05/05/09 - Here it comes...

the taper energy rush. It started coming on at about 10 this morning. I was pretty sore and a little crusty the last few days, normal for taper. After practice (and my DDS appt.) this morning, I started buzzing.

Just in time :), I'm ready for a good weekend. I've had taper manifest in multiple ways, sometimes I feel cruddy until I'm on the blocks for my first race. I like to get through the cruddy feeling before then, though. It's always been a good sign to hit the buzz phase right before the meet.

When I drop in altitude, I should really be feeling good. As long as I race smart :).

Anyhoo:
300 swim
200 IM K
400 IM drill, really ez
4 x 100 @1:30 (all 1:08, 11-12 SPL, HR 140-150 range)
3 x 2-turn 50s, IM transition on 2nd turn fly/back, back/br, br/free
5 x 25 from mid-pool @25, focus on fast walls @45

2 x 50 br @2:00 rest - 34.2, 34.3
I felt much better on the 2nd one. I spun a lot going out on the first one and I swear it took me like 11 strokes to get to the wall. The second one, I settled down and got a better grab. I split them both 16 something/18.something.

warm down

I had a conversation last fall with my highschool friend and sometime swimming rival Marc. Marc coaches up in Aspen and was (and probably still is) an excellent IMer/breaststroker. I told him that I was shooting for a 1:15/1:16 breast split in the 400 IM this year and he thought that I should probably work on being able to go sub-35s from a push in order to get in that range. Well, here I am. At the very end of the year, I'm going sub 35s from a push. I sure hope he was right.

The spinning shouldn't be so much of a problem in the 400 IM because I'm usually tired enough to where I don't/can't start out the breast leg on blast. I'll have to be a little careful on the 100/200 breast, though, to just build that first 25 and not spin so much.