30 November 2022 As the Davis Aquatic Masters Brute Squad virtual event closed today, I left myself no choice but to hit my local LA Fitness and get it done. I did my standard 1,750 warmup, followed by a 400 Kick-For-Time (5:50.7) and then a set of seven recovery 50s, putting me at 2,500 yards before the race: a straight 200 fly, 400 IM and 1,650 freestyle with my race result being the total time: I was very tentative on the first, in effect, straight 300 fly, doing most of

27 November 2022 I took Saturday off from training to travel back home from New Hampshire/Boston with a plan to do my official "race" for the Brute Squad Lite (100 fly, 200 IM, 500 free) at LA Fitness this morning. My original plan was to do my 1,750-yard warmup, attempt the Brute Squad event and then finish up with the third week of my "Chlorine Daddy 200" set, but the pool was strangely crowded after my warmup so I had to put the "race" at the end of the workout to have a

25 November 2022 Forget the deals in the stores, I got the best deal around for a pool tourist when I dropped into The Workout Club in Londonderry, New Hampshire on Black Friday morning: not only did they honor their free, three-day pass (even though I am an out-of-towner), their beautiful six-lane, 25-yard pool was empty, kitted out with synchronized digital pace clocks, and just begging me to do great 5,000-yard workout to work off the Thanksgiving feast: From looking ahead

23 November 2022 A last-minute, temporary hiccup in our plans to spend an extended American Thanksgiving weekend with friends in New Hampshire had my wife and me landing at Logan Airport Tuesday night and heading to a nearby Cambridge hotel instead of trekking up to the Granite State. While I haven't spent a lot time in the Boston area, I've made the occasional business trip and few pleasure trips, on which I've sampled many of the great, publicly accessible pools in this fi

22 November 2022 I've been doing a version of this workout with 5 x 200 straight backstrokes followed by 5 x 200 broken freestyles across three different recent workouts for the last month. As I'm starting a longish, four-week taper this week, I dropped a round of each. As I had to be up at 4:30 am to be able to squeeze this 3,500 workout in before my 45-minute weight lifting session at 6:45 am, and as this was my 6th swim workout in a row, I didn't think I'd perform all th

21 November 2022 I almost never get to exactly implement the taper plan I exactly want, but I at least started today on the plan, practically perfectly doing the first workout in a three-week taper plan from one of my old age group - and now longtime Masters - coach, Mark Kutz. Mark's plan starts at a pretty high volume - 23,000 yards in week #1 - and, as I'm sprinting at my meet, I've decided to extend my taper to four weeks, to give me time to fully come down from the volu

19 November 2022 After yesterday's "Fail & Bail" workout and an utterly crappy, maybe four hours of sleep last night (thanks to my work-stress-monkey-mind), I really wasn't expecting much from my attempt to do the "5 weeks from a taper meet" version of the Popovici set. I wanted to make sure to do this before my 9:30 am weight training session at Thrive, so I was at LA Fitness as soon as it opened at 8:00 am. Warmup Sets (1,800 yards) 1 x 300: kick-drill by 25s, 100 each fly

14 November 2022 Our measly, maybe 10cm, first snowfall of the season must have scared away the swimmers as I arrived at my local LA Fitness to find the pool pristinely empty. I grabbed the center lane and enjoyed pushing through a repeat of my "Back Base" test set and the same Broken 200 freestyle set I did a few weeks ago. I did a bit more warming up and cooling down between sets to make the entire workout 4,750 yards, but the two main sets remained: 5 x 200 backstroke on

13 November 2022 Back in the heyday of the USMS Forums (about a decade starting from the mid-to-late aughts), a vibrant virtual community of Masters swimmers from around the country and the world exchanged ideas, workouts and friendship. This community was a big part of me getting back into a consistent training routine starting in late 2008, jolting me out of a life where I'd let my athletic pursuits fall to a distant (practically non-existent) third place behind the demand

12 November 2022 If there's a North American fitness chain that understands swimmers, it is Life Time. When they opened their first Arizona location in north Scottsdale in late 2006, my wife and I joined during construction and were there on opening day. While it's a fabulous workout mecca for lots and lots of things, what drew me to their Scottsdale location was their indoor, 5 lane, 25 meter pool kitted out with everything I needed: Backstroke flags Tight lane ropes Digita