14 November 2021
I flew into DCA mid-afternoon today ahead of about a week of meetings at the company HQ, but wanted to grab a swim (and a new pool) before heading out to my Airbnb in Annapolis. Conveniently less than 10 minutes from the airport is the LA Fitness - Arlington, boasting not only 4 lanes, but the rarest of rarities across LA-Fitness-land, a digital pace clock!
As you can see, the corporation still can't afford ratchets to tighten the lane ropes, but this water was also rather pleasant, maybe as low as 82-83 degrees Fahrenheit.
My workout was relatively pedestrian today, only 2,500 yards in total, but my main speed set is designed to start to get me ready for racing some fly, going 4 rounds of pace 25s (at target 200 fly pace) as follows:
Round 1 - 4 x (25-75) on 1:30 for the 100, 25s targeting 0:15 or better, 75s cruise
Round 2 - 4 x (25-50) on 1:15 for the 75, 25s targeting 0:15 or better, 50s cruise
Round 1 - 4 x (25-25) on 0:55 for the 50, 25 targeting 0:15 or better, 25 cruise
Round 1 - 4 x 25 on 0:30, targeting 0:15 or better
It's not a terribly long set, only 1000 yards with only 400 of it at race pace, but I've found this to be a good starter set to get me ready to swim a decent 200 fly. Once I get my fly in decent enough shape to swim 50s at race pace without degrading my form, I'll do a version of this set that is double distance. When I do that longer version, I've found my results in a meet to be highly correlated to my "add-up" times.
... now, we'll see how much the upcoming intense week at work leads to degradation of my performance in the pool!
Pool #495