Paul's swimming blog

OK, now that I have had some time to think about this weekend's meet I have come to the following conclusions: 1) Need to reduce bodyweight by about 12 pounds. Dragging too much load thru the water. 2) Need to increase strength. Will be going back to the gym starting in January. Training plan to follow. Combine building some additional muscle mass with #1 should result in about a 16-20 pound loss of body fat. 3) Need to increase endurance. I am still falling off way too much in 100 Free. Part of that might have been the earlier activities and illness but it is always a good thing to increase. 4) Strengthen my kicks, especially my SDKs. I am swimming way too much with just my upper body, need to build legs. Getting a monofin for Christmas so need to incorporate that. 5) Increase flexability. Hamstrings and calves are way too tight. 6) Fuel the machine. Get my eating habits better suited for my goals. 7) Get more sleep. Need to get as close to 8 hours a night as possible. Currently averaging about 6.5 or so. 8) Concentrate more on Free and Fly. While I still need to improve my Back and *** to help with IM, I need to focus more on improving my Free and Fly as those are my preferred strokes. 9) Get mentally tough. Need to focus on my goals and STAY focused. Do the whole practice, do what I need to do and stay focused. This is one of the HUGE ones. Paul

Good thing there's not too many things on that list. :lmao:

Good thing there's not too many things on that list. :lmao: Yeah, I figure about the time I age up to 65-69, I should have about half that done. Paul

50 Fly: 30.29. Gridge race with BP. And I was on the outside lane next to him. Swam a solid 25 but I think I was short stroking myself as my stroke count at the turn I used in warm ups left me 2 feet short at the turn so had to kick in. Ugh. Gotta work on that too. Won my heat and beat BP by a body length. Congrats, Paul, a fly well swum. :cheerleader: My fly did not work out so well for me this weekend, as i couldn't seem to get myself going (esp for the 100:dedhorse:), and had a similar issue as you with stroke counts and extra space. I guess it would help to swim SCM a bit more, eh? -jeff

1) Need to reduce bodyweight by about 25 pounds. Dragging too much load thru the water. 2) Need to increase strength. Will be going back to the gym starting in February. Training plan to follow. Combine building some additional muscle mass with #1 should result in about a 16-20 pound loss of body fat, plus some bike and running. 3) Need to increase endurance. I am still falling off way too much in 50 Free. Part of that might be the fact that I train randomly, maybe 3Xweek. 4) Strengthen my kicks, especially my SDKs. I am swimming way too much with just my upper body, need to build legs and learn how to use them. I kick like a triathlete (no kick?) 5) Increase flexability. Hamstrings and calves are way too tight. Too old to do that. 6) Fuel the machine. Get my eating habits better suited for my goals. I eat okay. 7) Get more sleep. Need to get as close to 8 hours a night as possible. Currently averaging about 6.5 or so. I need to get less sleep. 8) Concentrate more on Free and Fly. While I still need to improve my Back and *** to help with IM, I need to focus more on improving my Free and Fly as those are my preferred strokes. 9) Get mentally tough. Need to focus on my goals and STAY focused. Do the whole practice, do what I need to do and stay focused. This is one of the HUGE ones. I copied from your list and agree with most everything. I changed some numbers. You have a great plan! I use to die the last 25 in the 100 free, but lately have been losing speed in the last 10 meters of the 50 free. I do a 1,000 o.w. meter race about 6 times a year. My last times have been 2 to 3 minutes slower, which is way too much for that distance. Take care, billy fanstone

Currently 41 with about 2 months in the pool. 6'3" 260. Based on the very short time that you've been back in the pool...you are doing extremely well. Good luck with the training.

congratulations on your swims I'll catch your swims when I get home YT is one of the many blocked sites on this PC a Thanks, Ande. I welcome your feedback. Paul

congratulations on your swims I'll catch your swims when I get home YT is one of the many blocked sites on this PC a OK, even with all the negativity, illness and walking, I'm still pretty happy with my swims today. Except for the start of 50 Back. Once again my feet slipped at the start. Still won the heat with a decent time. This was very annoying as I practiced about 10 starts during warmup and my feet never slipped. The pad in my lane (Lane 5) was pretty slick. 100 Free: 1:01.37 - First sign that I was in trouble was that off the thrid turn my pecs were burning. Now, shoulders, triceps, etc I can understand but my PECS??? 100 ***: 1:21.72 - After the 100 Free experience, I was going to scratch, even as the event started I was going to scratch but I swam it. Went too deep on the start and was riding the line on my second stroke. Last turn was a train wreck. Gotta work on that. 50 Back: 35.65. Nothing like slipping at the start. Only put me a full body length behind everyone. But still came home pretty strong and won my heat. 50 Fly: 30.29. Gridge race with BP. And I was on the outside lane next to him. Swam a solid 25 but I think I was short stroking myself as my stroke count at the turn I used in warm ups left me 2 feet short at the turn so had to kick in. Ugh. Gotta work on that too. Won my heat and beat BP by a body length. All in all, happy with the results. Nabbed best times in every event and snagged 2 of my teams records :-) Paul

The backstroke video was pretty far away. However, as you note, your start sucked. :lmao: No matter, you'll get it next time. Did you have the squishy yellow pads? The first length and a half or so, it looked like you needed to put your head back a bit more, to lift the hips up. But then at the end you seemed to put it back more. Also, it's a 50. Arms should not be moving in slo-mo. Speed up the SR. Your free and fly looked good. It did, as I think you noted earlier, look like you misjudged the finish a bit in fly. So hard to hit the wall right in fly ...

As I start to put together a training plan I want to post my goals for SCY Nats. Core 50 Free - 23.5 100 Free - 51.00 50 Fly - 26.00 100 IM - 1:00.00 Secondary 100 Fly - 1:00.00 Tertiary 50 Back - 30.00 Those are my main focus events and the ones that I am going to be training towards. I need one more NQT to be able to swim those events as I made the NQT for 50 Free. If I can grab 2 more NQTs, I might think about swimming one more event but those 5 are my focus. The 100 Fly is a big leap as I have yet to swim that event but I'm going to be doing more fly work to improve my 50.