Blinded by the Flying Fish Heads

27 September 2021

I try very hard to keep my non-professional social media presence squarely focused on swimming, so I'm always excited when someone or some swimming-related group likes any of my posts. Some time ago, the Flying Fish Heads Masters Swimming instagram (https://www.instagram.com/flyingfishheads/?hl=en) must have liked one of my posts because I follow their creative workouts and finally tried a variation of this one this morning in yards:

Now, unlike my normal approach, where I transfer a workout onto a white piece of paper with a permanent marker and slap that on my kickboard, I just printed out the picture above and brought the full colour copy to the pool.

I was a little bummed that I only had a drag suit in my bag versus my normal jammer, but I got through the warmup no problem, and then did an IM variant of the first main set, going:

• 5 x 100: on 1:30, freestyle, wanted to start at my Threshhold Pace (1:07) and descend, went 1:07, 1:06+, 1:06, 1:05+, 1:06

• 1 x 50: on 1:30, w/snorkel, 25 easy breast kick, 25 easy scull

• 1 x 200: on 3:00, IM strong, was 2:41

• 1 x 50: on 1:30, w/snorkel, 25 easy breast kick, 25 easy scull

• 1 x 200: on 3:00, IM strong broken at 100 for 0:10, was 2:35

• 1 x 50: on 1:30, w/snorkel, 25 easy breast kick, 25 easy scull

• 1 x 200: on 3:00, IM strong broken at 50 for 0:05, was 2:28

• 1 x 100: recovery

I was all set to go into the second main set ... when I realized I could no longer read the sheet of paper. There could only be three possible explanations:

1. The ink ran too much

2. My nearly 55 year old eyesight is worse than I thought and I should start bringing my glasses by the side of the pool

3. I pushed myself so darn hard that I was blinded from the effort

I'll give my ego the benefit of saying it was #3 .... when my rational mind knows it's probably #2!

Without any clue of what the second main set was, I just repeated the 200 / 50 cycle from the main set, doing it freestyle:

• 1 x 200: on 2:30, free strong, was 2:12

• 1 x 50: on 1:45, w/snorkel, 25 easy breast kick, 25 easy scull

• 1 x 200: on 2:45, free strong broken at 100 for 0:10, was 2:10

• 1 x 50: on 1:45, w/snorkel, 25 easy breast kick, 25 easy scull

• 1 x 200: on 2:45, free strong broken at 50s for 0:05, was 2:07

• 4 x 50: active recovery on 0:45, 0:50, 0:55

With my dynamic stretching on the deck beforehand and an extra 50 during warmup to make this 3,500 yards (and, hence, 3,200 meters), I was in and out in 70 minutes. A most excellent start to the day thanks to Flying Fish Heads.