Okay, it's been confirmed....coaches make us do things solely for their amusement....
The swim this morning started off normally enough. A 600 m warm up (swim/kick/pull), then we went into some sprints in a pyramid. 25/50/75/100 m front crawl with 15 s rest in between. Then 100/75/50/25 m back stroke with 15 s rest in between.
As I was doing all this I started putting my new mantra and mental strategy in place. "Comfortably Uncomfortable". Kept thinking that AND focusing on what I was doing rather than letting my mind wander. Okay, I admit it wandered for a bit at the start - was thinking about my wee trip this coming weekend. But I stopped myself and said 'Concentrate dammit!!!' haha. So I did. I'm proud to say that it worked. I literally could feel every friggin muscle working when I swam! It was awesome. I felt strong and fluid. This of course is due in part because of my swim coach who's great at tweaking things just a bit so you have the correct form etc.
Speaking of said coach...she is also extremely honest. After we did some catch up matches (where one lane competes against the other in relay to try and catch up with the other lane), she mentioned she wanted us to try something for her amusement... AHA!! I KNEW IT!!! Coaches make us do things so they can laugh! LOL.
So what was it that amused her? Well we had two people at one end of the lane, and two at the other. The first person was to swim all out for a length, then one person at that end would grab the lead's ankles. Then they'd both swim, with the lead person pulling and the last person kicking. Kind of like a centipeded. They'd then pick up the next person. So the middle person is now just hanging on, or being hung on to while the others pull kick. Then you pick up the forth and go for it. It so happened it was boys against girls in this match. I'm proud to announce that us gals won. Not that that's a surprise or anything.... (Boy, I'm going to get it for that comment!! LOL)
Now, I'm not sure how much Jen was laughing while we were thrashing about. See, I was one of the middle people on the last length and could not see because I was too busy drowning!!!
Oh, I should note that on our relay sprints (where lanes were competing as well) I managed to swim a length full out with only taking two breaths. Same with when we were kicking full out. Hooyah!! Good thing it was only one length...took me forever to get lungs to stop burning, haha.
Unfortunately, my bike class didn't go as well as swim class. Thankfully, I've been doing this long enough to know that these days happen and one can't get to upset about it. We started off with the usual one legged drills. I was able to hold good technique till about the 50 s mark, then I was klunking over the top. We did some high cadence spinning next and that's when I knew something wasn't right.
It was taking everything in me to get my damn cadence up. Hell, last week I was up in the 120s and 130s and felt great. Tonight, I could barely make it to 100 rpm and hold it. What the ...? Very frustrating. I kept saying my mantra in hopes it would help. No luck. Alas, I did not give up!
The next set was high cadence spinning in a pyramid. (Was the day of the pyramids!) I think Keith put it best when he said 'my arse feels like a jackhammer on the seat!'. I LOVE that statement as that's exactly how I felt. It was bad enough that I was struggling to get up to the cadence that I needed to, but I was bouncing around like crazy! URGH!! So not fun! The all out spin sets were a bit better, but not much. I was WAY out of the comfortably uncomfortable zone, haha.
I just was not comfortable on the bike tonight. It felt awkward. Heavy sigh. In addition to the arse pain, my shoulder was screaming in pain. IronGreg figures it's from swimming. It hurt a lot last year after we got into the long distance swimming and seems the rest this fall hasn't helped it. It's in the front of my shoulder, which is one of the reasons I've been trying to work on my back in the gym. To try and strengthen it so I don't pinch whatever it is that's there in the front. All I can say is it's an acute pain that shoots down the front of my shoulder. Enough pain to make me cross-eyed at times. Yeowch.
To try and look at the positive side of things, I was riding some of the sets with that arm behind my back to try and stretch it out. So I just had my one arm in the aerobars. Needless to say it was an excellent core workout too, LOL.
Ah well, nothing to worry about. Onwards and upwards!!
At least you can make it to 50 s before klunking over top. I think you did well last night and I was very impressed by the one arm behind the back pose. I'd fall off if I tried that. And the way we were stacked up, everybody else would go over, like dominos.
ReplyDeletethe drill sounds hilarious ...i am sure she was laughing her ass off watching it - and of course the girls won :)
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