The Wisconsin Masters are having their state meet on the 10th and 11th of April and I’ve decided that it’s a perfect excuse to go visit the family and do some swimming! I’m going to make a 4 day weekend out of it. The big plan is to drink beer, eat fatty foods and swim fast!
I signed myself up for the 50 free/fly/breast, 100 fly, and the 200 fly. I’m excited to swim in Wisconsin, especially at Schroeder… it’s a fast pool! I swam a couple of state meets there as a kid and I did a workout there last year on my Midwest World Tour.
Seeing as I’m the first person to register for the meet I am the Wisconsin State Champion in everything! At least that’s what I’m telling myself :) I have a feeling that’s going to change shortly, but at least I was the fastest register… that’s gotta count for something right? So far I have 2 other Californians who are planning to come out which is pretty awesome! Who else wants to swim in the land of beer and cheese with me? You can register here.
Schroeder Aquatic Center
Tonight I went out and made sure to get a good start to February’s GTD numbers. I swam 4000 meters tonight at Kennedy.
200 swim
200 kick
200 pull
10 x 100 swim
7 x 200 kick/swim/pull by 200
2 x 500 swim
4000 meters total
Tonight was the last stop on the Wisconsin Leg of my Midwest Masters World Tour. I dropped in with the Elmbrook Masters team in Brookfield. I sent a few emails to the team last week and they were nice enough to let me drop in for an evening. Tonight they were swimming at Brookfield East High School and the pool was crowded! Lots of swimmers spread across about 6 lanes.
I could feel my early morning workout while I was in there, but I still had a lot of juice left. I thought that I was going to fade real hard but I managed to maintain a pretty healthy pace throughout the whole workout.
Here’s what we swam tonight:
400 warm up
4 x 25 drill IM order
Repeat x 3
50 drill @ 1:00
3 x 150 free
50 easy
300 dolphin kick w/ breaststroke arms w/ fins
300 IM broken by 50 @ 1:00
50 easy
2700 yards total
Tomorrow I leave for Illinois for some swimming and then off to the USAS Convention!
Image Source: YMCAatPabstFarms.orgFor those of you that have never been to Wisconsin… yes Oconomowoc is really the name of a place, I promise. I woke up super early and made my way out to the Pabst Farms YMCA to work out with a
masters group there. I put the whole thing together via my twitter friend Lindsey. She was cool enough to let me drop in with them and to hook me up with a guest pass, thank you!
We got going at about 6am and it was a group led workout, no coach this morning. Everyone was on the same interval but the distance was split up into 3 different groups. I stuck with the middle distance set up since that’s what the majority of everyone else was doing plus I’m hitting another workout later today.
Here’s today’s workout:
300 warm up
Repeat x 3
50 @ 1:00
100 @ 2:00
150 @ 3:00
200 @ 5:00
Repeat x 2
4 x 50 kick @ 1:30
100 IM @ 2:30
4 x 25 kick @ :45
100 free
4 x 50 kick @ 1:30
1 x 100 IM @ 2:30
3000 yards total
The workout was pretty good and besides being really shallow on the one end, the pool was nice. I’ve only got one more stop on my Midwest World Tour before I move this show back down to Illinois again! I’m off to do Wisconsin-y things this afternoon until it’s time to go swim again in Brookfield.
Tonight I went out to the Schroeder Aquatic Center to swim with the masters group out there. I hadn’t been out there since age group state championships way back in probably 95 or 96. Originally I was going to swim in the morning but I ended up with a ticket to the U2 show down in Chicago the night before. My buddy Too Much Metal Fred that made my sweet swim parka hooked it up for me. The U2 show was nuts! I was down on the field in Soldier Field and the stage they have set up is basically a spaceship… but I digress…
I got down to the pool and found the office so I could pay to swim. It’s $10 for a one time drop in. We got going around 7 and the game plan was to do your own warm up until the workout was put up on the big board where they would normally show results. The workout was really good for me. I needed a good swim after doing Big Shoulders the other day. It was also nice that everyone was doing the same workout but not on the same pace. It gave me a chance to sand bag and talk with the coach a bit while I was getting warmed up. The girl that was coaching (Jess) was super nice and had a good eye for technique. She called me out for my high head position just like every other coach I know :)
I felt really good in the water, especially off the walls. Normally I don’t like bulkheads but I got some monster push offs in that pool tonight. The one thing that was sort of hard to get used to was swimming indoors. I forgot how hot and stuffy it can get in a big indoor pool like that.
Here’s tonight’s workout:
400 warm up
4 x 200 (kick, pull, drill, swim non-free)
Repeat x 4
2 x 50 catch up drill
2 x 50 kick
4 x 100 free @ 1:30
4 x 50 @ :50
3 x 50 @ :45
2 x 50 @ :40
6 x 25
1 x 25 easy
4 x 25 perfect stroke
1 x 25 easy
2 x 25 fast
4 x 75 (25 dolphin kick, 50 swim)
Tomorrow I have 2(!) swims planned. One with a team at the Y in Oconomowoc and then an evening workout with the Elmbrook masters in Brookfield. I’m also pretty stoked to have an open water workout in Illinois coming together on Wednesday. My Midwest World Tour is coming together pretty nicely :)
Earlier today I booked a flight for my trip to Chicago for Big Shoulders and the USAS Convention in September. Since there’s a few days in between the two events I’m going to make a run to Wisconsin to hang out with friends and family. I grew up outside of Milwaukee so it’s nice to go “home” every once and a while.
So here’s what I need to figure out… where are the masters workouts in South Eastern Wisconsin? I’m going to be based around Menomonee Falls for my stay, but I’m not scared of doing a little driving. I got a link to some workouts at the Schroeder Aquatic Center that I can do everyday if I need to, but I kind of want the Wisconsin Masters Sampler if I can work it out. I think it would be fun to swim with a few different groups while I’m there. I’ll be in Wisconsin with time to swim on the 14th-16th possibly the 13th.
I contacted my old age group team (Menomonee Fall Swim Club), but they don’t have a masters group at the moment. They were cool enough to offer me some lane space if they had it available, but I don’t want to eat up lane space and distract the kids from what they’re supposed to be doing.
If you have ideas for me or are on a team that wouldn’t mind a random dude dropping in for a day either leave me a comment or shoot me an e-mail at rob@robaquatics.com – thanks!
