR Socket Rockets with a regular flat rubber strap) which was pretty easy. I did have to tighten up my straps quite a bit however to ensure the Interval wouldn’t drag my goggles right off my head. The buttons on the back of the unit are very easy to manipulate, I got the music playing, and jumped in the pool hoping for the best. I hit the water without incident. Everything was working and the music was pumping. Phew!
I wanted to swim all strokes at a variety of speeds. Although the Interval didn’t hold perfectly still it did hold up just fine to flip turns, butterfly and anything else I could think of. It did tend to move down the back of my head to a lower position that I usually wear my straps, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. Midway through I switched to a pair of goggles with a silicone strap and the unit still drifted downward a little bit but held much better than my plain rubber strap did.
The sound quality was far beyond my expectations. The headphones make a really solid seal with your ear canal and the sound is very clear. Obviously it’s not as good as what you’d have on dry land, but it’s not bad at all. The only downside I found to the headphones is that you can’t really hear anything else. Even if you turn off the music it would still be a struggle to hear someone talking to you, but I bought this for the days that I work out by myself so that’s not really a problem.
Another major bonus for the Interval is that since it uses an iPod it is iTunes compatible. No messing around with other software or changing file formats required! In online reviews of other waterproof MP3 players I’ve seen compatability issues to be a major gripe.
Overall I dig the H2O Audio Interval. Honestly I didn’t think I would, but it really surprised me with how well it worked. It’s not perfect, but it is very good. I wish it weren’t as bulky, but the newest iPod Shuffle is much smaller so if they develop a case for that I think it will be awesome. Longevity is another matter all together. I’m totally stoked with it on day one, we’ll see how long it really lasts. If I have a major failure I’ll make sure to update my review with it, but the design is so simple I don’t really see any problems in the near future.
You can get your hands on the H20 Interval in person at Target like I did or you can order it online.
**UPDATE 17JUN09: I came up with a fix for holding the unit in place. A latex swim cap does wonders. Read more
**UPDATE 18AUG09: I have been having problems with one of the earbuds staying in place. When they are firmly in the ear they sound pretty good, when the seal is broken… not so much. I’m experimenting with some different sized ear pieces to see if I can get this problem fixed.
I was killing a little bit of time on Facebook and happened upon something kind of curious… videos of me swimming that I didn’t know existed! Highly unexpected! The SPMA Facebook Group has a whole bunch of videos from the Santa Clarita swim meet back in mid-May.
I found videos of my 50 fly, 50 free, & 50 breast. I really like seeing myself swim so that I can self diagnose some of the things I’m doing right and some of the things I’m doing wrong. If you’ve never seen yourself swim I highly recommend it, it’s very eye opening. And seriously it’s not that hard to get your hands on, practically everything takes video these days. I usually just use my digital camera.
If you were at the Santa Clarita meet go here and see if there is some video posted of any of your races. Even if you’re not a Facebook user you should be able to view this page and the videos.
If you are a Facebook user, here are a few good groups for you to check out:
I’m thinking I need to track down all the LMSC Facebook groups and put them together in one place. Feel free to email me links (rob@robaquatics.com) or leave them in the comments, I’ll try and find what I can by myself over the weekend.
Hey great! More Swimsuit drama! < /sarcasm >
Here’s some interesting news from Swimming World Magazine:
“the Dubai Charter on swimsuit rules is not being applied to Masters swimming by FINA.
“In fact, the Dubai Charter is not applicable to Masters,” FINA Press Commission member Pedro Adrega told Swimming World. ” (read the whole thing here)
Ultimately I’m not totally sure what to think of this. Originally I think the Dubai charter was supposed to set rules for the World Champs in Rome and be a harbinger of swimsuit rules to come. So I guess technically it wasn’t necessarily meant to specifically apply to masters. However when it was announced everyone assumed that it applied to Masters just as much as anyone else covered by FINA and USMS made some rule adjustments in accordance. There was no reason to think that there would be a distinction between organizations within FINA and it was never stated that they had any intention of treating us any differently.
So basically the whole thing is a mess. A thread has already popped up on the USMS Forum about this and Executive Director Rob Butcher has published the following comment:
Kathy Kasey Chair of the Rules Committee is USMS spokesperson on this issue. Whatever statements Kathy issues is the position of USMS. The statement she issued on behalf of the Rules Committee on June 1 still stands (http://www.usms.org/rules/20090601swimsuits.pdf). The Rules Committee continues to monitor the situation and gather information on a daily basis. What is clear is the Recognition and Awards Committee is continuing to accept world records and Top 10 swims for Masters certification.
As more information is made available and the Rules Committee is able to analyze, they will issue statements.
It sounds like this little nugget of excitement is news to USMS and the plan remains to stick to business as usual until FINA gets a grip on what they’re actually trying to do. As far as my little tiff with Craig Lord, I think I’m still right but he does score a point in this little fiasco.
Today has been kind of rushed, I’ve got a ton so stuff going on but I wasn’t about to give up a swim especially with it being so nice outside! I left the office late and showed up at the pool about 200 yards into the warm up. The IM set we did was a killer! It sounded pretty easy until we actually started swimming it at the prescribed intervals. I was huffing and puffing after the first round and I was pretty burnt by the last one. It was a character building set…
After we did the 8 50′s I had to get out and go look at a house. I’m on the verge of throwing an offer down on a place and I wanted to cruise the neighborhood again just to check it out. Since then I’ve been trying to actually get work done while getting calls from my mortgage guy, my realtor and my girlfriend… hopefully it all works out shortly so that I can get back to focusing on important things like swimming :)
800 reverse IM kick, drill, kick, swim by 50 (showed up late and did about 600 yards)
Repeat x 4
25 fly
50 back
75 breast
100 free
(Don’t remember the intervals but they were quick enough that I got almost no rest)
8 x 50 free pull w/ buoy
50 cool down
2050 yards total
In other news…. I can’t go to the Las Vegas Meet, boo :( I was planning on it but I have too many things up in the air personally to ditch town for 3 days to go to a swim meet and gamble away all my money. I’ll be back in action once the Santa Barbara LCM meet comes around in early July.
If you need an excuse to go to Vegas for a weekend you can get all the info here. It’s a nice pool, indoors, and not too far from the strip… plus warm up opens at noon in case you over do it the night before or have to drive in from LA.
