A Day in the Life: John Criste, Day 4

Don't get me wrong, I'm always up for a good challenge, but sometimes my body just doesn't agree with the phrase: "oxygen is overrated." Actually, I understand the point of putting our bodies into oxygen debt. In the long run, the red blood cell build up from using the snorkels allows our bodies to carry more oxygen longer during intense activity; in a swimmer's case – intense activity is a threshold set in practice or a race in a meet. Besides, the severe pain in your lungs only lasts during the set. Pride, well, we all know how long that lasts.

Today at practice we didn't actually use snorkels, but my thought process had me thinking about using them for some reason today. We started our practice with a meeting. One day a week, we take time as a team to go over upcoming events, goals, meet reflections, or whatever the case may be; today's meeting held the topic of the upcoming Grand Prix meet in Long Beach.

Taking one day each week to meet as a team not only gives our bodies rest from dryland and weight training, but also allows us to share thoughts and ideas with each other. We give Ron feedback, and he helps us find our strengths and weaknesses to improve upon them during practice. These kinds of meetings improve team and "coach-swimmer" communication, which, as I mentioned previously, I believe to be a crucial part to any swimmer's career.

Here is another (short) set that we did today:

4 x 25 clap starts
*all from a dive
*on first "go" clap hands for reaction
*on second "go" dive

I know, I must be a fan of short sets, but sometimes the short sets are the ones that improve your technique the most. These 25s help to ignore background noise and focus on a quick start. I do not exactly have the quickest reaction time; therefore, I take this set very seriously. Listening for the first "go" followed by my clap compared to my teammates' claps, helps me to figure out what I need to do to react quicker off the bocks. Trust me, when it comes to my snail-pace start, any tweak helps.

Also, today's practice included a high tempo set:

4 x 25 free drill; focus on body position
4 x 50 free descend 1-4
4 x 25 # 1 stroke drill
4 x 25 # 1 stroke speedplay
*1st 25: 12.5 fast / 12.5 moderate
*2nd 25: 12.5 moderate / 12.5 fast
*3rd 25: build to 100%
*4th 25: race pace (100%)

Doing this set obviously allows swimmers to focus on their stroke technique then testing it in faster swimming immediately. I enjoyed this set today because I was able to make sure I had good body position and tempo before I went into race-pace swimming; allowing me to take advantage of the benefits the set has to offer. Speedplay helps me to practice my speed both at the beginning and the end of a lap and put them together in the last lap, while still applying as efficient of a stroke as possible, in a race pace.

Another tactic we have been practicing daily is negative splitting. Ron told us that practicing a negative split swim style in practice will help us finish better in a race. I constantly learn new concepts and constantly (do my best to) apply them everyday in practice to achieve the ultimate goal (the ultimate goal being my seasonal and future goals).

Friday is almost here! I'm looking forward to swimming against some very fast competition this weekend and seeing how I can stack up tired. It's time to put my work to the test!

GO NOVA!