A Day in the Life: Dennis Baker, Day 4

Today is another day of training mostly at the Multnomah Athletic Club.

I awoke at 4:30 a.m., hit the water at 5:15 a.m. in a 50-meter pool.

400 swim
6×100 odds fast kick, evens easy swim. I did the kick without a board today. Send off was 2:00.
16×50's evens build, odds drill, your choice on the 1:00.

My MAC coach Skip Runkle asked me when my next meet was. I told him not for another month. I think he was going to sprint me if a meet was closer. Instead, he decided to put me in with the rest of the kids and work the arms.

6 rounds of:
100 pull moderate on the 1:40
200 pull steady on the 2:50
300 pull very strong on the 4:00, descended these down to 3:19, all with paddles and bouy.

I haven't done too much hard pulling lately, but in past years with Skip we have done a lot. It felt good. I decided to make this a long practice since I wouldn't have as much time this afternoon to workout. The kids got out and I finished with 4×400's with :20 sec rest, 6 strokes fly fast in and out of the walls and easy free in the middle of the pool. Easy 100 sculling. 7,100 meters.

I drove home for a great two-hour nap. On my way back to MAC, I called some college coaches to talk about of my senior swimmers who were still undecided on where to go to school.

11:45 a.m. – Coached the MAC Masters team. I tell both my Masters groups that they almost always do a shortened version of what I do. So guess what they did – a long pull set.

12:45 p.m. – I had to write down the cool down set for the MAC masters and get in the water myself as time was getting short. Had to be back at David Douglas pool at 2:45 p.m. to coach the high school team in a dual meet. Remember my DD head coach is out of town. Usually I can get there by 3:45 p.m. This was an unusual week as we had two duals.

25 meter pool.
4×500's easy, odds swim evens pull no paddes.
20×125's 50 easy free, 50 fly build rest :10 sec 25 fast fly, on the 2:00
My fly is feeling good.
20x 25's free drill Zulu on the :30. Zulu drill is one I picked up from SwimmingWorld.TV.

It is a drill Rick DeMont uses a lot at University of Arizona, my alma mater. I think you can still find it in the archives at the SwimmingWorld.TV section. It is the best free drill I have ever done. All the people I coach know Zulu.

5000 meters
12,100 meters for the day.

It's off to the dual meet at DD. 4 p.m. – The meet went great even having two coaches gone. It was the last dual of the year. We said goodbye to our seniors and that is always tough because we have gone through so much together. We finished undefeated in both boys and girls, and look good going into the championship month.

6 p.m. – Coached two of the younger squads at DD. We had a lot of different groups at once in the pool and the kids did great. Our head age group coach, Jim Bowe, who I call the "stroke doctor," has done such a fantastic job with these swimmers. I told them they have really matured into a fine group of swimmers. Finished with the real little ones at 7:30 p.m. Again, they were awesome. It always amazes me how beginning swimmers, who can hardly breathe to the side, one day completely change and can swim with a good stroke!!! It was one of those days.

7:30 p.m. – Time for the Oregon Wet Masters to swim. They all had a comment for me from the Day 2 diary on how I was going to use a water hose on them to get into the pool on time. It was hilarious. They did a long pull set and did very well. Then a long cool down to get the kinks out of their arms.

8:45 p.m. – Drylands – 4×300 jump ropes and 4×150 bicycle sit ups.
It's been a great week so far even with the swimming workout time adjustments I had to make. As soon as high school swimming is over, it will be back to a more "normal" schedule. No morning practice, but a lot of sprinting tomorrow afternoon. All the coaches will be back…I hope.