It is spring here in Mississippi. Praise God. Spring sprang last week and Spring Break has sprung out this week. I traveled to DSU to see how much swimming I could get in. With a projected high of 80 degrees and lots of sun, the pond water most likely hit the mid 60s. But with all the rain we have had, it could be colder. Since I needed big distance, and I knew the pond was a gamble as to how long I could stay in the water, I went the safe route and opted for the pool.
To my surprise, to my shock, the pool was still set up for short course. Dude, I have been swimming there for ten years and it has never been short course this late in the year. What the heck? I really do need a long course pool, but short course is better than no course. I climbed in and started a long warm up that turned into 4,100 straight. There were several other guys there, and I was swimming my easy all-day pace. But when I would get close to lapping one of these guys, I would pour it one and swim hard while I caught, passed, and put distance between me and them. I could feel the burn in my muscles. It was nice, mostly an aerobic swim with some lactic acid thrown in here and there.
After the long swim at the start, I did some 50s because you can't get away from your coaches. Even when I am swimming on my own, the influence of Petya and Cagri is never far away. Petya liked to combine endurance and strength, something I usually do. Cagri likes 50s and multi-paced swimming. As counter intuitive as it is, slowing down and speeding up within one set often seems more difficult than swimming the whole thing hard. Swimming all out when I lapped the other swimmers is a Cagri-like move. The 50s I did after the huge first set is another Cagri-like move. I did 10 X 50 @ 1:00. After the 4,100, that wasn't an easy set, but it made the fast twitch fibers work. I'm not sure I have any fast twitch fibers, but if I do they had to work on that set.
Next was a 500 moderate swim with small paddles. This was the influence of Petya: strength and endurance together. When I finished the paddle set, I did another set of 50s (Cagri), only this time I did only six 50s. I finished the practice with another 500 paddle swim (Petya).
The sunshine and the warmth outside were delicious when I burst out the doors of the natatorium after changing clothes. My legs were still feeling my Saturday run so I only shuffled an easy 3.58 miles about the residential areas near the university. Then I drove home and did a little yard work.
It was a nice first day of Spring Break, the kind I needed. It was not the first day of Spring Break, but the first day off that I would have been working. I wrote in my blog, swam pretty long, and ran some. For Tuesday? I have been rolling that over in my mind like a food addict rolls food on his tongue. Several possibilities tease me like waiting for a good movie. I am thinking about a double swim or maybe even a triple. I'll know what I'm going to do after I have done it.
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