When I showed up for today’s swim in Santa Maria I was the only dude there… I was not so excited about that, but I was hoping at least one other swimmer would show up. I got in and started to warm up; once I got my first 200 out of the way 3 more swimmers showed up, yay!
One guy is still rehabbing from a bike injury so there were only 3 of us total doing the actual workout. I ended up being the dude in charge and had to make up a workout on the spot. We started with one of our standard warm ups and then we moved into some 200′s. One of us just did a half ironman in Oceanside over the weekend so I figured something longer and a little more stretched out would be good. From there I recycled an older set that we’ve done before. I had to be creative with intervals since there was a big spread in speeds in our little group today. All told we did a little more than 2500 yards.
Tomorrow I have an ocean swim planned, but that is very weather dependent. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow which is never good news for my oceanic adventures.
Something was a little off today when I went to the beach… despite getting out there pretty early I couldn’t find a free parking spot for myself. I wasn’t really sure what was going on. I ended up in the pay lot which is lame, but turned out to be highly necessary. Apparently it’s spring break time. The lifeguards and street vendors are all back and by the time we got out of the water from our swim the beach was pretty packed.
It was just me and Niel swimming today. We got in on the north side of the pier and made our way to the first buoy. The water was actually colder today than it was last week (we measured 53 degrees) and it took me a little while to get over the temperature. I was the proud owner of a salty ice cream headache for a little while there. We continued on down the rest of the buoy line and then decided to continue on to the Cal Poly Pier. This was actually the plan on Wednesday but the choppy water had changed our minds. Today the water was pretty flat and we only heard one seal (I never saw it) so we figured that we were cool to keep going northward.
By the time we got out to the Cal Poly Pier I was feeling pretty good, I wasn’t really noticing the water temperature at all anymore. On the way back we kept it simple. Straight shot to the nearest buoy, down the line to the pier and then hang a left back towards the beach.
I was kind of sick Friday and Saturday, but this swim really made me feel a lot better. Amazing what some saltwater can do for you :) We’re hoping to get in on Wednesday again, but the forecast isn’t looking so hot… we’ll see if all the rain comes true or not.
using my human thermometer before our swim
view down the beach... as the day went on lots of people were playing in the water
busy contemplating the temperature
view back to the beach from the end of the buoy line
Niel in front of the Cal Poly Pier
View down the Poly pier... it's waaaay longer than the Avila Pier
Just wanted to point out some cool/interesting stuff from USMS that you should check out if you haven’t seen it yet. The first one requires some reading, oh noes! Don’t worry, if you have an interest in what’s going on nationally with the organization this is a good read. Go check out the Year End Report and the Year Ahead from our Executive Director Rob Butcher. Give it a read, it’s worth your time.
The second thing I wanted to point out is much easier to absorb because it’s all video! USMS set up a YouTube Channel not too long ago and has been turning out some pretty good videos. Most of them are focused around clubs right now. I’m actually going to be capturing some video this summer for the USMS YouTube page during my tour! I’ll make sure to let you guys know when my stuff gets edited (by someone way better at video editing than me!) and gets out there. In the meantime here’s some of the latest videos…
Last up is an official USMS Facebook Fan Page. This was just set up this week so it’s pretty new, if you’re into Facebook make sure to become a fan and tell your friends about it! While we’re talking about Facebook Fan Pages… don’t forget you can always become a fan of RobAquatics at facebook.com/robaquatics!
I took my rad new Rob Aquatics suit on its maiden voyage today and it was glorious :) I was expecting to be made fun of at least a little bit by my workout buddies and they took it a little easier on me than I would have expected. I guess when a dude shows up with a zebra striped swimsuit that has his name emblazoned across the ass there’s not a lot to say, ha!
Anyways, we had a pretty decent workout. A whole bunch of pulling this afternoon. I just rocked a pool buoy, some of the other kids had snorkels and hand paddles. In theory we were going to start on a 1:25 base and walk it down 5 seconds each round until we hit 1:10 for the last 100. It was a nice idea but it wasn’t happening. After missing the interval on round 2 we pushed that interval to round 3 and managed to hold it.
200 swim
200 kick
200 pull
400/300/200/100 pull on 1:25 base
100 easy
300/200/100 pull on :15 rest (we missed the planned interval)
100 free
200/100 pull on 1:20 base
100 easy
100 pull all out
100 easy
Now, I’m sore all over. Between a mile of choppy ocean swimming and today’s workout I feel like my ribcage is working on unattaching itself from the rest of my body. Hopefully I feel a little better in the morning! I was messing around with a camera for a bit today so I’ve got some pictures. I don’t however have pics of my new suit… I just couldn’t bring myself to ask someone “hey could you take pictures of my ass, it’s for the internet.” Maybe next time…
swimming into the sunshine through the early evening chop
Me and Niel decided to try out a Wednesday night swim now that the time changed and we have enough daylight to get it done. It used to be a regular thing years ago but it’s been a while since any of the Avila Beach crew came out in the evenings.
We met up at about 5:45pm and got in around 6pm. We entered on the north side of the pier and swam to the end of buoy line. The water was really choppy and it was a little hard to deal with at first. The pictures don’t really do the chop justice, it was more dramatic than it looks. It was hard to find a spot to breathe in without inhaling some salt water. Originally we were thinking about swimming to the Cal Poly pier and back but the chop was pretty strong so we kept it closer to our regular routes. We turned back towards the pier, moving at that angle really helped with the chop. Once we crossed the top of the pier it felt like the water temp dropped a couple degrees. I guess the shadow of the pier had a pretty rapid effect on the water temperatures.
The swim back to shore felt like it took forever! It’s funny how the swim back in always seems three times longer than the swim out. I guess it’s because I don’t always want to go back in :)
Afterwards me and Niel got some breadbowls (chili for me, clam chowder for him) and hung out for a while. His wife caught up with us after a little while. We deemed tonight’s outing a success and decided to try and make this a weekly thing. Hopefully some of the Sunday regulars start coming out with us too!
So how awesome is this? When I came back to the office from my lunchtime workout I was greeted by a package from my friends at Splish. I ordered up a regular brief and a drag suit in zebra print with purple stitching and my logo on the back of it… they turned out FANTASTIC! I am so stoked with this :) A big thank you to Splish for a job well done! If you like creative suits or want to build a custom one go check out Splish.com and do some shopping.
Oh, and while I’m at it a big thank you to my buddy Steve out in New York for getting my logo vectorized for me so that I could do this! Steve’s a big swim fan who coaches and does design work. He recently graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and if your business happens to need someone like Steve he’s for hire! Want to talk to him, I’ll connect you!
Anyways… back to actually swimming… today was a pretty strong workout. Apparently I had been a little too motivatory on Facebook again and we ended up with a workout that was a *little* too hard in a few spots. Our initial interval in the main set was a little too ambitious on the low end and managed to keep moving backwards every time we finished a round. Me… I’m not complaining.
400 free
3 x 100 kick
400 pull
8 x 50 IM Switching (fly/back, back/brst, brst/free, free/free)
Repeat x 3
100 free IM @ 1:40, 1:45, 1:50 by round
100 free IM @ 1:30, 1:35, 1:40 by round
100 free IM @ 1:20, 1:25, 1:30 by round
200 free @ 3:00
50 easy
3050 yards total
Tomorrow I’m planning on sneaking into the ocean after work. We’re just kind of testing it out, if it goes well my Avila Open Water group will try and make it a regular thing.
All kinds of random stuff for you today… first a swimming commercial for candy… I love both those things!
Next up… I got my award for hitting 50 miles in USMS’ Go the Distance! Not that this bald dude gets a lot of use out of swim caps, but it’s always cool to get swim stuff in the mail :)
And lastly… my buddies over at LiveSwim have posted video from Saturday’s Santa Clarita Masters Meet! Go check it out here.
Went for a real swim today out in Avila to cool down from yesterday’s excitement in Santa Clarita. We ended up with a pretty healthy group… 5 swimmers… which isn’t bad for 54 degree water in March. One of my swim friends from Santa Maria showed up kinda late so I hung out with her on the beach while everyone else got in. I knew what the course was so we just made sure to catch up when we got in. All told we swam a little more than a mile today.
We started on the north side of the pier and did the buoy line since the buoys on that side of the pier are still actually there (the south side is a mess, half are gone and the other two are way out of place). I got used to the water pretty quick since I had been in a few days earlier without a wetsuit. Me and Dani caught up to the rest of the group at the first big turn. From there we aimed for the end of the pier. Since we had 2 newer swimmers I stopped every once and a while to let them pass me and make sure everybody was doing ok.
I had a bit of an issue sighting on the way to the far corner of our triangle on the south side of the pier. Without glasses it can be a little hard for me to pick out a white buoy a quarter of a mile away! I got there just fine but I had to stop a few time to try and actually spot it with my goggles off.
As you may have noticed I managed to get some pictures! I tied a string to my wetsuit zipper and my camera. While I was swimming I tucked the camera into the front of my wetsuit. My system worked out pretty well I think! I put a few pics in here for you guys, the rest are over at my Facebook Fan Page.
Getting suited up
the end of the Avila Pier
Dani swimming around the end of the pier
Niel and Pete regrouping for the next leg of our swim
I had a great day down in Santa Clarita! The meet had a really good turn out, about 140 swimmers, and as usual everything ran really smoothly. Also… no rain!!! It’s about time I manage to go out of town without getting rained on.
I drove down early and hung out by the pool watching the end of the 1650′s. I set up my tent over by the Rose Bowl Masters and caught up with my Rose Bowl friends. I had 4 CVMM teammates come out today but they showed up a little bit later.
Today was my first 100 fly of the season. A mix of availability, desire, and just accidentally missing it have kept me from actually swimming it. Last year at this meet was the first time I broke a minute as an adult. Considering I’ve been swimming like no fly recently I was just hoping to break a minute today. I took it out in a 27 and came back in a 31. I need to tighten that up. I really didn’t feel so great in the water but the time adds up so I guess it’s fine. I’ve got a 58 in me this year… maybe in Wisconsin?
My 50 free & 50 fly are kind of in plateau town. The free has been stuck in the 25′s and the fly has been in the 26′s. Nothing to exciting to report out of either of those races. I’m hoping to break out of those numbers shortly.
Oddly I’ve had a little bit of a crush on the 50 breast recently. It’s always been my “palate cleanser” race. Something fun that I don’t really care about the results of. I’ve started to have some decent swims in it and I’ve started to enter it a little bit more. I felt really good off my start and my hands were moving nice and fast. One lane over I had my buddy Tony’s kid. He pulled up on me in the back half of the race but I used my veteran wiles to out touch him at the finish. It’s good to know what I lack in speed I can make up with experience :) Much like my 50 free races with his old man we’ll have to recontest this race in the near future.
After my last race a bunch of us grabbed a lane and messed around with my underwater cameras with some friends and teammates. Post our impromptu photo shoot me and some of the other CVMM kids grabbed some food before everyone had to drive off in all different directions. Tomorrow I’m planning to hit Avila for an ocean swim and then probably fall asleep until like Monday afternoon :) I have a little bit of a break until my next meet… next time I’m racing will be in Wisconsin!
Just a reminder for those of you in SoCal, you have a great meet this Saturday to hit over in Santa Clarita! Santa Clarita has an excellent facility and has been running 3 meets a year (1 per each season) so you might as well get used to hanging out there :) I had a big breakthrough swim at this meet last year and hopefully I can knock out some good swims tomorrow.
