I Need to Wake Up

PHOENIX, Arizona, October 4. 265 days to Olympic Trials!

Journal by Jeff Commings, 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:

Today's workout:

Time: 5:45 a.m.
Short Course Yards

1100 warmup

36×25 fly on :25
Alternate two kick, two swim
(Barely made interval on kick, held about :18 on swim … and did not break stroke!)

8×50 swim on 1:00, working on IM transitions
(Did all as 25 back/25 breast)

6×250 back on 4:00, descend 1-3, 4-6
3:04, 2:56, 2:54, 3:15, 3:00, 2:50

50 easy

12×25 on :30, every third fast
Breaststroke: 14.4, 14.1, 14.3, 14.0

Easy 200

Total: 3,800 yards

On this first official swimming workout in my sprinting phase, I found myself lacking the necessary physical motivation to swim fast. I slept well last night, but it took my body nearly an hour of swimming to finally feel good. I couldn't get the turnover I wanted on the set of 250s, and I think I was trying too hard on the fast 25s. I was hoping my muscles would wake up and respond to the commands my brain was giving them, but it was a bit of a struggle today. On the fast 250 back when I went 2:50, I split 1:06 at the 100 and 2:16 at the 200. Terrible! My body didn't want to hold 1:06 for two straight 200s, even though that shouldn't be a problem. I think a lot of it had to do with the hard weight workout I did yesterday, but usually the opposite happens, in that my muscles feel so strong that I feel like I'm grabbing twice the amount of water than usual.

But with this being the first day of a new phase of the season, I know there is a long way to go, and I'm excited to see how it goes. My push pace times from the past month have been better than expected, so things are looking up!

This evening, I stopped by Tod Miller's Beyond Massage Therapy for some major body work. My muscles were in knots, and his bodywalking techniques have been a welcome relief. Though the session did involve actual massage, about half was devoted to the bodywalking, which not only puts body weight on pressure points and large muscle groups, but it helps to spread out the muscles and engage the nerve endings. Tomorrow, I'm certain I'll find a better feel for the water. Near the end of the session, as Tod was kneading out knots in my shoulder blades, he said: "You've been doing some training!" Each lactate flush he did with my muscles verified that. I've been putting some serious pressure on my body these past few weeks. It's all good, but I have to realize that I sometimes need to take a step back and realize that I'm 37, not 17. My body won't recover as quickly as it used to. Yes, I suppose I can drink those super-expensive gels and drinks to keep my muscles moving freely, but I think a very good and free way to do this is to increase the amount of stretching I do. I do about two minutes worth in my warm down after every pool workout. Maybe it's time to raise that to five minutes. Couldn't hurt, right?

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

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