Somebody ate his Wheaties!

I am going to guess that the whole Wheaties reference is a generational thing. Growing up, I remember how cool it was to see Bruce Jenner, Walter Payton, or Mary Lou Retton on the Wheaties box. I mean, they changed the cover of a cereal box! With really cool athletes! If those people ate their Wheaties, (the Breakfast of Champions), they would be winners. There are some major icons on Wheaties boxes too, like Lou Gehrig and Jesse Owens. Anyway, one special person n our lane today definitely ate his Wheaties before coming to practice. In fact, this person (who we will call H) swam every single day this week and I would not be surprised if a little orange box shows up with his smiling face on it. All in all, eight people showed up to Alumni today and we had a good workout.

300 on own
Warmup set:
200 free
200 drill/swim by 25
200 IM
200 pull
200 choice
Main set:
300 pull on 4:30
2 x 200 free fast on 2:45 (or whatever)
3 x 100 IM on 1:45
300 pull on 4:30
2 x 200 IM on 3:30
3 x 100 free on 1:30
6 x 75
odds free on 1:05
evens stroke on 1:20
2 x 50 ascend on :60

The Workout of my Dreams

As we all know, the Z Center is closed, so many of us have trudged to the Alumni pool to get our workouts in. And I must say, this morning I had one of the best workouts in recent memory. I felt great in the water, even lapped my fellow lane mates on a long swim. Most interestingly, I led the IM set and my usually sluggish breaststroke was nearly perfect. This was of course preceded by me waking up without an alarm, my coffee was already ready, and miraculously the car was toasty when I got in. The only problem with this perfect little scenario was that it was a dream. I did not get up, I did not drink coffee in a warm car, and I most certainly did not lap my lane mates or lead a set of 100 IMs. To say that I was disappointed upon awakening is an understatement. But it all fairness, it seemed really, really, real - I was even a little sore from pushing it a bit on the last part of the set. Oh well.  It's lane night out tonight and I am going to hold my head high and pledge to get up tomorrow. Here is what I did in my dream (or, at least what I wanted to propose to my teammates):

500 swim
5 x 100 swim/IM
400 pull
3 x 200 on 2:45 (note dream-like lack of reality)
3 x 100 IM
3 x 100 swim
8 x 50 fast/easy on :60

Goodnight, Pool

We have our annual shutdown of the Z-Center pool upon us, which is a sad time for many master's swimmers as we love our pool and love seeing all our friends in the morning. So some of us will move to Alumni pool next week, with it's mid-20th Century feel and nice warm temp. In honor of our beloved pool, here is a little bedtime story. Sweet dreams!

Goodnight pool Goodnight pool

Goodnight water that is cool

Goodnight lockers and the nice wide lane
Goodnight workouts where we use our brain

Goodnight buoys and goodnight paddles
Goodnight, all those in-lane battles
 
Goodnight clocks and goodnight blocks

Goodnight gutters Goodnight air

Goodnight lanemates everywhere!

300 swim

6 x 50 drill/swim by 25 :15r

6 x 75 1-3 IM no free; 4-6 free :20r 

150 swim

150 all one stroke

150 swim

150 choice

Twice thru:

50 on 1:10

75 on 1:20

100 on 1:20

125 on 1:50

150 on 2:10

125 on 1:50

100 IM on 2:00

75 breath control 1:20

50 easy 1:10    

Reset Button

If I wanted to enjoy swim practice this morning, it looks like I picked the wrong set of activities this past weekend to prepare, including watching an historic ice swim (yes, I said watch), dancing like Baby at a wedding (and NOT in the corner) and taking my first kick-boxing class. All of this, combined with shopping, good food and wine, and little sleep translated into a horror show in the pool this morning. Thankfully, I was not the only one who seemed to suffer.  BB, sore from chopping down and hauling his Christmas tree, was also moving slowly. As with any after-school-special, there is a moral to this sad story, kids. If you want to swim well on Monday morning, do NOT have fun over the weekend.  Congrats to MIT Masters who placed second at the BU meet in the small team division! I am guessing that these are mostly night swimmers, so hat's off to you!

300 swim
6 x 50 on :60
6 x 50 going:
1-2 free on :20r
3-4 IM no free on :20r
5-6 stroke on :20r
450 every third 25 is fly
Four times thru: (the first interval was our original, and we did that the first set then changed it!)
100 on 1:15/1:20
2 x 75 on :60/1:05
2 x 50 fly on :1:05
2 x 25 easy on :40
400 swim (I did not do)

And yes, I used the ladder to get out today. That's how bad I felt.

Ice Swim Success!

A special blog is in order today, as one of our own MIT Master's teammates, Elaine Kornbau-Howley (known as E2), completed the 2012 Ice Swim, a one-mile swim in 40 degrees with her fellow crazy-town friend Jerome Leslie. To put this into perspective, only 26 people in the history of open water swimming have accomplished this feat, which E2 did in 29 minutes and change. To provide further perspective, when the EMT arrived at the L Street bathhouse prior to the swim, his understanding was that this was another ice plunge, where swimmers get in and get out quickly. No biggie, thought Cal, our new EMT friend. So when he realized that these two nut cases (said lovingly) were going to actually SWIM back and forth for a mile, he immediately alerted his command center, secured backup, and made an actual plan for what to do when one of the swimmers needed to be pulled (and I am not joking here). You see, in Cal's experience, when someone unfortunately plunges into 40 degree water accidentally, they are treated for hypothermia after 5 minutes. So he truly thought he was facing an emergency situation.

While I will let E2 recall her experience, as a spectator/helper, it was amazing to watch. She and Jerome walked calmly into the water and started swimming. At first, it seemed tough to have her face submerged, so she did backstroke. But once she got her groove going, she got her GROOVE going and simply smoked the mile, looking stronger with each stroke. Meanwhile, those of us watching were fully clothed and ridiculously cold as the rain pounded down on us. Yes, the definition of wimpy. After emerging, she went through the typical stages of someone with hypothermia, including scary shaking and alternately turning blue and red. The whole time Cal is moving back and forth between E2 and Jerome marveling at what was happening. But in the end, it was a celebration as these two brave/crazy swimmers will get the official red jacket that comes with this accomplishment. And Cal (pictured above with E2 and her friend Lisa)  has a great story to tell all his EMT friends.  Bravo!

Swimmer's Choice

It's a sad day when coach Bill is not on deck, as was the case this morning when he was unable to come to practice. Get well soon coach Bill! Of course not having a coach might result in anarchy at some places, but as is usually the case at MIT Masters, swimmers took a cue out of Bill's coaching playbook and efficiently developed workouts. Nobody left the deck. Workouts varied by lane, with some taking to heart the Wednesday distance day theme and doing 2 x 1650. However, unless forced to do that, I can pretty much assure you that my lane would never choose to do that. We tried to stay true to the theme but wanted to make sure there was a little something for everyone. Except Joel - there was no kick. A special surprise today was the return of Rachel! Welcome back!

200 swim
200 drill/swim by 25
200 IM
200 pull
200 choice
Two times through:
400 pull on 6:00
300 descend by 100 on 4:15
200 IM on 3:30
100 fast
10 x 75 going odds fast, evens easy on 1:15