If I Could Turn Back Time

Journal by Jeff Commings, Swimming World associate producer

PHOENIX, Arizona, September 7. 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: Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011
Time: 5:40 p.m.
Short Course Yards
292 days to Trials

500 warmup

8×100 on 1:45
odd: swim/kick/drill/swim (averaged 1:25)
even: swim choice (backstroke, averaged 1:15)

8×25 on :35 kick fast

8×100 on 1:45 descend 1-4 to 90 percent effort
1:09, 1:07, 1:03, :58, 1:10, 1:08, 1:03, :58

8×25 on :35 easy

100 IM fast (:57)

100 easy

Distance: 2700 yards

Because I was planning to drive to San Diego at 7:30 a.m., I couldn't stay for the entire workout. I had planned to get out at 6:45, but at 6:35 I realized I had left my phone at home, which freaked me out. My house is 20 minutes from the pool (and the office, which is right around the corner from the pool), and I knew that no matter how fast I drove, we wouldn't be leaving at 7:30. I drove home and grabbed my phone (and a swig of orange juice). On the way back, I hit a bird! It flew directly into my car, and it was traumatic to see feathers and a dead bird hit my windshield. I had never hit a living animal with my car before. I was not in a good state for about 10 minutes. I would have given anything to be able to go back to 5 a.m., when I would have remembered my phone the first time, I would have been able to finish the workout at 6:45, and that bird would still be alive.

Anyway, we left for San Diego at 7:45. We had planned to arrive in San Diego at 1 p.m. We got there at 1:04, with no stops! Tiffany Elias, my passenger, and I planned our fluid intake well, and we didn't have the urge to pee until the final 20 minutes. And my Prius got pretty good gas mileage (41.0 mpg), so no need to stop to fill up!

Today's workout, as you will notice, has a pattern. Mark Rankin likes patterns, and that's fine with me. It's not boring, as long as the sets within the pattern have some diversity. The last set, in which I only did a 100 IM fast, was 8×100 on 1:45, going fast on the odd repeats. I don't think there would have been much more after that.

OK, time to work. The long week is about to begin here at the Town and Country Convention Center!

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

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