{"id":29884,"date":"2012-03-05T18:54:33","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T23:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/uncategorized\/2012\/03\/journey-to-olympic-trials-some-days-are-better-than-others\/"},"modified":"2014-07-29T00:58:21","modified_gmt":"2014-07-29T07:58:21","slug":"journey-to-olympic-trials-some-days-are-better-than-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/journey-to-olympic-trials-some-days-are-better-than-others\/","title":{"rendered":"Journey to Olympic Trials: Some Days Are Better Than Others"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>Commentary by Jeff Commings, SwimmingWorld.TV associate producer<\/i><\/p>\n<p>PHOENIX, Arizona, March 6. LATER this week, I&#039;m traveling to Washington state to compete in the spring sectional championships at one of my favorite pools, the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center. Mentally, I&#039;m ready to race, but yesterday in the pool, I felt like 200 pounds of horse manure. That threw my mental preparation into a bit of a frenzy.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#039;s a look at yesterday&#039;s short course yards workout:<\/p>\n<p><b>300 warmup<\/p>\n<p>4&#215;100 breast on 2:00<br \/>\n50 pull with buoy\/50 kick no board<\/p>\n<p>Four rounds:<br \/>\n4&#215;50 free with snorkel on :50<br \/>\n1&#215;100 IM on 1:40<br \/>\n2&#215;25 breakouts on :45<br \/>\nextra :30 rest<\/p>\n<p>50 easy<\/p>\n<p>3&#215;100 breast swim on 1:40<br \/>\n(1:09, 1:08, 1:08)<\/p>\n<p>200 easy<\/p>\n<p>Four rounds (one each stroke), with interval about five minutes:<br \/>\n25 fast from dive<br \/>\nAbout 15 seconds rest<br \/>\n50 fast from push<br \/>\n75 easy<\/p>\n<p>6&#215;50 easy choice on 1:00<\/p>\n<p>Total: 3,250 yards (85 minutes)<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I don&#039;t know why I felt so horrible, but I have had days like this before, and will likely have more days like this again. I felt sluggish and heavy in the water, and I had to fight to just do the 3&#215;100 breast on 1:40. I had planned to hold 1:07 or better, which didn&#039;t seem too difficult. But after the first 100, I knew it was going to be a very difficult set. I wrote that set after watching Roland Schoeman do 2&#215;100 free on 1:30, holding :53. After figuring that his best 100 free shaved and tapered would be, say, 41 seconds, I figured I could do three 100s breast holding 1:07, which is 12 seconds slower than my best taper 100 breast from last year.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe my body could do this set in college or in my postgrad years, but I definitely did not have it today. I was so mad after the first one, because it felt like it was closer to 1:05 than 1:10. I didn&#039;t want to increase the effort on the next two, because I knew my heart rate was already high, and I only managed to go one second faster. That last 100 was extremely painful. It was like doing the last 100 of a 200 breast. I suppose this is good endurance training, but I wonder if my performance means I&#039;m not in good shape, or I just had a bad day.<\/p>\n<p>I&#039;d like to think it was the latter.<\/p>\n<p>The sprint set at the end was affected by that set of 100s breast. The last 25 of each round was sloppy, and none of my times matched what I felt I could go. For example, my fast 50 breast was probably not under 30 seconds, based on what I saw on the clock when I touched. I didn&#039;t have the snap that I had a few days ago, and naturally, I started to worry if I was going to do well at sectionals. Would I have to rest a little more in order to swim as fast as I wanted?<\/p>\n<p>Not only were those two sets tough, but I was doing it alone. After the set of 100s breast, I thought about scrapping the sprint set for a long time, but I knew I needed to work on sprinting today. I don&#039;t regret doing it, but my body will definitely let its feelings known tomorrow, as I recover from today. I had thought about swimming tomorrow morning, but I think I need a complete day off from exercise. When I get back in the water on Tuesday, I hope I will feel much better.<\/p>\n<p>I saw <a href=http:\/\/www.teamunify.com\/pnws2\/__eventform__\/223545_2012%20senior%20sectional%20preliminary%20psych%20sheet%20version%20_2%20with%20ages.pdf>the psych sheet<\/a> for sectionals, and I&#039;m seeded third in the 100 breast. Only three of us are seeded with Olympic Trials times, with two others behind me within a second of the qualifying time. I&#039;m sure they&#039;ll shave for the meet, and I believe my teammate Mike Nelson will be shaved as well. Since I&#039;m not shaving, I do not believe I will swim as fast as 1:04.42 (my seed time), but I want to race well and use the feedback (my own and my coach&#039;s) to prepare for Trials.<\/p>\n<p>It will be a good meet, with Missy Franklin there to show us all how it&#039;s done, and Roland Schoeman bound to dominate in the sprint freestyles.<\/p>\n<p><i>Portions of this commentary were reprinted from Jeff Commings&#039; blog at <a href=http:\/\/commings.blogspot.com\/>commings.blogspot.com.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Jeff Commings will be the third-oldest male competitor at the U.S. Olympic Trials this summer, competing in the 100 breaststroke. He participated in the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Trials and was an All-American for the University of Texas.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Commentary by Jeff Commings, SwimmingWorld.TV associate producer PHOENIX, Arizona, March 6. LATER this week, I&#039;m traveling to Washington state to compete in the spring sectional championships at one of my<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,17,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-commentary","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\r\n<title>Journey to Olympic Trials: Some Days Are Better Than Others - Swimming World<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/journey-to-olympic-trials-some-days-are-better-than-others\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Journey to Olympic Trials: Some Days Are Better Than Others\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Commentary by Jeff Commings, SwimmingWorld.TV associate producer PHOENIX, Arizona, March 6. 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