Fun butterfly (left)...not so fun butterfly (right). Guess which one reporter Paul Tenorio dealt with today? (Photos by Ed Andrieski/AP and Sean Heffernan/Curl-Burke)
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I think I chose the wrong title yesterday. I think I confused Coach Jeff King.
See, butterflies are beautiful. If you’re around a lot of butterflies — as you can be at the American Museum of Natural History, it’s a wonderful thing. You can say, ‘Ooo’ and ‘Aaaah.’ You can take pictures.
Butterfly, the swim stroke, that’s different. Lots of butterfly = very tired.
Fly vs. Fly. Get it?
Yesterday my blog was titled: “I Wanna Be Like Mike.” The picture was of Michael Phelps. Phelps, of course, is very good at butterfly. And the picture of him is doing streamline, presumably during a butterfly race.
I think Jeff looked at the title…and then looked at the picture…and mistakenly believed I was asking to do butterfly like Michael Phelps. Because this morning during practice he gave Pat Sullivan and myself a set of 45 50s…25 of which were butterfly.
Let me repeat that…25 50s of butterfly. 1250 yards of butterfly.
I think I have done 200 of butterfly broken into 25s or 50s. Once.
In my life.
Other than that, I used to swim 50 fly races back in the day. When I was young…and stupid.
I don’t know who had the bigger sigh when he said it, me or Pat. At least I got to use fins. Poor Sullivan was stuck doing the set without them…and in board shorts.
It was ugly. Very, very ugly. But I did it and I tried my hardest. I swam it in a way that I could actually finish it — three strokes, five underwater fly kicks, three strokes, etc., etc. — and I worked hard. In between sets of five fly 50s was five freestyle 50s. In all we did 45 50s and it was a good workout.
I was exhausted when it was all over but Jeff pointed out to me that this workout for both Pat and myself — neither of whom love butterfly or swim butterfly — was about the mental hurdle. Neither of us could have imagined doing the set.
“Pat, you couldn’t have done that last year,” Jeff said. “And Paul, if you tried that last year you would have been at the bottom of the pool.”
True. So true.
Doing the set and feeling the burn and getting that euphoric feeling after was about more than the physical aspect. It was about mentally overcoming those doubts of doing that much fly.
Success!
Jeff definitely has come up with a ton of great workouts this week, all of which have provided different challenges. The 40 100s, the set of 50 sprints, and then today’s fly. Every one of them was so challenging in different ways.
The best part is that Jeff knew he was giving us an awesome set. He was dancing and singing about it on deck the whole time. Every time I looked up he was smiling…”I’m having fun,” he said.
I was too tired to smile. I was smiling inside, though, Jeff.
I wonder what’s in store for tomorrow. If it’s 1250 breaststroke I’m going to cry. Or go on strike.
Or I’ll just suck it up and do it because Jeff said so. But not without pouting beforehand. Now I’m petrified that tomorrow will be 1200 breaststroke.
I’m going to have nightmares tonight. I hate breaststroke. Then again, imagine me writing the same type of lead as today’s entry…
There would definitely not be any links involved.
Washington Post reporter Paul Tenorio will train with a swim club over the next few months and chronicle his journey as he attempts to transform from regular guy/sports reporter to competitive swimmer — everything from his waistline to his best times.
Tags: Michael Phelps
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