Every February our team piles on the milage. This 'garbage yardage' is probably the most popular event on the team, as everyone gets into an endorphin high. So much for training for speed or lactic-acid tolerance :( .
Anyway, our coach decided to make things more fun by declaring yesterday as 'who can do the most backstroke' day. Instead of being my usual cynical self, I decided to get in the spirit, and took over a half lane at the side of the pool:
All backstroke, all on a 1:20 per hundred interval pace:
500 warmup
100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 500, 400, 300, 200, 100
5x100 ("fast")
500 warmdown
5000 yards total
Very boring, lots of endorphins, but I am a bit sore. I was pretty pleased with the backstroke yardage accomplished in a little over one hour.
Here is the sad part: A fellow went to *three* workouts, and swam 12,500 yards of backstroke!
OK, *Thursday* is the 'who can swim the most butterfly* day.
I WILL NOT LOSE!
I will take the day off and destroy my shoulders, if I have to. I think 50's on a minute for a few hours should do it.
It will be good practice for the 1650 fly that I will swim the weekend after next. (I am doing that because I am a careless newsgroup poster.)
Well, that is over. 6200 yards of fly yesterday, in sets of distances ranging from 25 yards to 300 yards. Here is the workout that the rest of the team did:
300 free
50 fly * (25 one arm, 25 regular)
250 free
50 fly *
200 free
50 fly *
150 free
50 fly *
3 x (4x25 underwater kick, 4x25 4 kick fly, 50 hard fly, 50 back fly kick)
3 x 200 fly, build each 50 of the 200 (easy first fifty, hard last fifty), with fins.
total: 2600
I did fly instead of free, and no fins, and I did the workout twice. I added some fly warmup and some fly cooldowns. Until about 10:00 last night I thought it was pretty easy. Now I know it wasn't, and I am taking the day off from swimming :(
I will make some comments about distance fly in another more appropriate thread, later.
Years ago when I swam in AAU I had a coach that would have you swim 2 weeks of the different strokes. There was butterfly week. Everyone love doing 400 butterfly because everyone went real slow. There was backstroke week and breastroke week. We got to use fins. Fins were not use all the time in workouts in those days.
"Here is the sad part: A fellow went to *three* workouts, and swam 12,500 yards of backstroke!"
What's wrong with doing that? I mean no offense, I'm just curious.
Originally posted by Phil Arcuni
What an old thread! Anyway, it was joke, and alluded to that while I did a workout that I was pretty proud of, it was not enough - and could never be enough. I mean, some of us have jobs!
Ahh, okay. I was thinking maybe people hated backstroke or something. FOr me, just returning to swimming, it's the only way I can swim very far. I did a mile backstroking, and nearly died doing a length of freestyle, or so it felt like. ::chuckles::
Phil,
After reading this post, I have three thoughts:
1) I'd dearly love to hear you expound on swimming distance fly. I have just worked myself up (or learned how to gear myself down) to do a 200 fly without dying at the end. The idea of learning fly well enough to swim it continuously, like say freestyle or backstroke, is tantalizing. However,
2) After doing a fly workout, TWICE, which has a primary objective of piling up "garbage yards" (your term, I'm just repeating it back to you), I have to wonder if maybe we need to find you a hobby (or a job, or a girlfriend,...)
3) After reading my first two thoughts, I'm beginning to wonder if the 8 hours I spent in the blazing sun today at my kids' Conference Championship meet is beginning to affect me.
OK, I'm going to take my nap now.
Matt
