August 14, 2006

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Hammerhead Triathlon Club meeting to hear Mitch Ivey speak. He is a former Olympian (silver in 1968, bronze in 1972) and was the SEC Swimming Coach of the Year in 1992 and 1993 at Florida. He is now coaching a masters swim group at Episcopal High School.

Mitch gave a terrific talk about his experience in swimming and several stroke tips. He left before I got a chance to talk to him after the meeting, but I did stick around for about 30 minutes talking to other Hammerheads about their experience in the program. Needless to say, it was all very positive.

Last week I couldn't get the nerve up to go try it out. Waking up at 5 am is no big deal. But talking to the folks, I learned they do 3000 - 4000 meters a session. My longest workouts in the pool are 2000 yards. In a 25 yard pool. Swimming twice that in a 50 meter pool seemed daunting.

I finally decided to go try it out over the weekend. Last night, I did not sleep well. I was very apprehensive about going to the practice. I made it to the pool 20 minutes before practice started at 5:30. I had a chance to talk to Mitch, and he told me not to worry about a thing. He said everyone is there to get better and there are all abilities represented. I saw a few faces I knew and met some new folks. Then it was into the pool.

We started by doing a 500 meter warm-up. After my first 100, Mitch told me to start breathing bilaterally and finish my stroke by brushing my thigh with my thumb. He also told me to slow down and relax. I guess my Human Windmill imitation was scaring the others. He told me to breathe on my left twice, my right twice and then take three strokes. It was difficult at first, but I was able to work it into a rhythmn towards the end of the session. With the stops for coaching, I was only able to do a 400 warm-up.

For the first set, we did 3 x 400 by alternating swimming the first 50 then kicking the second 50 without a board. We did get to use fins. I made it through that set successfully.

The next set was 20 x 50 broken up into 4 250s. The splits for the 250s would decrease until the fifth subset, which would be done with more rest. The lane I was in (which turned out to be one of the fastest lanes so I hung off the back) did the first 250 as 5 x 50 on the 1:00, then :55, then :50. The last 250 was done as 5 x 50 on the 1:10. Needless to say, I was hitting those splits, and let the other guys pass me a couple of times. I ended up doing 16 x 50. Not bad.

Then we had to do it again. With fins and hand paddles if we wanted. I chose to do it with a pull buoy. Not sure if I was supposed to, but the fins I wore in the 3 x 400 were too small and left terrific blisters on my toes (I promptly ordered my own set of fins when I got home this morning).

Then it was time for a cooldown. Total workout for me was 3300 meters. More importantly, since I am used to yards, that works out to 3600 yards.

Afterwards, a bunch of folks asked me how it went and Mitch came over and told me that we were going to continue to work on my stroke. I am glad I was able to get over the nervousness to attend. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to the Wednesday or Friday session, but I will certainly be there next week.