On the Right Track

Journal by Jeff Commings, Swimming World associate producer

PHOENIX, Arizona, September 1. 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, August 31, 2011
Time: 5:45 a.m.
Short Course Meters
299 days to Trials

300 warmup

4x(4×50 on 1:00)
#1 25 fast/25 easy
#2 25 easy/25 fast
#3 50 at 90% effort
#4 50 easy

4x(4×25 kick on :35) — same as above, divided in half

Two rounds:
100 at 80% on 2:00
2×50 at 90% on 1:00
4×25 at 100% on :30
4×25 at 80% on :30
2×50 at 90% on 1:00
100 at 100% on 2:00
25s fast — breaststroke held :16, backstroke held :15 with flip turn
100s fast — freestyle, 1:02, 1:00

12×25, :15 rest choice strokes with low stroke count

Total distance: 3000 meters

Not much in the way of yardage, but the main set was OK. On the repeats that were at 80 or 90 percent, I swam a lot slower, to recover from the previous fast swim and to prepare for the next fast swim. The water was feeling a little tepid this morning, which could explain my slight sluggishness, but the times were pretty good. I was happy that my 25s breaststroke were in the 16-second range. It felt like my arm speed wasn't as fast as it could be, but I didn't want to force things. The technique falls apart when you force your body to do things it doesn't want to do. So, the goal of the main set was to swim fast with good technique.

One thing I'm trying to do is kick more on backstroke and freestyle, so that was a focus today. I was a little peeved I didn't break a minute today in the 100 free. It appears that will be my goal for the season. This will be the last week of short course meters at Phoenix Swim Club, because a temporary bulkhead will be installed this weekend to turn the SCM side into SCY through the high school season, which ends around Thanksgiving. I will probably do a few short course meters workouts when I am at Hillenbrand Aquatic Center in Tucson, but that is essentially the diving well, and the water might turn very warm soon.

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

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