Coach Jeff King looked like he could us a tropical drink like this during his mini-vacation mode in today's practice. (Graphic by Elena Ray)
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As usual Jeff King finds more ways to surprise me.
After a joy-to-the-world distance set yesterday that had me feeling like a total slacker because I stink so much at it, I came into the morning expecting anything but more distance. I don’t know why. I mean, honestly, what would make me think that Jeff was going to take it easy on me? It was just a week ago that he named a group after me based on getting your butt kicked.
Today’s set was more swim, swim, swim and pace, pace, pace with a little kick mixed in for good measure.
Let’s start with how it broke down:
500 swim (fins and paddles)
500 kick
5 X 100 swim (holding pace)
400 swim
400 kick
4 X 100 swim
etc…all the way down to 100, 100, 100.
When Jeff started to announce the set I internalized a sigh. I was sore, I was tired and I was mentally already behind the eight ball in feeling like I was going to be good at this.
Oh well. Suck it up.
The swims were moderate-to-okay. I feel like at times they were better than what I put forth yesterday, but I still found more to work on.
I’ve talked in this blog about my feeling as though I was fighting my own lower half of my body as I swam, especially longer distances. Today I was trying to focus on keeping my hips up and I was not doing a very good job of keeping the core tight and thus preventing my legs from moving back and forth and basically nullifying the hard work I was doing up top.
“It’s not about swimming hard, it’s swimming smart,” Jeff said. “It’s not how hard, we know how hard you swim every day. You have to think.”
I really tried to focus in on that advice and I think I was much better not only in my control over my body while swimming but also in how fast I swam the final 100 of the day.
Some of it had to do with five 100s versus just one. Some had to do with coming after 1000 of swim/kick instead of just 200. But I think a lot also had to do with thinking through my swim and making sure I was sound in my mechanics.
The best part of practice today was Jeff’s mini-vacation during the session. Many of the swimmers were not in attendance in the morning session (darn taperers!) and it was actually kind of a lonely feel. It was especially depressing for me considering all the distance we were doing. Yet somehow Jeff made things all better.
As I kicked my 500 I saw Jeff go outside and then mess with the deck chairs. ‘What is he doing?’ I thought to myself. Then he pulled one inside and layed out on the deck, looking absolutely relaxed and as if he needed a mini umbrella.
I shook my head and laughed. The other coaches shook their head and laughed and requested I blog immediately about it.
“Never in 35 years of coaching have I done this,” Jeff said, a huge smile spread across his face.
And I didn’t bring my camera. Of course not. Awesome.
Tomorrow I’ll get some sprinting into the workout. As Jeff said to me today at the end of practice, “By the end you’ll be sick and tired of sprinting.”
Maybe. But right now I’m tired of distance. Or maybe just tired. Either one. I mean, bring in the sprint stuff on…I guess.
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.
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