#FinlessFriday, Long Lanes, and Hello Again!

I’ll start with the last item first: HELLO AGAIN! It’s been a minute. A lot of minutes, actually. I feel so bad for this little website of mine - which I have thought about daily!!!! - languishing away for no good reason on the interwebs. It’s my laziness, is all; I have no good reason not to have posted sooner.

Well here I am, ready to jump back in.

I have been swimming. Quite a lot, actually; up to four times a week. My Instagram feed and Facebook page will prove that.

For the last few months I’ve been going to a morning practice with SCAQ, primarily swimming at the Culver City Plunge on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The change has been great because I get that workout done first thing in the morning, I feel great the rest of the day, and the workout is done with long 50 meter lanes, instead of the shorter 25 yard length.

Adjusting to the longer lanes has taken some time. The longer distance seems to slow me down so instead of consistently swimming the 100 free at 1:44, it now takes me about 2:05. I assume that is because I am losing two full flip turn and stream line opportunities.

The lane I’m swimming in also has faster swimmers than I am used to. They are all averaging around 1:35 per 100 free. I am able to make that when I swim with fins so I found myself relying on those for most, if not all, of my swim workouts.

Relying on fins for speed is not something I want to have happen. So, I have decided that Friday swims are finless, i.e. I don’t use my fins. I don’t even bring them with me into the pool! There are no excuses.

Of course, this means I swim at the back of the pack and I don’t get to do the individual sets because I can’t make the interval timing. However, I am swimming for an entire hour without fins. It is great conditioning work and I can work on stroke techniques that I wouldn’t get to do when I’m speeding along with the extra fin power.

Today’s Workout:

300 warm-up
400 swim
15 100 frees