A Day in the Life: Dennis Baker, Day 3

PORTLAND, Oregon, February 1. WEDNESDAY proved to be enjoyable for "A Day in the Life" writer Dennis Baker. In his third entry in the series on SwimmingWorldMagazine.com, Baker writes about his recovery day and goes into detail about his training plans for both himself and the teams he coaches.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007, Day 3
Wednesday is recovery day!! It is sort of my half day off from everything.
I get to sleep in a little and don't have to coach until 6:30 p.m. Usually, I swim in the early afternoon but my head coach at DD, Burt Stratton had to suddenly go out of town for two days. A quick schedule change was in order … I had to coach longer than normal today. I opted to do two short practices instead of one longer one. This freed me up to do some "normal life" stuff like pay bills and do some shopping.

11 a.m. workout at DD by myself in a 25-meter pool.

4×300 on the 4:30, 200 easy, 100 fast turns only
800 pull finger drag drill steady.

24×100's free
8 on the 1:20
8 on the 1:15
8 on the 1:10

This recovery set is great because it really gives me energy for the next day. I try not to go fast or push it, but just make the send offs with the least amount of effort. To do this, one must find other ways to swim fast. Less head movement and better turns seem to do the trick for me.

Easy 400
4800 meters total

Grabbed a bite to eat and wrote up the high school practice I was covering for the day. It was recovery day for the kids also.

3 p.m. – They did a longer set than I did because it was their only workout for the day. It was the same kind of workout. The kids are familiar with the set I gave them. I call it a mentally-irritating set because you swim parts of it with a small amount of rest but not pushing to hard. These types of sets I also call "active recovery" because your body gets a good workout without your heart rate being very high. It cleans out all the lactic acid and soreness from sprinting. I then slipped into the pool with some other DD club kids and did my own thing around what they were doing.

5 p.m. – 25-meter pool.

1000 free straight and steady.
5×100 IM's on the 1:20 reverse order, steady.
I like to do a strong kick set on my recovery days to keep my legs active.
2×250's kick dolphin with a board, build to strong on the 4:30.
1×500 kick dolphin with a board, 95 percent effort.
6:59 was my time and I felt good and strong.
Easy 200 kick
Easy 400 swim

3400 meters
8200 meters for the day.

Grabbed another snack at home because I only live a block away from the David Douglas pool.

6:30 p.m. – Coached the secondary younger kids squad. They worked hard tonight and I told them how proud I was of them. It was a harder workout and they handled it just fine.

7:30 p.m. – All done because I do not have to coach my Oregon Wet Masters team as my assistant coach covers Wednesdays nights. Great recovery day!

Feeling pretty good about where I am at for the season. A week and a half ago, I swam pretty well at the Washington Open in Federal Way, Washington. My 200 fly was better at a 1:51.7 scy and was very happy with my 500 free at 4:41.00. I felt a little "hung over" after the Masters World Championships in August. It was a long intense meet. So now I'm getting back the "edge'" again and it feels great, especially at the ripe old age of 45. Thursday will be a long one so it's to bed early for me.

Until tomorrow, Dennis

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