Thursday, April 3, 2008

Swim/School/Track/Dinner/Pirates/Bed

This sequence above summarizes my basic schedule for most of the school year. You can substitute in run instead of swim or XC instead of track, or some other sport other than Pirates. The other thing that tightens the schedule is that I have a 45 minute commute to and from work that is > 1 hour commute on the way home right now due to construction. There's just not enough hours in the day!!!

But, I'm home and relaxed and doing a little blogging while I watch the Pirates.

As far as workout today, I went to the pool solo. Beth had her Masters swim down at Pitt. Keep in mind that before November, I had never seriously swam. I never had goggles. I was scared of the deep end of the pool until 9th grade swim class. I'm terrible!!! But, I'm slowly improving (albeit very slowly).

Also, not coming from a swimming background (mostly running) I don't really subcribe to the traditional training all the time--especially since I'm training specifically for a triathlon swim and never plan on doing a swim meet. So, no pull buoys, paddles, kickboards and the like. Since I'm tight on time with my commute, my swims are usually only 1000-1500 yds. Also, I probably give myself too long of rest intervals. One other thing I like to do is continuous swimming instead of repeats. I like to have the confidence that I can go longer distances in a respectable (at least for me) pace.

So, today, I did a 150 yd warm up and then my goal was 1000yd as close to 2:00/100yd pace as possible. I did a decent job on my splits:

1:55, 2:01, 1:57, 2:00, 2:01, 2:04, 2:09, 2:10, 2:09, 2:06, for overall 20:35 (or 2:03 pace). I set PR's in the 600 through 1000, so I guess that's good. I'm definitely a work in progress.

The triathlon I'm doing this summer is the Butler YMCA triathlon. Beth won it a few years back. It's 400 yd lake swim, 12 miles on the bike (I like the short bike since I don't currently have a true road bike--just a walmart 10 speed), and a 5k. I'm hoping to go pretty low on the run, but I'm fearing what it's going to feel like after swimming and biking. I've also enlisted some of my fellow math department members at school to join me. I think there are 4 or 5 out of the 15 in the department planning on doing it (plus a guidance counselor and maybe a science teacher). That's pretty cool.

Well, that's about it. The Pirates are up 2-0 in the 5th. Zach Duke's looking pretty solid so far. He's had some great defense behind him from McLouth and up the middle with Wilson & Sanchez. Time to go watch some more of that.

3 comments:

Marit C-L said...

Hey Oscar! Nice job with the swimming -just take it one practice at a time, and you'll do great! Wish I could get my hubby to the pool... :)

When I first read the title of your post, I thought it said PILATES, not Pirates.... oops! Then I would have been REALLY impressed with you! Holy Cow! Then I realized Pirates, as in Pittsburg Pirates - right?

Keep up the great work!

Pedergraham said...

Oscar--that's great that you are recruting all those people to race along with you!

If you want to add a little spice to your continuous swim by getting in a little interval training at the same time, you can do (100hard/100 easy) x 5 or (50 hard/50 easy or) x 5 or my favorite for those who are math smart: 1 lap ez 1 hard 2 ez 2 hard all the way through 4 and that gets you 500 yards.
-Danielle

ojs said...

I have trouble keeping track of my laps when I'm only doing 200's!!!