Training Trip -- Training, Day 2 and 3

We have had some good practices so far on our trip to the Keys.  Here are a few tidbits:

 

Yesterday (Day 2) we had our second practice at 6pm.  This was the Warmup Set:

 

4x:

200 Free (3)

150 Kick-Swim (3)

100 Back (140)

50 Drill - 3 Fly Strokes+3Breast Strokes (1)

 

I asked the athletes to descend the 200s free during the warmup.  The goal was to have our top 3 men average 215 or better on the last 3 rounds, and either our top 2 women average 222 or better, our top 3 women average 225 or better, or our top 4 women average 227 or better.

 

We accomplished the goals, with 4 men averaging 212s, and 2 women averaging 221s.  Eric posted our top male time (210) and Avery posted our top female time (217).  The four men who averaged the fastest were Eric (211 average), Aidan (211 average), Shawn (213 average), and Liam (212 average).  On the women's side: Elise went 223-220-221 on her last 3 and Avery went 224, 221, 217 on her last 3).  We had a lot of 225-230 times from athletes who have best times of 4:45-5:00 in the 400 free, so I was pleased with this set. 

 

It's awesome what this group can do when given a goal that enables them to shorten a set later in the practice.  By accomplishing this task, our final 'written set' of 7x200 was reduced to 7x150. 

 

After a pre-set and a Main Set of 30x50 -- I determined that we had done enough to warrent 7x50 warmdown.  So because of the perfromance of the group, we ended up with 1150meters less than we would have had otherwise.

 

This morning we had the post-grads back in action (they had the afternoon off on Saturday).  They had a nice set of 5x200 Kick on descending intervals.  Erika, Ksen, and Lisa are all kicking at speeds that are close to or better than they've ever kicked on this set -- and we've done significantly less LCM kicking to this point in the season....so I think we're on the right track.  We finished with some pulling and a 1500 aerobic freestyle set.

 

The HS/MS athletes did a set of 8x400 (6).  The odds were Free IM and evens were Free.  The idea was to earn some rest on the Free IM, and descend the Free.  Aidan led the way with some great training 400s: 428, 425.9, 425.0 on the last 3.  Eric was 437-440s;  Liam was 450+ on 3 but went 441 on the end; Shawn and Conner were 450+ and 5min+ on the first 3 but went 449 on the end.  We have to get more guys down in the 420 range!!!  I wasn't pleased the overall outcome on the guys side as a whole, but we'll get there.  On the girls side, we had some really good work from a few girls (it was tough for many to just make the Free IM interval), and we ended up getting 4 girls under 5:10 on the end (Elise, Nora (who did it twice), Karen, and Olivia).  Next step is sub 5 Minutes with these girls....who, like the guys are fully capable. 

 

Sometimes I think we feel like the endurance sets are really long and hard and we're not able to really get after them.  We seem to be better with the shorter stuff.  This has got to change!!

 

This evening we did a set of 100s:  8 rounds of 100 Fast + 100 easy on (4) {2 min per 100}.  I gave everyone a goal time and told the athletes that if they could get the time I would let them finish after 4 rounds of the set.  We had four people (Aidan, Avery, Graham, and Libbie) finished after 4 rounds, then Rip got it done after 5 rounds.  Everyone else kept going....until round 7.  I gave four athletes a goal for one 100, and the idea was that if we got 2 out of 4 we would be done with the set (skipping round 7 and 8 for everyone else. 

 

Shawn's goal was 1:00.5 (he did 58.5)

Eric's goal was 101+ (he did 101.4)

Conner's goal was 103+ (he did 102.3)

Karen's goal (Backstroke) was 1:10 (she did 1:10.3)

 

Some of our top performances of the day:

Aidan was 59-58 for his four freestyles.

Erika was 102-103 a bunch of times for freestyle.

Avery was 103 x3, 104 x1 for her four freestyles.

Ksen was 117-118-118 for her top 3 breaststrokes.

Tomorrow we have a single AM practice and then a dryland/meditation routine in the afternoon.  We will have the evening off, which will allow us to have a pizza night, and get a good night's sleep for the next morning!