Finally Out!

SEasy or Easy: Sun's finally out today after a whole week of rains. It was a Single Easy day today.

Muscles (right biceps and shoulder) are still sore from the weekend's wood chopping for 2 days. We collected cut tree branches from the park where some trees were heavily trimmed. I cut them at home using a steel hacksaw and split them for drying. In all these activities, I didn't feel "pooped out" at all. Of course I needed a few minutes rest occassionally. Overall, I was sweating like crazy but it wasn't as tiring as before when I didn't swim. In fact it was the blisters and the hand soreness that gave out first. I must say that all these swimming has tremendously improved my fitness. Now if only I could say the same for my knees. I had some difficulty sitting and rising from the low stool as I was chopping the wood especially yesterday. I wonder what I could do for them. Stationary bike? Knee bends/ squats with weights?

The pool was cool and clear today. The new guy is ultra-busy cleaning, even on a slow day like Monday. I guess I won't be able to dive for some sunken coins for quite some time.

Gloomy Day

DEasy: Still a gloomy day today. Although the weather appears to be clearing, the sun's still shy just content at peering from above the nimbus clouds. The water's much cooler today than yesterday and I used my new cap (M-Cap brand). It was tighter than the Voit but that was expected since it was new. But there's absolutely no discomfort and it kept me warm nicely. I think I do need to alternate both caps coz the Voit may have loosen up a bit. After a few laps, I sometimes feel the top part of the back of the cap to be flapping a bit.

Today's workout was good. I had thought of lessening the rest time and I shortened the rest between free and a utility stroke. It seemed like 3 breaths and I'm off. But after the utility stroke, I REALLY rest. I've gulped so much water with the couple of Dog Paddling that I did. My mouth just kept sinking as I was gasping. The shortened rest literally took my breath away. I started at 7:25 finished early too at 8:10 just beating the office buzzer. I do need to concentrate on what I do MORE than watch what others do in the pool. Focus on the workout and do what I came to do. Mind your own workout!

Something I read last night that I thought was useful was the switch-on-switch-off technique on mind training. Click here for the article. Think of the title as "Maintaining Focus for Multi Day TASKS", so that rather than think "competition", think "training or practice". This should take my mind off swimming for the rest of the day and focus on other matters. Other matters would include practicing the piano again after listening to that hauntingly beautiful song "Ni Yao De Ai" (Meteor Garden theme) today.

With no sun in the previous days, the sports towel has started to smell like rust and mildew, ugh. The smell even stuck to my skin. I need to have it bleached AND washed PRONTO.

Cool Swim, Cool Cap

Double Easy with full laps: After a WHOLE weekend of rain, the pool water was much cooler. Typhoon's gone (Gorio: is that also Matsa in China? and I heard they had a typhoon holiday in Taiwan) but it's the rainy season. I've been using my cap for several days now and it's getting unsightly watermarks from the pool water. The silver color now appears dull.

Anyway, after checking-in the car to TAI last week, I bought a silicone swimcap I've been wanting to get for its so cool colors. It's the one on the left. Dig those dazzling neon colors! It was on sale at Festival Chris Sports at 10% off - Php180. Something weird though was that the shop next to it, StoreShop, was retailing it for Php240. Yup, it's the same brand, same material, same size, same dazzling neon colors. Neat huh. Guess somebody's not monitoring their own prices. Ah well, I'll just alternate these two and have the Speedo as backup.

Surprisingly, the pool today was clean and clear! I could only guess that: 1) with the rains, hardly anybody went to swim on the weekend. 2) pool staff is more diligent in cleaning the pool. Speaking of staff, Dante is going on vacation and is training another guy, Leo to take over. Hope he's as kind and hardworking as Dante.

Visualization exercises can take some time. I realized I started swimming late at 7:40am. I guess the trick now is to lessen the rests in between laps if I'm to do Double Easy regularly. I want to do this workout coz it makes me feel I've accomplish so much. I came to the office today with my back wet with sweat! And a good workout always seem to clear my breathing.

Double Easy !!!

Double Easy: A milestone! I did today a double easy with no rest at 25m for all strokes! So the workout went this way: free, tread, free, elem, free, paddle, free, tread, free, elem, free, paddle - and all for 50m. The mental imagery really worked. There's plenty of articles by Craig Townsend on Mind Training for Swimmers. Just click here. I almost thought I wouldn't swim today. It was raining cats and dogs this morning due to the tailend of typhoon Gorio. But at the junction, the clouds just cleared a little. That's what I do, just before I reach the tollgate, I scan the sky left and right like some looney predicting whether the sun will come out of the clouds. Hope I don't figure into some vehicular accident by doing that.

But today was awesome. There were even a few earthworms in the pool! Guess the rains flush them out from somewhere. Before, I'd probably be grossed out already. But not today. I can't be bothered by that. One was maybe 8 inches long and was alive crawling at the pool floor. But nope, I can't be bothered by that. Even if it was a foot long, nopes I wouldn't be bothered by that. My focus today to do the 50m was just more intense than usual. Now if those vermin looked like that alien creature in Predator showing their fangs and ready to swallow me whole... I'd be bothered by that.

In one of the frees today I gulped some water but I just couldn't be bothered by it, and so I told myself: "Self, relax and move on". And self did just that. I started at 7:20 and ended at 8:14 for this workout and it felt absolutely great afterwards. So self, great job and congratulations.

Time for Medz

Another Easy day: I think it'll be this way for a few more days. The pain in the right knee is still there 'tho not as painful as last week. Two strokes in the Hard session will really stress it and these are the whipping kick in the sidestroke and the backstream flutter kick. So I'm avoiding those for now. Even the pushoff now is more "suwabe" (read: really slow) than before. I went to the company doc yesterday for my knee pain. He prescribed Dyclofenac and Mobic. I'm on the Dyclo for now and we'll see if the pain eases up. He suspects inflammation which may not necessarily have been caused by trauma.

I think it's time that I start to build serious mileage. I mean, it's been over a year now and apart from the past milestones, which have been great by the way, there's isn't much improvement in the mileage department. Am I just running out of air? Do I just need more aero? I do know that compared to the past, I recover much faster in like 10 to 20 secs. Could I just force the turns? Like quit thinking about 25 and do 50m out of EVERYTHING (all strokes)? Leave the recovery problems after each 50m lap?

Tomorrow, I'll try doing a Double Easy. With no mid rests (after 25m), that means the laps are faster and will allow me to double the Easy workout. A mental imagery I have now to force the turns is to imagine that there.. is.. no.. pool bottom at the end of the 25m. There is no ledge or bottom to stand on to. You just hold on to the gutter and GO BACK. There is no other way but to TURN AND GO BACK. Use Self-Talk here. There is no 25meters, only 50meters. Focus... Focus... Mental Toughness... Let's DO it.

Tweaking the Kick

Easy: Today I advanced the Php1,500 fee to renew my yearly membership. I'm surprised that they hadn't raised the annual fee. When I started this swimming exercise program last year, I wasn't sure where it'll lead me. I knew it was something that I had to do then, because of my back and hypertension and was thinking that maybe I could do it long term. But with other priorities in life, you'd never know what'll suddently butt in and disrupt all that. Well, after a year, am still in it and just renewed my membership! It makes me wonder if I truly found a niche as far as regular fitness is concerned. I hope so.

I still feel the pain in the right knee and today, I don't pushoff as strong from the wall. I also modified the freestyle kick so that the leg movement comes solely from the hips. It felt like I was dragging the legs and wasn't churning enough water. But I wonder if this helps me to be more streamline coz the knees don't bend much. So far the tweaking works coz I still manage to balance the body with the kicks. Heck we've read about disabled people ABLE to swim (and keep fit) by merely tweaking their stroke technique to suit their circumstances. These folks to me, are admirable, compared to couch potatoes.

I got this tip from Andres Muro from the rec.sport.swimming forum. To float/ raise your legs more and keep your body horizontal, arch your lower back and point your toes back. Makes sense. He gave this advise to a guy who compares swimming with fins and without for a long (1.5k) swim. Andres sez the fins puts the legs on the surface of the water. To which I agree.

No Car

Haven't gone swimming for a couple of days now. We had to bring the car to the TAI shop for its 80K service checkup, rustproofing (or undercoating as they call it), engine detailing and a whistling sound we've been complaining about for eons. And for this I had to commute (again). Well, commuting by jeepney isn't so bad after you realize you can get around without doing the driving yourself. Feels good to be a passenger again. It's just that suddenly the ride just seem so bumpy (ooooh, my lower back!).

Yah, I've gotten pretty much used to private transpo. We do have a shuttle bus at the company and I used to ride it before. But unlike officemates who ride their cars just for the convenience (and porma), I essentially justify the DAILY use of the car for two things:

1. To swim and keep fit EVERYDAY. At my age, keeping fit is a huge priority. Unfortunately the pool I go to is out of the way on my way to work. Public transpo is time-consuming and cumbersome just to get there and then be at the office in time.
   
2. It's a business tool of sorts. When a potential tenant who meets my requirements asks to see the unit, I can just zoom to the site anytime ON A WEEKDAY to show the unit. Applicants usually call/ text from the site and want to see the unit pronto. This doesn't happen everyday, but it eliminates much of the hassle going there and I'm always ready.

Like others, there's the multitude of tasks that can be conveniently done with the car like when buying/ loading a sack of rice, attending to some emergency at the apartment, paying water bills, helping buy groceries in bulk, yadda yadda yadda, but it's the above two reasons that really justifies my need.

Hokay, let's get that out of the way. Anyway, after a rather long wait (2 days+) and reading all of TAI's newspapers, I got the car today all finished. When I saw the work on the engine detailing under the hood, all I could say was "is this my car?" It was so clean and shiny you could eat a pizza off of it. And the ride... It seemed to run so smoothly on the highway! Or is it just all psychological? After all, I'm now poorer by a whopping Php17,000!