HOT CHILD IN THE CITY pool - Wednesday 4/11/07

Boy is that water warm at Silverado. It has always been warm, around 83 or so, but today it just felt a lot warmer. I am thinking 86 degrees. Now that is just too warm to work hard in. Especially at 5:30am. The ideal temperature for competition is around 78 or 79 degrees, and for me personally, I can enjoy an 81 degree pool for working out. But anything over 84 just ends up being difficult. Its sometimes hard enough just to get to the pool and work hard so early in the morning, but adding on the warmth of the pool just complicates things ever more. My body is so off in the morning for the first 30 minutes of swimming. I can't do anything too wavy or I get dizzy and want to vomit. Its very similiar to the feeling I get when I swim the ocean (more in a competition open water swim vs. just free swimming). Bottom line, I get sea sick in the pool. I'm not sure if its the lack of lane lines (we should be getting some in June I have been told) or the warm water, or me just being a delicate little flower in the A.M., or the combination of all three, but its there. And today I felt it.

Here was the workout:

500 w/u
10 X 50s (odds free, evens IM order by 50) on :50
4 X 400s pull (odd free, evens IM)
200 cool down
Total - 2,800 meters

Before the 4 X 400s pull, the coach actual said the next set was 3 X 300 IMs. It was then I knew I just wasn't ready to do IM. I was feeling off and dizzy and with the warm water, I just didn't have that extra "oomph" to get going. So instead I grabbed my pull gear and decided to just zone out for the next 30 minutes on a pull set that would take my mind to LA-LA Land. I began the pull by thinking I would go 2 or 3 800 frees. When I saw my splits at the 100/200, I realized nothing magical was going to happen in the pool. The 86 degree water wouldn't allow it. So I refocused my energy onto something else. 800s would be too long without stopping. How about 4 X 400s, and I will make #2 and #4 IM with pulling. I felt that since I would be pulling that the strokes would be more relaxed and slow and therefore a change in the turbulance of the water.

The workout was ok. I was glad to be back in the water, since I had to sub for the normal Monday morning coach and therefore couldn't swim.