Countdown to Senior Olympics

The countdown to the Mississippi Senior Olympics, to my first ever swim meet, has begun. A few weeks back, I asked Cagri about tapering. He told me that I don't swim enough to taper. But for the past two weeks, I have swum 26,000 and 28,000 meters plus a whole bunch of weightlifting and other forms of cross training. So I have to figure it out on my own.

Monday I began to taper some. I swam a total of only 2,200 yards like this:

600 warm up
3 X 50 decline 1 - 3 (I was mimicking what I will do in the meet. I am signed up for four events because they will not allow me to do five. All this brings me the problem of how much to warm up and how much to cool down for each event. Four warm ups, four races, and at least three cool downs add up to a lot so swimming.)
200 for time 2:58
7 X 100 @ 1:52/3
300 easy

That is a reduction but with quality. Then at Plate City, I worked pretty hard, and I did the entire upper body. I will not do anymore upper body weights until next week. On the bench, I pressed

12 X 45
8 X 64
5 X 95
4 X 115
3 X 135
2 X 145
1 X 155
1 X 162
1 X 157
2 X 150
5 X 140

This was my planned peak strength taking me into the meet as strong as possible. I was a little disappointed in that I could only bench 162. I hit 175 on my last cycle up, but I have lost weight and that makes a big difference according to all I have read and experienced. Now the muscles and my neurological system will have time to recover. I will work legs, but probably only one more time. Although they are not my prime movers while swimming, heavy lifting on any body part taxes the central nervous system. I need peak neurological energy Saturday morning. Consequently, I will not squat heavy later than Wednesday if that late.

Now, I begin to pack tonight, to get my nutrition bag ready. I plan to take some gels, a couple of Cliff Bars, and some rocket fuel to drink between races. The rocket fuel is a mixture of creatine, Gatorade, and 5-Hour Energy. I am so looking forward to this. So is my wife. Thank you, Jesus.