Just Keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming

Journal by Jeff Commings, Swimming World associate producer

PHOENIX, Arizona, September 6. SWIMMING World associate producer Jeff Commings, who will be the second oldest man to compete at the U.S. Olympic Trials next summer, is journaling his daily training regimen on his personal blog. We are reprinting those articles here:

Date: Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Time: 5:45 a.m.
Short Course Yards
293 days to Trials

400 warmup

6×150 on 2:30
odd: kick/drill/swim (averaged 2:10)
even: back/breast/free swim (averaged 1:55)

8×100 on 1:40 roving IM (averaged 1:10-1:12)
Roving IM means you start with a different stroke on each repeat. The first one is regular IM order, the second 100 is back/breast/free/fly, the third is breast/free/fly/back and the fourth is free/fly/back/breast. Repeat.

8×25 on :35
odd: fly pull with underwater recovery
even: fly swim with four kicks per stroke cycle
(I didn't look at the clock quickly at the end of these repeats, but I was getting about 15 seconds rest)

6×100 on 2:00 descend 1-3
(Swam 50 back/50 breast: 1:17, 1:10, 1:05, 1:16, 1:11, 1:03)

100 easy

6×50 on 1:00 descend 1-3
(Swam backstroke: 38, 33, 28.0, 38, 34, 28.0)

100 easy

6×25 on :30 descend 1-3
(Swam butterfly: 18, 15, 12.8, 18, 15, 12.8)

100 easy (with stretching)

Thanks to yesterday's very long walk, my gluteals and hip flexors are extremely sore. I almost collapsed from the pain of it when I got out of bed this morning. I'm sure the walk was good for me, but maybe I shouldn't have walked so long! No matter how much I stretched today, the soreness would not go away. It made breaststroke difficult to do well, since the kick is very dependent on the hip flexors. Every time I lifted my legs for the kick, I could feel the flexors.

As such, the set of 100s descend wasn't as fast as I had hoped. I was certain I could go 1:00 or :59, but when your kick is compromised, it affects everything else.

Tomorrow morning I am headed to the American Swimming Coaches Association's annual clinic with part of the Swimming World crew. This year it's in San Diego, which means we're driving. I will be packing my Prius with heavy boxes, which will affect the gas mileage severely. On last weekend's trip, I managed to make it on one tank of gas each way, which was expected. I got about 43.5 miles per gallon, which is below normal for highway driving, but about right when you factor in that I went through several mountain passes. With the extra equipment in my car, I hope the gas mileage can stay in the 43-mile range.Coming back there should be less stuff in my car (provided we sell a lot of product!), so my car will like me then.

Anyway, I expect to swim every day I am there, so I will continue to post during the trip.

If you're going to be in San Diego, stop by the Swimming World booth and say hello!

Reprinted from Jeff's personal blog at commings.blogspot.com

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