03/19/09 - SCY - breastroke felt awesome (after an adjustment)

JAM

600 swim wu - work on DPS
300 IM K
200 DPS

4 x (
300 K/dr/sw by 25 @30 s rest
200 swim @45 s rest
100 fast @1:00 rest
50 sprint
) IM order

400 wd

stretching + ER/IR

Fly was rough starting out. The 200 was supposed to be moderate, but I can't really swim moderate fly and keep a decent stroke. I hit 170 HR on the 200 fly and my upper back felt torched on most of the fly portion during and after the 200.

During the back, I worked on keeping my head still and still rotating. Tried to keep my pull in pretty tight and recover my hands thumb first. It's slower right now b/c I have to think about all of this.

Breaststroke felt awesome. I noticed on the first 50 of the 200 that I was letting my right hand pitch out and get above my elbow. So for the rest of the 200 I just tried to work on keeping my right arm 1 unit and keeping my elbow higher than my hand. I fell into a good rhythm with it and went ~2:48 or so. The 100 was ~1:15 and I felt great. I was actually surprised on this because I hit the wall and thought the clock said 1:15. I was kindof surprised because my 100 breast efforts lately have been around 1:17 - 1:18. But I stood up and took my goggles off and the clock still hadn't hit 1:20. Not sure what my 50 time was, ~36 seconds or so.

Freestyle felt pretty good. I really focused on pulling water with my whole forearm, especially on my right arm. I also focused on using my hips to pull my arms through instead of my shoulders. My turnover is a little lower and I feel awkward but my DPS is better (11-12 spl, as opposed to 13-15) and I'm able to hold better times. I went ~27 on the 50 but my head was spinning right to left with my hips. I'll have to work on that.

In general, I'm getting to where I can swim a decent breaststroke even when my muscles feel like they're on fire. That's been one of my main goals this year, really. Well, I guess the real goal is to be able to swim a good 200 breast and to bring home my 200/400 IMs better than I ever have, but to do those things I need to be able to swim a strong breaststroke even when my muscles are screaming.