22 September 2021
Ontario's "vaccine passport" requirement to enter most indoor facilities, including gyms/pools, went into effect today; a digital app won't be available for about a month, so I just brought a printout proof of both shots. It was pretty painless and the nice morning check-in folks at the LA Fitness said they'll ultimately get something recorded in their system so I shouldn't have to show it every time I enter. After all the lockdowns and pool closures over the last 18 months, I'll take this small extra effort every time if this keeps our pools open!
Like most mornings, I had the three lane, 25 yard pool to myself for most of my hour there. As I've been getting a bit repetitive with my workouts lately, I looked back at what I did exactly 10 years ago. Throughout my swimming career, going back to high school, I have often written down my workouts. From 2009 through 2016/2017, I was very good at blogging them on the old USMS website and made sure to copy them into Word before USMS abandoned that highly engaging feature (for reasons still unknown).
Interestingly, I was training more SCM then (living in the USA), but now primarily swim in yards (living in Canada). So, I adapted the intervals for yards and then did some time conversions at the end for comparison.
Warmup (1,500 yards)
1 x 400: IM, kick-drill by 25s
4 x 100: on 1:20, free swim w/snorkel, aiming to start at 8-9-9-10 strokes per lap (SPL) on the 1st 100, then descend my times by adding one stroke per lap (1:13, 1:12, 1:11, 1:07)
8 x 50: on 0:50, streamlined dolphin kick with fins, going 6-7-8-9 by underwater SDKs without a breath off each wall by 50 then repeating that pattern, odd lengths on stomach, even lengths on back
Broken "Mile" (1,800 set / 3,300 total)
3 rounds of:
5 x 100: on 1:25, 1:35, 1:45 by round
Round 1 - aim for a bit faster than threshold pace: 1:05+, 1:06, 1:06, 1:05+, 1:05
Round 2 - aim to be 0:01 faster than Round 1: 1:04+, 1:04, 1:03, 1:03, 1:04
Round 3 - aim to be 0:01 faster than Round 2: 1:03, 1:02+, 1:03, 1:02, 1:03
1 x 100: easy on 2:30
TOTAL: 3,300 yards
Encouragingly, when I convert my Round 3 efforts to SCM (~1:10), I was basically spot on my performance from 2011. So, I'm on the right road to getting in racing shape ... now we just need the world to start running Masters swim meets again!