Weird day at the pool… cold and windy with ominous dark clouds to one side and sunshine on the other. Although it kept threatening it never broke open with actual rain, I think I’m getting all that tonight… rain started coming down, er, sideways anyways while I was out eating dinner. Looks like Sunday’s ocean swim is en route to getting washed out as well, lame. I guess it’ll be more of a beach clean up kind of day instead.

Anyways, the pool! I’m having a hard time liking it right now… I’m overly oceanically fixated at the moment. If it weren’t for the fact that I really like the people I swim with in the pool I don’t know that I’d be getting in the water much. I just need to regain a rhythm I think… I’ll get there… I’m just distracted with other things I have working.

It was all dudes for our workout today and we were 5 deep. I got a chance to do some more swimming with my new Z2 Gold Fins from FINIS and so far I still dig them. I’m still picking out the small differences in feel. I did a lot of dolphin kicking and the change in flex is a little more noticeable there. It’s not bad, just a little different. The kick action remains pretty much the same. I’m pretty sure that if I weren’t trying to pay attention I wouldn’t notice anything besides the nicer foot pockets :)

800 Warm up (free with fly drill mixed in)
8 x 50 overkick, build to wall @1:00

with fins:
200 fly drill
5 x 50 fly @ 1:00
1 x 200 free
10 x 25 fly @ :30

200 cool down

2300 yards total

My other excitement for the day is that I got a copy of the USLA’s Open Water Lifesaving Manual in the mail today. I’ve only skimmed it while eating dinner, but so far… wow… lots of good information in there!

With the rain I don’t know what my swim schedule looks like the next couple days. I’m thinking at least Saturday calls for a trip to the pool to do some gadget testing. I’ve got a new toy I want to try outside of an actual workout just to learn how it works before I attempt to get at it amongst other people.

Although I was swimming in the pool today I brought some open water excitement with me. I’ve really been wanting to swim with the Swim Safety Device (SSD) buoy thingamabobber  but the surf at the beach has just been too big. My first attempt at swimming out through some 6 footers resulted in some broken hardware and my SSD bodysurfing back to the beach without me. Well today I decided to get scientific and do a controlled test in the pool, I figured that was safe right? The only thing I was in danger of was looking like a dork in the pool and that happens on a regular basis anyways so why not just own it?

When I pulled the SSD out of my bag it got a lot of odd looks from my friends. I had to go through the whole spiel about what it is and how it works. They weren’t necessarily impressed but they were at least curious to see if it worked out ok.

During warm up I swam 100 yards with it and to be honest, not too bad. I did feel a tug behind me but nothing major. What I was most worried was that it would be constantly hitting my in the thighs or feet while trying to swim, didn’t happen. Not to say there wasn’t some occasional contact, but nothing major.

After messing around with the SSD I switched back to regular swimming and slogged my way through the first couple parts of the workout Mike had written. I really like doing fast 25′s from mid-pool, I used to do them all the time when I trained by myself, so it was cool to have some of those mixed in.

400 reverse IM kick/drill/kick/swim
4 x 100 free @ 1:40
8 x 50 IM Switching

12 x 25 from mid-pool, 3 fast 1 easy

150 free @ 2:15
100 dolphin on back @ 2:00
3 x 50 free @ 1:00

200 test swim with SSD

2100 yards total

Once we got through one round of the last set of the day I dropped out and did some more testing with the SSD. I swam about 200 yards mixing free and breast to see how it went. I’m not ready to do a full review yet since it hasn’t gotten any real ocean time yet, but so far so good. The inside stayed dry, the buoy didn’t get in my way, and it was capable of floating a 225 pound dude.

When I get in a more serious non pool swim with it I’ll get a little deeper into this thing. In the meantime… here’s a string of odd pictures I managed to take while dangling camera off of the buoy and swimming :)

Although it was nice and sunny outside it was also cold and blustery on the pool deck. The wind was steadily pushing water straight across the pool and over the edges into the gutters. There wasn’t much hesitation from me to get in the water today, I knew it’d be nicer below it than above it! Everyone else dawdled on the deck while I got in my first couple laps, but I’m pretty sure they’d have been happier if they just jumped in :) Here’s today’s workout, or at least what I got in before I had to split for work…

600 reverse IM kick/drill/swim by 50
6 x 50 free @ 1:00 dolphin kick to mid pool off each wall
600 pull no breathing inside the flags

12 x 25 6 stroke burn @ :45 alt Fly and Breast (sprint 6 strokes, cruise the rest)

4 x 100 free @ 1:35
200 Free IM

2400 yards total

I really liked the 25′s we did, they were good intense little nuggets of swimmerly excitement. I managed to get past the flags on each length with my 6 strokes of both fly and breast. On fly I focused on good dolphin kicking off the wall. On breast I was very mindful of what my feet were doing and trying to get as much as I could out of my kick. This short fast stuff is good for me, it balances me out.

In other news… I got a shipment from SwimOutlet the other day! They sent me a few pieces from their new Sporti line to try out. I got a jammer, a silicon cap, and some water shoes. I wore the jammer this weekend at the CalTech Pentathlon, the cap and shoes are yet to go on their maiden voyages. Oddly I’m kind of excited about the water shoes because I found a cool tide pool spot out at Montana de Oro I want to investigate some more but the rocks there kill my feet. Hopefully I get to try them out soon… the jammer did a pretty good job for me and I liked the look. It’s more of a workout suit, but I wore it at the meet because it was the only legal non-drag type suit I had at the ready when I was packing my swim bag.

While I checked out all my new stuff my dog commandeered the box :)

The good news is I finally broke away from work to go swim today, the bad news is I’m a bit of a mess at the moment… I’ve hypothesized that I’m either getting sick or just slightly poisoned from Sunday’s ocean swim. I’m not a fan of either scenario, hopefully it all blows over shortly! My open water swim partner Niel conjectured that I either need to spend more or less time in the ocean to fix it, I’m leaning towards more :)  Hopefully I can get a chance shortly to soak in some cold salt water and give it a chance to either cure or kill me…. anyways… workout… it kicked my ass and I only did 2/3 of it!

100/200/300/200/100 free on a declining 100 interval at each level

Repeat x 3 all with fins (did round 3 free instead of fly)
100 fly drill @ 1:40
3 x 50 fly @ 1:00 fast
100 easy

100 miscellaneous warm down

2150 yards total

I was hanging on and swimming ok in warm up. The main set however… that didn’t feel so fantastic! It was basically drill 100, swim 3 fast 50′s, cruise 100 and repeat. Doesn’t sound like much but I feel like I was going to die during those 50′s… I guess that means I was doing it right :) I did switch from fly to free on the last round though. Not because I needed to stop swimming fly, but because I needed to swim some fast freestyle to get ready for the weekend.

once the snorkels came out, I got out

Speaking of the weekend… I’ve got a meet! Me and Mike are going to drive down Sunday morning to take on the CalTech Pentathlon which is a super fun event. It consists of a 50 of each stroke plus the 100 IM. This will be my third year in a row at that meet and I’m looking forward to it… I haven’t really competed in quite a while which is very out of the ordinary for me. If you’re in SoCal this weekend and you want to swim go check it out! Online registration and more details are available here.

To see the video go check out his blog: Gords Swim Log. On top of recently adding polar plunges to his repertoire the dude puts in some beastly yardage on a regular basis. Also in the video is Josh who writes Utah Open Water, go check that one out too… who knew there was so much Open Water action in Utah?

My day was decidedly less exciting. I swam for the first time in a week today and I felt pretty rough. I’ve been having a hard time getting in the pool recently, but the upside is I’ve been working on a pretty serious swim based project while out of the water that I think will be pretty cool. It’s not ready for prime time, but soon…

When I got in the pool today it was mainly just me and Mike doing the workout as prescribed, but Tyler joined us shortly after. I was really hoping someone slow would show up to make how haggard I was feeling a little less obvious. Never happened…

8 x 100 @ 1:45
8 x 50 kick @ 1:00

This set all with Fins:
75 swim @ 1:15
50 fly drill @ 1:00
1 25 fly @ :30
75 swim @ 1:15
50 fly drill @ 1:00
3 25 fly @ :30
75 swim @ 1:15
50 fly drill @ 1:00
5 25 fly @ :30
75 swim @ 1:15
50 fly drill @ 1:00
7 25 fly @ :30

100 cool down (the other guys pulled 900 but I had to get to work)

2200 yards total

That fly set we did today wasn’t too bad – I made it through just fine, but I like the format. I think that might get repurposed into some of my other workouts. After that there were 900 yards of pulling to be done but I had to hit the road if I was going to get back to work on time.

I’m hoping to get my swimming back on track this weekend… how many times have I said that this year so far? Really though, this is the one! (I hope)

Once we finally got around to getting in we got right down to business with a freestyle warm up ladder. While warming up I tried to focus on my stroke a little and be conscious of where my head and my hands were. I’ve been a touch out of balance recently and feeling it in my left shoulder. While we were swimming I could feel the cold breeze blowing over the top of my bald head. It’s a weird sensation to have cold air on top of your noggin when the rest of your head is submerged in warm water.

Up next we had a set with some fast stuff mixed in. A fast 50 followed by an easy 100 eight times over all with fins. I did a mix of free and fly on the 50′s and kept everything in the high 20′s through the set. These types of sets continue to eat me up. Something about getting my heart rate way isn’t jiving with me. Like I can churn along at one pace for hours but cranking it up and down really gasses me out. I guess I just need to do more of it and get over it.

We finished with 16×75′s alternating a fast interval with an easier interval. I tried to hang with Mike and Tyler’s intervals but couldn’t quite make it. It was a little too fast for me, plus they had paddles on and I didn’t. Somewhere around the 12th repeat or so I had to hop out of the pool and get back to work. Things were running late and although I wanted to finish I needed to bounce.

100/200/300/200/100

Repeat x 8 all with fins
50 fast @ :45
100 easy @ 1:45

16 x 75 pull alternating intervals odds/evens (I just swam w/o paddles)

3000 yards swam total (3300 prescribed)

Today’s fancy and somewhat ominous looking pictures of the Paul Nelson Aquatic Center come from my Instagram account. I just started messing with it recently, it’s kinda fun. If you have an iPhone and like to take pictures you’ll dig it. You can follow me on Instagram at aquarob.

The weather was a little patchy today, but we got some good chunks of sunshine in between the clouds which made my day… unfortunately more serious weather is supposedly en route, Thursday’s workout might be a wet one… well wetter than usual anyways :) We had a decent little group in the water today, I think we had 5 or 6 swimmers and Mike had a pretty ambitious workout laid out for us. I think the subscribed yardage was upwards of 3500, but I couldn’t stick around for the whole thing. I had to run a few errands with my lunch break  and get some stuff done at the office in advance of a meeting I had this evening.

200 reverse IM kick/swim
4 x 100 kick @ 2:00
200 pull
4 x 100 IM @ 1:40

6 x 75 w/ fins 25 rocket kick, 25 fast kick, 25 easy swim @ 1:30

8 x 100 @ 1:30

2450 yards total

As always seems to be the case with these short course workouts it’s the stuff that doesn’t look hard that ends up the hardest! That little 6 x75 kick really smoked me out… the mix of not breathing on the first 25 followed by really hard kicking in the middle takes a toll on you!

Looking forward to Thursday’s workout it’s a bit longer than a lot of our usual hour swims as well, but I think I’ll be able to stick around and do the whole thing. What I really need to do is get back in the habit of evening long course swims… I’m working on figuring out some kind of major goal swim that will light the appropriate fire under my ass to make that happen

Friendly reminder…. go vote for me in About.com’s Reader’s Choice Awards for the Best Swim Blog! I was crushing it the first couple days, but something seems to have happened… let’s work on that ok :)

I had grand plans of waking up early to go paddling or body surfing or something before my lunchtime workout in Santa Maria, but that plan was slightly modified just after my alarm went off at 6:30… I decided to move the wake up time about 3 more hours backwards… I’m thinking this was the right decision, I really hate mornings :)

my obnoxious suits make for some rather artistic reflections :)

At noon I was down at the pool ready to do some swimming. We were 4 deep today, this Saturday sprint day thing is picking up some momentum. I was trying to mentally prepared to put myself through 3 200 IMs at race pace. The 200 IM is one of those events that just ends my day… I expend so much energy trying to brute force my way through it that I’m just totally smoked at the end.

I think I need a fancier camera to get better above and below water shots

While we were getting started with warm up I came to find out that our 200′s were broken. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed. Either way it still gave me a chance to do some 50 flys off the blocks which is always a good time for me. I had some really solid starts today. I think I’m starting to recapture my short course groove a little bit. My starts on rounds 2 and 3 were big launches followed up with a barely legal barrage of dolphin kicks. Both times my first stroke hit right at the 15m mark. I was splitting a lane with a dude who I run into officiating at meets sometimes and my starts caught his attention because they were so close to being a kick too far.

300 swim @ 5:00
6 x 75 kick @ 1:30
300 pull (I just swam) @ 5:00
6 x 50 IM Switching @:55
8 x 25 Variables @ :45

Repeat x 3
Broken 200 IM (50 fly from a dive @ 1:30, 100 back to breast @ 2:00, 50 free @ 1:30)
200 easy

2750 yards total

I’m not sure we’re on for a Saturday swim next week since there’s a swim meet going on that Mike has to coach at, but maybe those of us still in town will go out and swim amongst ourselves anyways.

I like how reflections come out looking like paintings

After swimming I went out for some lunch and then me and my girlfriend went on a mini adventure to Montaña de Oro. It’s really pretty out there but I don’t go often because it’s kinda out of the way and I don’t really know where anything is out there. We drove off into the woods for a while until we hit a point that had lots of cars parked and figured that was a good point to start exploring from.

the rock formations are really interesting down by the water

Our main objective was to find some tide pools to go check out. We saw some surfers leaving the parking area down a trail and figured we were on the right path. After maybe half a mile of downward sloping trail we hit the beach. It was really rocky and craggy with all kinds of interesting geological excitement in all directions.

these guys were really hard to find because they're so well camouflagedd

Down by the water we found plenty of sea anemones, hermit crabs, snails, regular crabs, and stuff like that. There was an urchin somewhere in the mix, and plenty of little heads bobbing out in the water. I counted a few sea otters along with a bunch of pinnepeds of some sort.

anemone up close underwater

We walked a ways down the coast exploring all the nooks and crannys while cooling our feet off in the cold water. I think we could have spent all day there, but the sun was coming down and we had a feeling that the tide might be coming up so we turned back towards the trail.

Heidi investigating the next set of tide pools

I’ll have to talk to some of my friends that trail run out there to figure out where the cool places to go in the park are. I’m pretty sure there’s a rad little beach/cove kind of area out there that I’d like to go check out from in the water.

I’d like to start with a little good news… About.com has been working on a Reader’s Choice Award for Swim Bloggers and across the last month they took nominations and enough of you guys nominated me to get me into the top 5! As of about right now you can actually vote for me in the contest!

You can vote for Rob Aquatics here!

For those of you unfamiliar with Rob Aquatics or on the fence as to who to vote for, here’s a few reasons why I think Rob Aquatics is the best swim blog…

• I’m the only swim blogger with my own line of Banana Hammocks! I also have my own imaginary video game in the works :)
• I provide year round open water action  and vicarious sunshine for those of you snowed in for the winter!
• If you don’t actually like reading I have you covered with lots of pictures!
• I actually show up everywhere! I’ve posted from all over California, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia… soon I’ll be popping up in places like Arizona, Utah and Vermont!
• I waste all my money on fun waterproof gadgets/cameras/gps so you can see how and if they work before you buy them!
• Everyone likes a guy with an adventure beard and pink goggles :)

You can also vote for best swimming Twitter feed, I’m on the list but I think there’s better tweeters in there… I voted for Go Swim.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming… :)

I hit the pool in Santa Maria today and we had a really nice day for a swim. Lots of sun, plenty warm, and not too many people at the pool. I think our group had 6 swimmers and 5 lanes all to ourselves which is always a good way to start!

I didn’t read the workout in advance but there was a set in there everyone was dreading. I started to get a little nervous because we had one last week that kicked my ass. Luckily it turned out to be a fly set which is actually not too much of a problem for me, especially when most of it’s drilling with fins on…. phew!

8 x 100 @ 1:40 w/ 10 vertical dolphins after each 100

Repeat x 2 all with fins
3 x 50 fly drill 3 strokes left arm only, 1 full stroke, 3 strokes right arm only
2 x 50 fly drill 2 strokes left arm only, 2 full strokes, 2 strokes right arm only
1 x 50 fly

Repeat x 3
200 swim @ 3:00
3 x 100 interval descends by round

2900 yards total

After we cruised through all that butterfly we had a big pile of pulling to get through. I tend to “forget” my pulling gear pretty much everyday so I just swam it all. I tried to hang with Mike and Tyler who were swimming their 100′s at 1:25, 1:20 then 1:15. I was fine on round one, not quite fine on round two, and accidentally put fins on for round 3 in hopes of actually keeping up. It kinda sorta worked.

After workout I found out what this Saturday’s race pace set is going to consist of… 200IMs…. ouch. Mike, me, and whoever else wants in will be doing 3 200 IMs off the blocks for time. That’s gonna hurt! I think I’m going to recover the next day with a trip to Monterey for a swim with the Kelp Krawlers. I’m assured that the kelp is thinned out and the jellyfish are gone right now so we should have a pretty awesome swim!

Finis Z2 Zoomers, Finis Foil Monofin, Finis Shooter Monofin

This was the second Saturday in a row that I went down to Santa Maria for some fast swimming. It was just Mike and I this time, and just for fun I brought a big pile of fins to try out. Little did I know my timing was perfect and today’s sprint set was fin based! Score!

Early on in the warm up we had a set of 50′s that was on a way tighter interval than we normally chase after. It helped me realize staying up to 2am the night before and having candy for breakfast wasn’t the right plan for today :) Whoops.

300 mixer

6 x 50 @ :40
300 pull
6 x 50 IM Switching @ :55
300 kick

10 x 50 fly w/ fins on 2:00 FAST!

100 cool down

2100 Yards total

Once we got to the end of the warm up I devised a plan for an impromptu fin testing session. We had 10 50′s fly on 2:00, I decided to start with my Shooter Monofin and work my way down to my Foil Monofin and then finally my Z2 fins.

The main reason I started with the fastest stiffest fin was it’s also the hardest to put on! I started with a base layer of neoprene booties that I wear with my duckfeet fins to keep my feet from getting all chewed up by the fin. Then it was time to awkwardly contort myself on the deck to try and actually get my feet into the fin… man that part sucks… but it’s totally worth it once you start kicking! I think I wore it for the first 3 and kept myself down around 24-25 seconds per 50. I love the speed that comes with this thing! It’s hard to make turns with it, but once you’re off the wall you can really build up some major momentum with it!

4-8 were done with my Foil Monofin. I kept the neoprene booties on because they’re helpful in holding the fin down on my feet. I think mine might be a touch too big for me to wear just barefoot. On these 50′s it was really apparent the difference a big fiberglass blade makes. The motion and the muscles in action all feel largely the same, but the power you can generate just isn’t the same. The good news though is since the fin is dialed back a bit wearing it while swimming is a little more realistic. You’re not going to launch out of the water to your navel in this thing like you can with a conventional monofin. I averaged between 27 high and 29 low with the Foil monofin and felt pretty good swimming with it.

Foil Monofin preparing for action

9 and 10 were supposed to be with my Z2 Zoomers that I wear all the time. I lost #9 to time though… I couldn’t get them on over the top of the neoprene booties I had on and I couldn’t get them off on time either so I ended up having to swim a round with them on and no fins. That 50 sucked! The booties turned into little drag pockets on my feet and I couldn’t dolphin kick in them. I ended up swimming freestyle and barely keeping it under 40 seconds. Yikes, shows you what a little drag can do! For round #10 I finally got the Zoomers on and swam around a 30 high, maybe 31 low. It felt very weird to shift to feet that weren’t stuck together.

oh no, I'm still stuck in Gameboy Colors!

So I realize fatigue and other things play a factor here, but roughly here’s my fin speed breakdown. Shooter is about 3-5 seconds faster than my Foil which is like 2-3 seconds faster than plain Z2 Zoomers. About what I expected overall. I knew the shooter would blow everything else out of the water. Downside with that is it’s tough on the feet and so powerful it can be hard to use for more than just kicking since your arms can’t really match what your feet are doing. The Foil is a good compromise in that it’s easy to get on and allows for more realistic swimming. Zoomers are still the everyday flutter kicking workhorse though. I have a decent fin collection but those are the ones I take with me every time I go to the pool.

After we were done swimming I stayed in the pool for a little bit. I swam a couple slow laps and spent some time sitting in the bottom of the deep end. I was hanging out with a friend last night who was talking about doing some free diving. The hard core “The Big Blue” style freediving scares the hell out of me, but a 20 foot dive to investigate some things in the ocean locally sounds pretty interesting to me. With that in mind I’m going to see if I can expand my lung capacity a bit so I can go out diving with him one of these days.

*Fully Bloggerly Disclosure: My real life job does business with Finis. I did this post because it seemed like a fun way to spend part of my Saturday not because anyone asked me to.