2100 (14700/223550)

Masters Practice, Santa Clara Edition

So this post is a little special because I headed to Northern California on June 10th to spend some time with my good friend Alix. The big plan for the weekend was to go see the Santa Clara Grand Prix, which was the sixth and last meet in 2009's Grand Prix series swim meets. Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Ricky Berens, Scott Spann, Nathan Adrian, Matt Grevers, Dave Walters, Stephanie Rice, Dagny Knutson, Mary Descenza, Lacey Nymeyer, Kirsty Coventry, and tons of other elite swimmers were competing, a lot of them getting ready for World Championship Trials.

Anyway, Alix swims Masters with the Santa Clara Swim Club, and they happen to practice part of the season at the pool where the meet was taking place. It worked out that the first day I was in town was the last day at the International pool, so despite having VERY little sleep (my flight out of Denver was massively delayed and I didn't get into SJC until 12:30, and not into bed until almost two AM), we got up and went to practice, where I got to swim with their Group 2 Masters in the competition pool (pictured above; photo taken right after I'd finished practice).

I'm probably just a spaz, but it was cool getting to swim in the same water that the people I mentioned up there would be swimming in the next day. Hee.

Anyway, the Group 2 coach was AWESOME and pointed out two things that were wrong with my freestyle stroke that I had NO idea I was doing wrong. Let's just say that now all the high elbow drills and the catchup drill make WAY more sense now. Hah. The workout was only 60 minutes, and shorter than I'm used to, but it was so fun swimming outside (we don't do that much in Colorado) and I was spending so much time fixing my stroke that it didn't matter ultimately. :) The set is below.

100 free (warmup)

100 breast (warmup)

2 x { 2 x 100 pull with paddles, 25 catchup / 25 swim / 25 catchup / 25 swim // 100 build by 25 }

3 x 100 pull, 50 back / 50 free

50 fly / 50 free

50 breast / 100 free

50 back / 150 free

50 back / 50 free

50 breast / 100 free

50 back / 150 free

100 free (warmdown)

Total: 1900 LCM (~2100 LCY)