Long Course in the Rain with Kennedy Club Masters

I got an invite last week from a local swimmer to go swim with a group at Kennedy Club in San Luis Obispo. They have a schedule of master classes and groups that do their own workouts together. I knew that they existed but I’ve never dropped in because I’m not a club member.

I hopped in the truck and made my way to SLO right after work. It was kind of rainy today which doesn’t really bother me when I’m swimming seeing as I’m, you know, wet already. I had a guest pass waiting for me at the desk which was very cool, and once I found my way out to the pool I was very surprised to find out that the pool was set for long course meters! I’m definitely a short course guy when it comes to racing, but having access to a long course pool when I’m gearing up for open water swims is pretty awesome. There is another 50m pool in town but it’s only long course early in the morning so it might as well not exist for me.

Here’s the workout we did this evening:

100 pull
300 swim
100 pull
200 swim
100 pull
100 swim

100 easy

5 x 100 25 no breather, 25 fast, 50 easy

6 x 50 kick w/ fins

2 x 200 free

100 cool down

2300 meters total

It’s fair to say this swim hurt a little bit… long course is always a bit of a shock to the system, especially if you’re not ready for it! The guys swimming tonight were all pretty cool and this fits my schedule pretty well so I might just join the club so I have another place to swim. I think I can sign up through work for free anyways so I might as well do it. If you’re a SLO local you can check out Kennedy’s Aquatic schedule here

December 22, 2009 | No Comments »

Saturday Morning with Conejo Valley Masters

I stayed up late Friday night drinking beer and eating ice cream… not sure that was the best prep for an early morning swim with my adopted team :) Saturdays at CVMM are a 90 minute workout which is 30 minutes longer than what I normally do. I need to find my way into more longer practices like this, they’re good for me!

Even though I was kind of outclassed on the end of the pool I was swimming in I’m glad I got in with the faster kids. I always do better when I have people to chase. I split a lane with my buddy Peter and we had some real fast college age kids in the lane next to us who really laid it down today. Later in the workout Coach Nancy came down and joined us in the water on my end of the pool which was cool.

The workout itself was fun, hard, but fun. Even though we had a big range of abilities in the pool we were able to do a lot of the main set on the same intervals so that everyone was swimming together. We had a really good vibe in the pool today.

Here’s what I remember of today’s workout

400 (100 drill, 200 free, 100 swim)
12 x 50 free 1-6 drill/swim, 6-12 swim

Repeat x 3 (round 1 pull, round 2 swim, round 3 fast)
6 x 150
3 x 50

100 easy

4250 yards total

After workout I went to breakfast with some teammates and I spent the rest of the day hanging out with the coaches talking about the direction and future of the team, keep and eye out for them there’s some good stuff coming! I took the train home this afternoon and I’m debating whether a frosty ocean swim is in my future for tomorrow, I’m pretty tired. We’ll see what goes down!

December 20, 2009 | 2 Comments »

Friday Night Swim with Coach Ahelee at CVMM

I drove down to the city for work and figured it out where I could stay a night to hang out with my Conejo Valley Multisport Masters friends. My friend Ahelee has joined the team as a coach and I’m really excited about it! We’ve been hanging out all evening and she coached the Friday night workout. It was a Fast Friday sort of deal, and even though we didn’t do a ton of yardage we worked it pretty hard!

400 warm up (200 free, 100 back, 100 breast)
500 every 4th 25 stroke

12 x 25 descending in groups of 3 (alternating 3 fly, 3 free)

Repeat x 4
3 x 50 descending @ 1:00
100 fly – FAST (repeat 2-4 were w/ fins, 2 & 3 were a fast 50 followed by a 50 fly drill)
50 easy

6 x 25 2 fast, 2 medium, 2 easy

2400 yards total

Ahelee has been one of my unofficial coaches for a long time so it’s really great to finally be on the same team! I think I named her as the coach of the imaginary RobAquatics National team a long time ago :) She took a lot of time helping me try to fix my catch… it’s really hard to change that part of your stroke but it’s definitely something I need to do, I’m glad I have someone on deck looking after my progression with that. I’m getting there, it just needs some more time.

I should be back in the pool with CVMM tomorrow morning!

December 19, 2009 | No Comments »

I’ve Been Outed as the Goggle Monster

So it all started innocently enough with people being excited about brand new expensive carbon goggles. I mentioned on twitter that I *may* have a bit of a collection going. After posting a picture of just a few of the goggles I had around the house I was accosted by the Kastaway Blog and their photoshoply madness with this…


source

and later it was implied by my twitter friends that I might be the Goggle Monster mentioned that day on Kastaway…


Picture souce: Kastawayblog.com

well guess what, you got me… I am the Goggle Monster, are you happy now? I live under bleachers and eat lost goggles. It’s true. I know it’s hard to believe, but here’s what I look like in my true form…


make your own monster roaring noises

All I ask is that you don’t treat me any differently just because I happen to be a monster made out of goggles that also happens to eat goggles… my life is hard enough already.

December 18, 2009 | 6 Comments »

Back to Santa Maria, Finally!

Between my travel schedule, work stuff, and pool closures I’ve effectively been shut out for weeks from of one of my favorite things to do during the week… swim at lunch on a workday! Not that I haven’t tried mind you! I drove down there about 3 different times where the pool was just straight up closed and nobody ever told me. Well after a month and a few days I finally got in a practice at my favorite lunchtime pool in Santa Maria.

One the drive down I was really hoping the pool would actually be open for me… I was prepared for a let down. Once I got parked and saw that the pool was filled and open I was really excited! We had a really small masters crew today. We started with 2 and finished with 3. It sounds like everyone else has been having attendance issues recently too so at least I wasn’t the only one. We did a regular warm up and real basic 10×100 type of set. One guy kept swimming based off of a workout he brought with him and the rest of us decided to do some sprints. I helped teach my workout buddy how to do starts off the blocks and we even did a few timed sprints. I swam a 50 free in 27 seconds and a 50 fly in 28 which is ok for mid-workout in a drag suit.

250 swim
200 kick
200 pull

10 x 100 on broken clock mystery interval

2 x 50 sprint off blocks, 1 free (27), 1 fly (28)

100 easy

1850 yards total

Hopefully I can get back to my regular Tuesday/Thursday rhythm for workouts with this group. The only impending pool closure that I know about in the near future is Christmas day.

Just for fun, check this out… Eric from the Kastaway blog has upgraded my goggle picture from yesterday, I feel like I have a goggle intervention coming…

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An Escalation in Goggle Tech and Prices

I love me some goggles… I can’t help it… they’re cheap, practical and colorful. The picture above is just what I have floating around the house, it doesn’t count the ones I have in my desk at the office and others in the house that are still in their packaging. It’s fair to say that I was a little geeked out today when more pictures and info about blueseventy’s new super goggle started to come out. The part that really stuck with me though is the price tag… about $100! gulp! My most expensive goggles are like $24.00. I hope these things are super awesome and fast with x-ray vision.


blueseventy carbonRZR goggle

Eric from the Kastaway blog did the math on Twitter earlier today and you can buy either 22.22 pairs of swedish goggles or 1 pair of carbonRZR goggles, your choice. Knowing myself I’ll probably end up with a pair just in the name of science. You can read all the specs over at the17thman’s blog.

December 17, 2009 | No Comments »

New Friends, Free Soap, and Last Chance Tech Suit Meets

Just got back from a super boring hour of pain on the elliptical machine at the gym… luckily the rest of my day was much more fun!

I got a chance to hang out with super open water swimmer and Catalina Channel swimmer Lynn Kubasek! She was en route to San Luis Obispo and dropped into Pismo Beach to hang out for a little bit. We talked all kinds and I learned a lot about what goes into a much more epic open water ocean swim than what I’ve tackled so far. I hope I get a chance to get in the ocean and swim with Lynn one of these days, she’s super fun :)


Check it out, Lynn brought me some soap she made herself, super cool!

My other big distraction today was talk of a meet that’s going on before FINA’s meeting where they are supposedly going to finally make the official decision to ban tech suits. On January 9th there’s a meet in the Adirondack LMSC (Upstate New York). It got me wondering a few things… 1 – how many meets are going on the first 2 weeks of the year? 2 – Is it completely crazy to fly to Albany, NY just to swim a meet? Maybe I could go swim in snow country instead of Las Vegas in January. I could leave SLO Friday night, get to New York Saturday morning, race that afternoon and come home Sunday night… hmmm… good idea or awesome idea?

December 15, 2009 | 2 Comments »

Rained Out of the Ocean… Hit the Gym Instead

It’s been raining pretty hard out here on the Central Coast of California and that tends to mean water quality issues at a lot of the beaches due to agricultural run off and other ucky things like that. Even though today has been pretty dry, it’s going to take a while for the water to cycle out. That being the case I slept in this morning and settled for a swim at my gym in Pismo (which didn’t seem particularly clean either… ewww).

I started with about 30 minutes on the elliptical machine upstairs. I would have gone a little longer, but my iPod shuffle ran out of juice and I got very bored very quickly after that. I hate the elliptical machine, but I really work up a sweat on it which is probably good for my waistline.

It’s normally not too busy at my gym’s pool, but we had a pretty full house today. There was no way I could have shared a lane with anyone in the pool without drowning them so I hung out and waited on the pool deck until somebody got out. Once I had a lane I jumped in and rigged up my SwiMP3, so far I really dig that thing. Anyways, my swim wasn’t particularly awe inspiring. I just wanted to get in some yardage. I tried to focus on my freestyle catch on the left hand side. The last time I swam with my Coach down at CVMM she caught a problem with my left arm. I kind of drift down and out and then start my catch. It’s on my shortlist of possible suspects for why my shoulder on that side has been such a mess recently. I’m really trying to correct that drift and drop straight down into my pull instead… we’ll see how it goes…

I’m not sure how much swimming I’ll get in where this week. I’ll have to miss my Tuesday swim because the Santa Maria pool is still closed, but I should be able to go back on Thursday. In the middle there I’m going to have to stick with solo workouts. I think I’m going to start coming up with some non-swim workouts too just to mix it up a little bit between seasons.

December 14, 2009 | 4 Comments »

2009 SPMA SCM Champs Videos are Fully Posted!

The guys at LiveSwim.net have finished processing the Long Beach meet and have it all posted on the net, go check out your races at grunions.liveswim.net!

Here’s my last event of the meet, the 100m fly… watch for the rad underwater shot!

December 12, 2009 | 1 Comment »

More Xmas Ideas for the Swim Set

I’ve got some more xmas excitement for swimmer types for you all to follow up my first list from about a week ago…

1. Swim DVD’s from Go Swim

I’m a big fan of Go Swim, I think they produce a lot of great content… a good majority of which they give away for free on their site GoSwim.tv. Go Swim also produces some really good DVDs for purchase that I highly recommend. I picked up their Freestyle with Jason Lezak video back in July and loved it! You can check out my review of that DVD here.

Beyond the Jason Lezak video, Go Swim has done work with people like Aaron Piersol, Sara McLarty, Kaitlin Sandeno, Erik Vendt, Margaret Hoelzer, Brendan Hansen, Amanda Beard and more! You can check out a list of all the current Go Swim DVDs here!

2. Swimming Anatomy
This book came highly recommended by a lot of my swimmer friends so I picked myself up a copy a couple of weeks ago. The book has a lot of really big words but luckily it also has a lot of pictures :) So even if you don’t know what a sternocleidomastoid is you can still pretend to be smart and know what you’re talking about by looking at the pictures.

I’m still reading through my copy, but so far I’m really impressed with it. It’s kind of like swimming muscles text book. Good stuff. You can find the book at Amazon, Borders, or wherever else you like to buy books.

3. Swimming World Magazine Subscription
Swimming World not only has a great website with the best swimming news coverage on the web, but they also put out a great print magazine as well.

I’m always excited when my copy shows up, and it never hurts my feelings to find Federica Pellegrini in my mailbox… just sayin’ :) Go out and get your subscription set up here!

4. Gel Packs, Shot Blocks and Other Athletic Pseudo-Foods

I get these things for free in open water event goody bags sometimes but I rarely think to actually buy them. The last time I was at the triathlon store I bought a handful of them just in case. Gu Energy Gels, Hammer Gels, and Shot Blocks are all pretty popular with my triathlete friends in particular and I bet that they’d be stoked to have some in their stockings!

5. USMS Registration
Have a friend that needs to re-up their Masters registration or is Masters curious? Cover their registration cost! Sign yourself up while you’re there!

Go to www.usms.org/reg/ to sign up… check out my step by step walk through if you need a little help with the process.

6. Entry to a Rad Swimming Event
A lot of local meets fall in the $20-$40 range, but some meets – especially longer open water races – can cost some bucks. If I get into the Chesapeake Bay Swim I have to pay $250 to play. If you have a swimmer on your list who has a dream event that they want to do but don’t have the dough, pay for their entry… if they’re a die hard swimmer this will probably be the coolest thing you could get them!

7. Swim Lessons for Kids via Make-a-Splash

I’ve talked about the Make-a-Splash program and the USA Swimming Foundation on the blog a few times before and personally I’ve made a few donations throughout the year. I think it’s a good cause and it’s a good program.

You can make a donation here to pay for swim lessons for a kid that can’t afford it. Let them know who sent you in the comment section!

December 11, 2009 | No Comments »
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