The Tools (Part Deux)

Masters Swimming

Look out Michael Phelps…. Don’t let the name of the class fool you. I am by no means a “master swimmer.” My first day back on Jan 9th, I fell somewhere between a wounded sea lion and my dog Tucker in the water. Here is a video from the first day...





Over the past couple of months, I’ve gotten a good bit better. I feel like I have improved “streamlining” my body. Now, when I breathe I’m not sucking in half a cup of water and my overall comfort in the water has gotten better.

The group ( http://www.magiccitymasters.org/ ) is currently about 10-20 people who get together at the Mt. Brook Y three mornings a week. We have a “coach” who puts together our swim sets (warm-ups, drills, kick sets, pull sets, and main sets) for each day. He’s a really cool guy who will spend time with you and offer suggestions. My first week, he spent more time than I would have imagined critiquing my form and giving me pointers. There are all different levels of swimmers in the group. I am a “stingray” which is the beginner group. The levels progress through the sea life ranks from Stingrays to Barracudas, Porpoises, Dolphins, & ultimately Sharks. One of the coolest things about this group is that no one cares if you can’t do the entire set, or you are slow, or you flail around like a piece of seaweed just touched you. If you want to swim and have the opportunity to join a swim group like this, I highly recommend it.

My biggest goal with swimming now is endurance. I know that I can go about 300m without stopping. In my opinion, that’s not too shabby for a beginner. The only problem is that I’m pretty beat after that. I need to be more efficient in the water so I can save some strength for the bike & run segments.

I didn’t swim at all last week after the marathon and could definitely tell when I got done this past Monday. It’s been a little rough getting into a groove this week. I cut today’s workout pretty short. I didn’t stay for the main set which would have been another 1000m. Not all at once, split up in 250m segments. Here is what I did do:

Warm-Up- 200m
Drills- 100m (25m each: fingertip, over rotate, single arm(r), single arm(l))
Pulls- 4x75m (300m) descend 1-4 (means that you get faster with each set)
Kicks- 8x50 (400m) 4 each of free style kick & butterfly kick
Cool Down- 150m
Total- 1250m

I’m not going to be able to be there Friday morning, but on Monday, I’m going to do everything I can to force myself into a groove.