New Site RobAquatics.com

So I moved the blog over to it's own domain. You can check it out at www.robaquatics.com! This page will stay up (yay free blogspot hosting) but everything here is at the new site. If you're subscribed to the RSS feed check out the new site and grab the new feed.

Thanks!

Rob D.

No Lifeguard on Duty...

see more pwn and owned pictures

Lost in Thought

So tonight I went to the pool and started warming up and well... never really stopped. I lost track of how far I had swam and I decided to just keep going. My mind started drifting and thinking about the blog. I'm going to move it over to my own domain. I started working on it and frankly it's going a little poorly at the moment but in the next day or so I should have my own dot com set up.

So my workout was basically 30 minutes of uninterrupted swimming mixed with 10 miles on the bike.

I'm going back to trying to get my web situation worked out. Hopefully in the next day or so this is all transferred to my own domain!

Hair of the Dog

In theory when your hung over you're supposed to revisit what caused all your problems the next morning to stave off the possibility of a gnarly hang over. Well I applied the same idea to my workout today. Despite spending entirely too much time on a bike yesterday I decided to take an extended ride today to keep my muscles moving. I added a few miles to my route to the gym and swam a little bit while I was there.

My workout wasn't very high in intensity, it was more about stretching out my back and spending a little time in the water this weekend.

Warm Up
200 free
100 kick

400 free
100 kick
400 free
100 kick

200 cool down

1500 yards plus 13 miles on the bike

I'm working on picking out some events tonight for Santa Clarita on the 8th of November. I've learned my lesson about picking events too close to each other so I'm going to be a little more strategic in my set up this time!

Candy Corn Classic Wrap Up

This morning I participated in the Candy Corn Classic in the 35 mile ride from San Luis Obispo to Morro Bay and back. It was a lot of fun and everyone we ran into on the road was really nice... well I think one lady growled at my friend but besides that it was cool.

The route took us through a whole bunch of places I've never been before. All kinds of rolling country roads, farms and other stuff like that. I really liked riding up Turri Road. It doesn't have a bike lane but it also doesn't seem to have any car traffic either. Both sides of the road were full of bikers which was cool.

We didn't ride super fast but we did keep a pretty decent pace through the whole thing. Once we got to about Cuesta College my legs starting thinking this wasn't such a great idea and a little while later my back was thinking the same thing. But we finished just fine and I'm feeling good now that I'm done!

When we finished there were some folks eating and cheering, and once we de-helmeted we joined in. We got some free tri-tip sandwiches from Downtown Brew who was grilling on site, and there was some free beer in the mix too. I'm not much of a drinker, especially after a 35 mile bike ride, so I passed on the free beer. There was also live music, a bounce house for the kids, and they even handed out free sunscreen which was cool and highly necessary in my case. I think San Luis Sports Therapy put on a really good event and hopefully I can come out again next year!



See the course on Google Maps

Riding, Lifting & Remedial Billiards

No aquatic adventures tonight kids. I went to dinner down in Pismo and played a few games of pool down at Hot Shots. Turns out I have become awful at shooting pool.

I got home kinda late but I still had enough time to ride out to the gym and lift some weights. I was in the gym by about 9PM and out at 9:30PM. As an added bonus, the ride was semi-exciting though. On Hwy 1 between Grand and DT Pismo it smelled like the aftermath of a hardboiled egg eating contest that was held in a very small room. Not sexy. It was reminiscent of the hot springs in Avila, except there aren't any that I know of in Pismo so I'm guessing a septic tank exploded or something really gross like that. uck.

Anyways... I worked on my upper shoulder-y region, if you want to get technical about it. I focused on my traps, lats and triceps. I think this was the first time in over a month that I did any lifting. I've had so many swim meets in a row recently that I haven't really wanted to do any lifting in fear of upsetting my shoulder. I'm in week 1 of a 3 week break before the next meet I might want to do so I'm ok with doing a little lifting right now.

Today I set up my plans for Saturday morning for the Candy Corn Classic bike ride. Me and my friend are going to toss our bikes in the truck and be up there in SLO around 8:15 - 8:30. Beyond that we are going to go not too fast up to Morro Bay and back down to SLO town. If you want to sign up I think you still can... I recommend you check it out.

A Bag of Popcorn and a Handful of M&M's

I probably need to think a little more about what I am eating. My lunch today consisted of a bag of homestyle popcorn (the salty buttery kind) and some M&Ms... as it turns out I am an excellent chef. One of my friends reminded me that my lunch is in line with what Michael Phelps would eat, but I have a feeling he trains a little harder than I do. I really only eat lunch and dinner. I know I need to eat in the morning but I suck at waking up in the morning and I am kind of anti-cooking. I'm trying to turn it around but we'll see how that goes.

Anyways tonight was my first night in the pool since Saturday. I rode my bike out to Pismo and swam 2000 yards.

Warm Up
500 free
100 kick

10x100 (5 free, 2 breast, 1 back, 2 IM)

100 kick

50 free sprint

250 cool down

2000 yards total plus 10 miles on the bike

My left shoulder is still a little crunchy which isn't cool. I think I'm going to start working in more fast kicking sets. I've got really strong legs and I think I under utilize them when I swim so I'm going to try and spend some time focusing on kicking.

Swimsuit Upgrade!

I keep seeing people with these various "technical" suits at the meets I've been to recently. Fancy jammers, long john type things, full body suits and short johns. I decided to give one of these suits a try. Luckily since it's winter in most of the country there are some deals to be had out there for us Californian swimmers (BTW how nice is it to swim outside comfortably in late October?). I picked up a TYR Aqua Shift Zipperback Short John from swimoutlet.com. The retail on the suit is around $220 and I bought it for $109 with free shipping... not a bad deal. The only thing I am apprehensive about is how it's going to either fit or not fit. I'm built kind of weird so I'm not sure how this is going to go. The biggest size they had was 38 so I got that. They only had a blue/white suit in stock... I wanted black, but hey what are you going to do? Looking around the rest of the web no one seems to have one of these in a size bigger than a 32 which isn't going to work on me. I can't wait to get this thing in the mail so I can try it out.

I'm hoping to get back into the pool tomorrow after my weekend out and about in LA. I got home Monday night and I had a meeting tonight that kept me from getting to the pool. I need to keep focusing on butterfly and building up my endurance. I also have the Candy Corn Classic on Saturday so I have to make sure and spend some time on the bike!

UCLA SCM Meet Wrap Up

**Update** If you're looking for results from UCLA on 18OCT08, they can be found here.

Speedo Jammer, flip flops, t-shirt and a Fedora... ahhh swim meet fashion

I swam at UCLA this morning and it was a good time but my body is aching! My last 3 events were in a very rapid succession and I almost couldn't get myself out of the pool after my last event. The pool at UCLA was a lot smaller that I had expected and thanks to the excitement of parent's weekend it turned out to be much more difficult to find than expected. The nice part about it being all walled off the way it is is that it had enough shade for everyone that wanted some to hide from the sun. So hopefully I shouldn't be all crispy tomorrow like I was after the Davis meet.

My first event was the 100m fly and I was really apprehensive about swimming this race. It used to be my go to event in high school but I haven't actually swam a continuous 100 fly since high school! I've been doing a lot of work on my fly when I practice I just haven't been doing any distance over 50 yards. I feel I did really well in this race, I lead my heat the whole time and finished in 1:13. The last 25m was incredibly hard however. My muscles in my upper chest felt like they were on the verge of failing on me! I was very glad to be done when I hit the wall and pleasantly surprised to see that I beat my seed time and won the heat. My friend Robin served as my official photographer today and got a lot of great pictures of splashes. Taking pics of butterflyers is kinda hard. She got much better as the day went on :)

My second event was the 50m free. It went well, I hit basically the same time as I did in Davis of about 30 seconds. I really want to get that under 30 soon! The 100m free didn't go as smooth as I wanted it too. I was really running out of juice at this point. I was shooting for 1:05 but came in at 1:08. I know I can do a lot better, I just couldn't get those extra couple of seconds out today. The last event was the 50m fly which was literally minutes after my 100m Free. Everyone was super tired because I think everyone in the 50 was also in the 100m free. I lost about .5 to 1 second off my time in Davis on this one and almost couldn't get myself out of the pool afterwards. They were a little behind on results toward the end of the meet so I won't have my exact results until they get posted online somewhere. I was also supposed to do the 100m IM but I just didn't have the energy to do well in it so I dropped it.

After the meet me and Robin went and explored Westwood a little bit and had some well deserved lunch. Tonight were off to get some Korean food and then try to find some metropolitan excitement for this evening.

If you can't tell which one is me in the pictures, look for the bald head and the farmer's tan, apparently I'm the only person in South Pacific Masters without a luggage quality tan

The pool at UCLA


50m Butterfly


Making a Turn during the 50m Fly


50m Freestyle


Trying to keep up during my 50m Free


A little more butterfly

Leaving for LA Tomorrow

So tomorrow after work I'm making my way towards LA so that I can swim at the master meet at UCLA on Saturday. I've made plans to couch surf again but this time with a known quantity. I know my friend Robin's place has a couch bigger than my brother's whole apartment turned out to be so there shouldn't be any emergency hotel reservations going on this time around.

Tonight I just swam, no real distance on my bike besides just going back and forth to work. In the pool I mainly focused on turns and going fast. I did a whole bunch of 25's from the middle of the pool as a sprint with a focus on the turns. I alternated between freestyle and butterfly. My flip turns are feeling really good, I just have to fight the urge to breath right off the turns. I think I sufficiently pushed myself in my workout seeing as I felt like I was going to have a stroke by the time I was done.

Hopefully I'll be able to swim a little bit at my friend's place tomorrow night to stay loose. Apparently her condo micro city has a olympic size pool somewhere. I'll try and update the blog on Saturday with my meet wrap up.

Helmets, Bike Shorts and Burger King...

Sunday night I got about 3 hours of sleep so when I got home from the pool I pretty much fell asleep on the spot. Hence a blog post in the morning as opposed to my usually late night blogging...

Over the weekend I pretty much just took it easy and gave my body a chance to recover a little bit. I've been really busy and just needed to take a little time to chill out, plus I'm racing at UCLA this weekend again already! I did a little bit of shopping to get ready for my bike thing coming up this month. I picked up a new pair of mountain bike shorts (I don't find it particularly necessary or aesthetically pleasing to wear skintight clothing on my bike) and a helmet. Despite being disturbingly expensive I've found bike specific shorts to be entirely worth it. If you ride a lot and have never tried them, do it. Your balls will thank you. (there's a sentence I never thought I would write...) I was also required to buy a helmet for this event... I've seriously never owned one, they kind of bug me. Plus I have a big melon and it's kind of hard to find hats that fit me so I figured a helmet would be worse. The kid at the bike shop helped me pick something out and amazingly with enough adjustment it fit right on my dome. Later I went to the Bell website to read up on my purchase and the first line of their sales copy is: "Finally a good looking helmet for the extra large of head!" I'm pretty sure that they're making fun of me now... jerks :)

Anyways, despite being tired out of my mind and having a belly full of Burger Kingly goodness I made my way out to the pool right after the sun went down. I would go earlier but a big piece of my ride is straight west towards the beach and into the sun... it's a good way to get run over by people that can't see out of their windshields. Once I got to the pool I got down to business with a short workout. Normally I'd breakout my workout but I can't remember the whole thing. I made it up on the spot. Basically the important part was I made sure to mix in some butterfly action. I have to make my way through a 100 meters of it on Saturday!

So ultimately there were 10 miles on the bike and an undetermined number of yards in the pool.

Not My Best Work

I was dragging ass tonight... I just wasn't all there. I think I've been really dehydrated this week between sitting in the sun all day in Davis on Sunday and the mini heatwave we had here in town. I just couldn't drink enough water.

On the upside I did manage to talk one of my friends into coming out to the Candy Corn Classic with me later this month. The plan is to sign up for the 35 mile ride that runs through San Luis Obispo up to Morro Bay and back. It should be a good time. I'm still trying to recruit a few more people to join team Rob... it's ultra exclusive, there'll be tryouts later.

Tonight I hopped on the bike and rode out to the gym without much of a plan. My workout was pretty haphazard because I was feeling pretty crappy. I did a few 25 yard sprints that felt strong though. Now that I've finally done some short races I've gotten my feel for how "fast" feels.

Warm Up
200 free
100 breast

3 x 200 free

4 x 50 (25 kick 25 sprint)

200 free

1300 yards plus 10 miles on the bike

Swimming Unattached... My Thoughts So Far

I've now competed in 2 masters events as an unattached swimmer, 1 open water and 1 in the pool. I was apprehensive about tackling my return to swimming unattached but it has proven to be a good thing so far. It's not necessarily a complete experience though.

Pros

I can do whatever I want and train whenever I feel like it

I don't have to pay team fees

I can go to any meet that I want, it doesn't matter if my team is going or not

Masters swimming seems to be an inherently friendly organization and even if you're not part of a team people you don't even know will still be nice and support you. At the Naples Island swim the host team was friendlier to me than teams I have actually been a part of! At Davis I had strangers congratulating me on winning my heat in the 100 IM. Very cool.

(on a personal level) I can ride my bike to my current pool. The nearest masters team that seems decent is too far to do that and I don't want to give up my cross training on the bike

Cons

It's hard to write your own workouts and stick to them

There's no one to hang out with, watch your stuff, cheer for you at a swim meet

There's no coach to tell you what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong.

It gets a little lonely sometimes to train and compete alone

As it stands right now I'm happy swimming unattached. Swimming is an individual sport and being responsible for your own workouts and results isn't a bad thing. I may breakdown and join a team someday but I don't think that day will be coming anytime soon.

All Signed Up for UCLA

I sent in my entry form for the UCLA SCM meet coming up on the 18th of October. I'm going to swim the 50 free, 50 fly, 100 free, 100 fly, and the 100 IM. In the 50's and the 100 IM I want to beat my times from Davis. In the 100 free I want to hit around 1:05 or better and in the 100 fly I entered a 1:15 but I want to be under 1:10... we'll see how that goes... my ultimate goal for both is to break a minute.

Tonight I hit the pool more to cool off than anything... it was super hot today man, ocean breeze be damned it was pushing 100 here in Grover/Pismo Beach.

Warm Up
300 free
100 kick

2 x 400

100 kick
200 free

1500 yards

I had to do some stuff this evening so I was unwillingly out in the car instead of riding my bike - I really hate driving. The counter guy at the gym called me out though - "not riding your bike tonight man?" I let him know we'll be back to our regularly scheduled program tomorrow :)

Davis Pentathlon Wrap Up

I just got back from Davis and besides being a little sun burnt I feel really good about my races. My times weren't spectacular by any stretch of the imagination but they were respectable. (All the results are now online, you can see them here) Now that I have some real times for short course meters it will make it easier for me to sign up for the UCLA meet later this month.

I drove up to Davis Saturday morning and was at my brother's place around 3 in the afternoon. The original plan was to save a few bucks and stay at his place. Once I got there I realized that wasn't really the answer. His room was a stainless steel toilet away from being a prison cell. He offered up a gross couch in a common room... this wasn't going to work out. I in turn hit up my old friends over at Expedia instead. The Best Western was totally worth the $100 bucks instead of getting some kind of mite from a questionable couch. After I checked in I went and explored all 4 blocks of downtown Davis. The thing I like best about Davis is the full acceptance of bikes as an actual form of transportation. There were bikes, bike lanes and bike racks everywhere. I wish I could get some of that action around here!

Anyways back to the action... after an unintentional tour of the Campus I found the pool. It's really nice compared to what I'm used to. My one big complaint: no friggin shade anywhere. Davis is hot and sunny and the pool and pool deck are reflective so there is no escape if you're there on a sunny day like, you know, today. Shit. I look like Hank Hill with my shirt off because I swim indoors so I was pretty worried about this whole sunshine thing. It felt about 85 degrees and I was out there in a sweatshirt with my hood up trying to not burn the crap out of myself... it didn't work. Luckily I didn't really start feeling it until hour 4 of my drive home, tomorrow is going to be awful.

The races went really fast which was nice. There were about 9 heats per event for the women and 10 for the men and they still managed to jam through 5 events in 3 hours. My main worry was starts from the blocks because I don't have any to practice with. But once I did my first one I got over it really quickly. My starts were solid and my goggles didn't leak on me. Turns out riding 50-60 miles a week helps with jumping :) My butterfly was good, back and breast were a little not so good but decent, and my free and IM were really good for me. I still have a lot of time to shave off my times but it's a start. My 100IM in particular went really well. I pulled out to an early lead in the Butterfly leg and managed to hold off everyone else for the last 75. I got a little prize for winning my heat, a UC Davis swim cap, not particularly useful for a bald guy... but hey I like free stuff so it was cool. Plus I just like feeling like I won something.

Here's my times for the five events:

50m Fly: 31.65
50m Back: 38.10
50m Breast: 39.37
50m Free: 30.86
100 IM: 1:17

Overall I finished in the middle of my age group. Everything except my backstroke was below my seed time guesses. I'd like to get my fly and free times under 30 by the end of the year. I'm going to have to put some more work into my backstroke, I used to be a decent backstroker back in the day. Ultimately it looks like fly is still going to be my non-freestyle goto event. Not sure when I want to get brave and try to race a 100 though. I really like doing the IM too. Not sure if I'm ready to race a 200 IM but the 100 is shaping up to be a new favorite event.

Ultimately I met my swimming goals (good fly and free, avoid embarrassing myself in the other events) and I got my just rewards... sweet, sweet, wonderful waffle fries... oh how I've missed you.

isn't it beautiful?

Leaving for Davis in the Morning

Getting myself ready to trek up to NORCAL to do the Davis Pentathlon. I'm stoked to do a pentathlon specifically because it will give me a baseline in every stroke to see where I am at. This is going to be my first meet in a decade so I'm not sure exactly what to expect performance wise.

My big goals for this weekend are to swim a good 50 free, a good 50 fly, not embarrass myself in the other events, and get some waffle fries at a Chick-fil-a... that last one isn't swimming related, I just love waffle fries and I haven't had Chick-fil-a since I left Texas back in 2004. In preparation for the meet I did shave down... my head and most of my facial hair anyways :) I'm down to just a strip down the middle of my chin, I'm hoping it makes me go faster.

I'll be tweeting my way through the weekend if you want to follow along at home.

Short and Hard Like a Body Building Elf

I got a little caught up in watching the VP debate and left the house later than I wanted... so my focus at the pool was on going fast not far because I didn't have that much time.

Warm Up
200 Free
100 kick

12 x 50 (25 fast, 25 slow IM order)

200 Cool Down

1100 yards total plus 10 miles on the bike.

In other news... I got an e-mail from the Davis Pentathlon meet director letting me know that they have me signed up for this weekend. I'm excited to swim a meet, I'm just not excited about having to drive 300 miles each way.

iz mai pool

Just took it easy today... so you get a LOLcat... err tiger, instead of a real blog post.

So I Might Mix in a Bike Event

**Update: I rode in the Candy Corn Classic this weekend and you can see some pictures and read my wrap up here

There's a bike event here in SLO coming up called the Candy Corn Classic that I heard about today and I'm thinking about signing up to do it. It's more fun than racing oriented and I kind of get an open-water-esque kinda vibe from the whole thing. They have a 15, 35, 62, and 100 mile rides available. I'm not quite ready to tackle a century, even though I'd like to complete one some day, but I think the 35 mile ride might be cool to do. I have a few friends that might be interested in participating but I'm not sure what distances they'd want to do so I'm waiting to see if anybody is going to sign up for real before I pick a distance.

The Candy Corn Classic is going on Saturday the 25th of October when the UCLA meet was originally scheduled to happen. It gets started at 7AM for everything except the century. It's $40 to sign up and the proceeds go to charity.

Getting back to my aquatic interests... tonight I rode out to the pool and went through a decent workout. Plus I got to demoralize someone who got into the pool looking really confident about his aqua powers. After I casually lapped him a few times he wasn't looking so confident and retreated to the hot tub. As it turns out young muscle-y people hate getting passed repeatedly by bald fat dudes :)

Warm Up
200 free
100 kick
100 breast

10 x 100 free (the last 100 was all out, I went about 1:10... kinda lame really. I can't wait to do one for real soon)

150 cool down

1550 yards plus 10 miles on the bike

Tomorrow is a big day at the office... end of month report time, boo. So I might not make it to the pool, but I'm planning on swimming Thursday and having a short workout Friday. Then Saturday I have to drive up to Davis and Sunday I'm doing the pentathlon, yay!

An Unexpected Training Partner

So today on my ride home from the pool I had the added motivation of a big ass pit bull chasing my bike to make sure I kept going fast. At about 8th street as I made my way east up Grand Ave this big dog comes bounding across the street at me. I jammed on the brakes so he wouldn't knock me off the bike. He nudged his head against my front tire and then came around on my right side and jumped up on me. Luckily he was friendly. I pet him on his head while I used my other hand to check his neck for a collar. Unfortunately he didn't have anything on him so I couldn't try and get him home. I tried to get him off the street and onto the sidewalk but he decided to run back across the street again into the darkness. I thought we were done here so I started riding towards home again. Once I got moving again my new canine friend decided to follow me all the way down to about 16th street! That guy was fast, I was going about 14-15 mph and he was right behind me the whole way. Eventually he got bored and made his way off to more exciting things.

Anyways... back to the swimming... I focused on turns and did some sprinting.

Warm Up
200 free
100 kick

10 x 25 sprints from mid pool w/ focus on turns
(2 free, 1 fly, 1 fly to back, 1 back, 1 back to breast, 1 breast, 1 breast to free, 2 free)

4 x 50 sprint IM order

100 IM Fast

50 kick
100 easy with focus on form
50 kick

200 cool down

1250 yards total plus 10 miles on the bike

I like dogs and I don't mind a little company when I work out but I'm hoping that I don't have another pit bull training partner the next time I ride my bike!

My Hobbies Combined...?

If only I could ride my bike underwater... two birds with one stone right?

This picture came from an ad campaign for Insight... since you can't actually tell from the picture, it's a clothing brand. Anyways they have some really cool pictures out there and you can check out more at booooooom.com.

27 Miles and a Trip to the Pool

I got my money's worth out of today man. I hopped on my bike this morning and rode out through Oceano, up Hwy 1 in to Pismo, up the coast through Shell Beach, and then took the Bob Jones Trail out to Avila Beach. I sat by the ocean for a little bit, refueled with a hot dog and a bottle of water from a street vendor and then made my way home. All told I rode about 27 miles today. I'd like to go further but that kind of seems like the longest I can tolerate a bike seat.

the view through the fog from my rest stop in Avila

After resting a little bit I made my way to the pool to get in a little yardage and mainly stretch out. I think I was the only person in the pool under 80 years old this afternoon. Most of the folks in the pool were walking and noodling but nobody bothered me churning along out in the far lane.

My swim was basically 10 x 100 whatever I felt like. It was a mix of freestyle, kicking, breast stroke and an IM for good measure. It wasn't a real serious workout I just wanted to swim a little today. This coming week I need be a little more structured to get ready for the Davis Pentathlon. I need to focus some effort on turns and if no one else is around some starts from the pool deck (the pool has no blocks to start from). I'm still figuring out the details for my 300 mile trek, but I know I want to at least be moderately fast!

Need to Find Some More Lights...

I rode my bike out to the gym again tonight, I think I want to make this a regular part of my routine. 4 trips a week to the gym plus my regular commuting would mean that I get in at least 60 miles a week which is about where I'd like to be. The last couple months I've bounced between as little as 30 and as much as 70 in a week. I do however need to do some research into bike lights. There a few sections of my ride that are too dark and I need one light to see the road and one light to see in front of me. I almost ran down a pedestrian dressed all in black on a stretch of Hwy 1 with no street lights!

I brought a swimplan.com workout with me but forgot it in my locker. I had committed most of it to memory though and already knew what I was going to change. Here's my workout:

Warm Up
200 free
100 kick
100 breast

Main Set
3 x 400 free (paced at about 1:30 per 100)

Cool Down
100 kick
100 breast
200 free

2000 yards total plus 10 miles on the bike

My left shoulder is still crunching and aching in a way that I'm concerned about but it seems to be fading a little bit every day. I've got about a week left before the Davis Pentathlon and I want to be as close to 100% as possible when I go.

In the Beginning...

I was going through my Twitter stream today looking for a few specific conversations to use as an example for a talk I'm giving next month on social media. I came across this tweet of my first day back in the pool... a pathetic 200 yard struggle. Still kind of embarrassing when I think about. Anyways... if you're debating a return to swimming after a long hiatus and your first outing sucks don't sweat it. I started at 200 yards and within a month I was back to swimming 1000-3000k yards. It all comes back you just have to build up a tolerance!

Rob D's Pitch Black Biathalon

Even though I'm not a big fan of riding at night from a safety perspective I decided to bike out to the gym tonight. I usually ride to the office to get my truck and then drive to the gym, but I think I'm going to try riding for a little while to see how death defying it really is. It was actually really nice out tonight, the fog kept me nice and cool both ways. It was kinda refreshing...

Anyways I did a short swim once I got to the pool.

500 warm up

4 x 50 sprint IM order

200 free

100 kick

1000 yards total bookended by 10 miles on my bike

My shoulder is still feeling crunchy but I'll survive. I'm stretching a lot more before I hop in the pool just in case.

Snap, Crackle, Pop... in my Shoulder

So after a few days of dryland excitement I was back in the pool tonight, but honestly I felt like crap in the water. My left shoulder has been fighting me a little bit recently. It's kinda crunchy which isn't really the best thing a swimmer's shoulder could be doing. I need to work on stretching more before I just hop in and start swimming. I forget that I'm kinda old sometimes...

I promised my special lady friend that I would be home in time to take a walk down to this frozen yogurt place by our apartment tonight so I had a slightly condensed workout.

Warm up
400 freestyle

Main set
10 x 100 choice (mixed freestyle, backstroke, breast stroke, IM and some kicking)

200 cool down

1600 yards total

I need to start working in more time on my bike to supplement the fact that my shoulder seems to only be able handle so much yardage a week right now. I ride about 6 miles everyday but I'd like to add a little more. I like riding out to the gym because it's a 10 mile roundtrip but I'm not a big fan of doing it in the dark... and generally I hit the pool at about 8PM so it would be dark both ways, not cool. Maybe I'll stock up on more lights and some extra reflective gear. If I look like a Christmas tree people would have to see me right?

Pedaling and Rescheduling

This weekend didn't really afford me much of a chance to hit the pool. I did get in a really good ride on my bike up the coast through Pismo and Shell Beach. I don't know what it is about the super spandexed up people that ride bikes. They don't smile or acknowledge your general presence. I had a small group of roadies behind me and I let them pass, no hellos or thanks yous. Turns out I didn't need to move anyways. I stayed right on them till they turned a few miles later even though I wasn't wearing $200 of cycling gear and I was rocking Vans instead of clip in bike shoes.


View Larger Map The view from my ride

A little extra excitement for the day... I got a notice that the UCLA meet was moved to the 18th from the 25th which is actually pretty awesome for me because I was going to have to be in LA anyways on the 19th. You can check out the meet info here.

I'll be back to my aquatic grind tomorrow.

Keeping My Mouth Shut

I think everybody has something that they're good at and it causes them physical pain to watch someone do it wrong in front of them. When most people talk about SEO and Adwords type topics it makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit because they are usually so incredibly wrong. I need to physically restrain myself from handing out throat punches.

Watching people swim at my gym invokes a similar reaction. I'm not a coach or a kinesiologist or anything fancy like that but I know wrong when I see it. Tonight the pool was just full of wrong. The thunderous 2 beat freestyle flutter kick, the front crawl hand slap, and the list goes on. *shudder* But I don't want to be that guy giving unsolicited advice in the pool. It's like that meat head in the weight room that comes over to critique your form on the lat pulldown machine despite your best efforts to not make eye contact. So in the unlikely event that any of you are readers... small fast kicks on your freestyle please, if you're making a huge splash with every other kick that's not helping you... also your hand should slide into the water not slap it, trust me.



... and I'm off my soapbox... sorry about that

Tonight was my second night of using swimplan for my workout. I had it generate a new workout but it came out suspicously similar to the one I did the night before. So I had it create another new workout that was more to my liking. After making some modifications to make it more appropriate for my pentathlon meet coming up I was off to the pool.

Warm up
100 freestyle
100 breast

Main set
50 free
50 fly
50 free
50 back
50 free
50 breast
50 free
50 fly
50 free
50 back
50 free
50 breast

(... at this point my shoulder starting grinding so I started cooling down to not hurt it)

200 free
100 kick
100 free

1200 yards total followed by a trip to the hot tub.

I think the stuff I'm getting from SwimPlan is good inspiration for workouts. I don't really dig the drills that they insert so I pretty much keep the yardage but drop the drill. The other thing that had been a little weird is that I only seem to get freestyle and breast stroke in my workouts from them. So I've been turning some of the freestyle portions into IM's or alternating through other strokes. I'm going to keep using them for my root workouts though and see where it takes me.

Trying Out SwimPlan.com

Ok so now that I have my open water distance race out of the way I need to start working on training for 50's, 100's and other short to medium distances. So far I've been winging it with my workouts. I decided to give a site called swimplan.com a try. It generates custom swim workouts based on the strokes, distances, and time you want for your workouts. Plus it's free, yay! I signed up this morning and tonight I took my first workout with me to the pool. I did however make a few small mods to the workout. Here's the workout I ran through tonight:

Warm Up
2 x 100 freestyle (kick every 4th 25yd)

200yd freestyle alternate drill/kick

Core Set
4 x 100 freestyle with approx :20 rest

4 x 100 IM with approx :30 rest

4 x 100 freestyle with approx :20 rest

Cool Down
4 x 50's easy(I did 2 breast, 1 kick, 1 free)

2000 yards total

I'm going to try using the swimplan workouts for the next week or two and see how it goes.

Next Up... Davis Pentathlon

*I've been getting some traffic for the Davis Pentathlon, apparently I rank 1st on Google for it, so I thought I'd move up the the meet info for everybody. It's Sunday OCT 25th at the Schaal Aquatic center, warm up is at 10:30. You can get a pdf of the event notice here. I'll be there by myself so say hi if you see me! -Rob D.

**Update 2: The meet was this last weekend and it was a great time. You can see my wrap up here. Results are now online, see them here.

Now that I've gotten my first masters event out of the way I've been looking for other swim meets to enter. The upside of being in the San Luis Obispo area is that I'm within striking distance of Southern Pacific Masters and Pacific Masters events, the downside is that none of them seem to be within a 3 hour drive of me (save the once a year SLO meet). I either have to trek into LA or the Bay Area. I think I'm going to try and hit the following meets: Davis Pentathlon on OCT 5th, UCLA Bruins SCM Meet OCT 25th OCT 18th, SLO Gobbler Classic NOV 22nd, and the SPMA Championships hosted by the Long Beach Grunions DEC 6-7th.

I signed up today for the Sacramento Masters - UCD Women's Swimming 35th Annual Sprint Short Course Meters Pentathlon (pdf of event notice). Davis is pretty far from here (about 5 hours!) but my little brother lives there and I've never been up to visit. The pentathlon consists of 5 events: 50 fly, 50 back, 50 breast, 50 fly, and 100 IM. It's a short course meters event so I have no idea what my times should be in these events so I made up my best guesses... we'll see how close I am. I did one of these events back in high school and it was a lot of fun so I'm excited to do another one.


Shaal Aquatic Center at UC Davis
After taking 2 days off from swimming I'm going to get back into the water tonight. I have to readjust my training now for shorter distance events as opposed to small landmass circumnavigation.

Naples Island Swim, Outstanding!

What a cool weekend! I spent Saturday and Sunday down in Long Beach for the Naples Island Swim. We stayed aboard the Queen Mary which was pretty cool, we checked out the Aquarium of the Pacific and I hit both of my goals for this swim (finish & beat someone) in style.

The Long Beach Grunions Masters team did such a great job with this event. It had such a great vibe and everyone was super positive. It was smiles and high fives from all of their volunteers that were running the event.

I got there around 7:30 and paced the beach and did my best to figure out the route from the land. Since the water was a balmy 66 degrees I hopped in about 20 minutes before the start to get over the fact that it was going to be freezing compared to my overheated pool at the gym. After warming up my muscles and freezing my balls off I was ready to go. Everything got started right at 9:00 and there was a ton of people there for the 1 Mile Classic that actually happens to be 1.25 miles.

There was a lot of firsts for me in this race. This was my first Masters Swimming event. It was my first race in 10 years (holy crap!). And it was my first open water swim. Starting from the beach and fighting for my position with a bunch of thrashing arms and legs was definitely new for me. As we made our way to Naples Island and the canal the group started separating into waves of how fast you swam. I actually swam most of the canal by myself (as far as I could tell) because I wasn't quite with the super hardcore group but I wasn't back with the next cluster of swimmers either. It was kind of nice in a weird way. There were people chilling on their decks watching us swim and the bridges had a few people cheering us on. It was really the coolest swimming event I've ever done. I'm pretty sure I saw a statue of Captain Hook too... or the mouthful of canal water that I accidentally swallowed was mildly hallucinogenic.

Once I came out of the Canal and scooted around the corner of one of the other islands it was a straight shot to the beach. I turned up the heat a little and jammed past the only guy in my vicinity under the pretense that just in case I was in last it was best I beat him to the beach. Once I hit the beach I ran up to the finish line, got my time, promptly forgot it, and much to my delight... I was in Second place for 25-29! I got a suave little silver medal for my efforts, very cool. Time wise I think it took me about 40 min I had a watch on and totally forgot to read it because I was so stoked to be finished. I heard the first wave hit at about 30 minutes but I don't know for sure, I'll find out for sure once they post results on the web site. (update** results were posted and I swam 40:48 and was 38th out of 71 overall. First place was at 29:34 and last place came in at 1:11:33)

Open water isn't particularly my thing but I've already decided to try and do this again next year. Long Beach was really nice, the host club were awesome hosts and the course is really cool. This was just what I needed to keep me motivated to make my way to go to the pool 4 nights a week. I can't wait to get in the water for another swim meet. The next one I have planned is in November in San Luis Obispo but I might try and find one in the interim just for fun!

By the way I did learn one lesson the hard way... if you're going to do a long distance swim in salt water, lube your armpits... seriously. Who knew. It's been about 10 hours since I got out of the ocean and my armpits are still raw and on fire.

The race course

Me at the beach before the Race

Testing the water, verdict outstandingly cold

Taking off from the beach, can you tell I practice indoors at night?

It's like LA traffic with more hitting

Moving towards the edge of the Island

One of the volunteer kayakers that kept us on course

Swimming back to shore

Crossing the finish line

Just for fun... covered in ravenous lorikeets

The Final Countdown

Tonight was my last swim before I do the Naples Island Swim on Sunday morning. I'll fill you all in Sunday night, plus I'm bringing my camera so I should hopefully have some cool pictures too. If you can't wait I'll probably be tweeting my weekend as it goes (yes I realize I'm an internet dork). I swam maybe 1000 yards tonight in a fairly unstructured way. I just wanted to get some yardage in just to keep my shoulders feeling loose.

I'm still kinda nervous but again I have only two major goals 1)Finish 2)Beat someone. I just really don't want to end up like this guy...

Bald Guy with a Swim Cap?

I had a meeting today up in San Luis Obispo so when I was done I ran downtown to Sports Authority to see if I could find a suit that I liked for the race this weekend. It took some searching but I found some competitive swim suits hidden behind a bunch of other crap. I picked up a red and black suit that matches my suave new red swim cap. Something about having a shaved head and buying a swim cap gets you weird looks from cashiers. I've never been one for wearing swim caps but every thing I read about open water leads me to believe this is a good time to make an exception. So if you're at the race on Sunday I'll be the bald guy with the red cap and a farmer's tan looking really apprehensive about what I've decided to do.

Alright back to business... tonight I didn't do a ton of yardage, I want to just keep my shoulders loose. I mainly focused on having a long, steady stroke.

500 free warm up

100 Kick
100 IM
100 Free
100 kick
100 IM
100 Free
100 Kick

500 Free

1700 yards total, plus a trip to the hot tub!

Staying on the Queen Mary

So I'm making a mini vacation out of my trip to Long Beach for the Naples Island Swim. My special lady friend has always wanted to see the Queen Mary so I figured we might as well stay on it. It's only about a mile from the Aquarium of the Pacific and about 6 miles from where the race starts.

I'm staying out of the pool tonight to give my shoulders a rest and catch up on some work.

A More Hydrodynamic Upper Lip

If you follow me on Twitter you already know the news... I shaved the 'stasche. I was complaining about getting weird nose fulls of water and realized/decided that my mustache was to blame. So in the name of swimming it was sacrificed and I am now 'stasche free and much more hydrodynamic as you can see in my hasty cell phone picture above. I haven't seen my upper lip in years... kinda weird when you think about it. Come to think about, I don't think me and my chin have been acquainted since I got out of the Army at the beginning of 2004. Don't worry though the goatee isn't going anywhere, I'm way too lazy to shave my whole face on a regular basis.

More Distance...

So my suit I've been using for practice is starting to come apart... boo. I wear a Speedo Jammer with some kind of splice thing going on and I'm working on a sweet hole in the front of it. Luckily we've got a front liner. Since I need to race outside in public on Sunday I figured it would be a good idea to get my hands on a new suit and it's too late to order one online so I'm stuck with whatever I can find in town. On my way to workout tonight I swung by Big 5 and much to my surprise they had 2 suits in my size. I picked up a blue jammer style suit and a black square leg suit. Even cooler I got them for $40 total, score! I'd prefer another suit in the style I have right now but I'll take what I can get.

As far as my workout goes it was really simple tonight:

35 minutes with no breaks

... told you it was simple:)

I have no idea how far I went but I found a really good rhythm and I know I covered a lot of distance.

I'm Gonna Do It!

So I decided to step up and sign up for the Naples Island Swim. I'm going down to LA Saturday night and Sunday morning I'm going to swim. I have two goals for the race 1) Finish 2)Beat somebody... anybody.

So in preparation I'm doing a lot of distance and cardio work this week. I rode about 13 miles on my bike after work and made my way to the pool around 8 to get in about 3000 yards.

Here's my workout for tonight, you might notice a little bit of a pattern:

500 freestyle
100 kick

500 freestyle
100 kick

500 freestyle
100 kick

500 freestyle
100 kick

600 whatever the hell I felt like :)
I did a lot of breast stroke and freestyle with my head out of the water as practice for dealing with open water

3000 yards total

I think the rest of the week is going to be more of the same. No weights, just biking and swimming.

Naples Island 1 Mile Swim... Should I?

This is either an awesome idea or completely mental. I got an email from SPMS (Southern Pacific Masters Swimming) about the Naples Island swim in Long Beach this Sunday the 14th. There's a 3 mile and a 1 mile race and even though I'm not really an open water guy this sounds like a pretty cool event.


You can see in the map below that the course is about 1.25 miles and runs around like a canal or something. This event was supposed to happen back in July but was delayed until now.



Online registration is open until the 10th, I'm going to decide between now and then whether I'm going to do it and whether I would actually like... survive. If you're interested the site for the event is www.naplesislandswim.com.

Dryland Excitement

I go out of my way to stay out of the truck and do most of my getting around by bike. So every work day I ride around 4-6 miles a day as just incidental movement going about my business. Today I went on a nice long ride up highway 1 today instead of hitting the pool.

I think it's a good thing to mix it up a little bit so you don't burn yourself out on just swimming. I ride, swim and do some weight lifting in the course of my week. I'd like to be able to run every once and a while but a back injury pretty much shuts that down. I had some really bad lower back problems in the Army that aren't necessarily better, I just know now what not to do, and swimming is probably the best workout I can get without hurting myself.

I might do a little lifting later today, but I don't think I'm going to hit the pool again until tomorrow.

If People Ask You Why You Swim So Much...

Tell them that you are getting ready for the adverse affects of global warming and you need to be ready to mow your lawn underwater just in case.

pic via ffffound.com

Go Hard and Go Home

So I didn't have a lot of time to swim today so I made it worth my time.

400 freestlye
100 kick

6 x 100 choice @ 2:30 hard
(I did 2 IM, 1 Back, 3 Free)

100 cool down

1100 yards total

Definitely not an impressive yardage but I had places to be man. In all fairness I was on the verge of puking after that second 100 IM.

My backstroke was on fire tonight but I kept almost drowning out of the turns. I think my facial hair is trying to drown me! I've never had that problem when I swam in high school so I was trying to figure out what changed. As it turns out I didn't have a burly mustache when I was 14, I think its lack of hydrodynamical properties is working against me. I might have to shave the 'stache and keep the rest of my goatee!

Don't Stop...

Tonight I had the pool all to myself, that's really my favorite way to swim at the gym. My workout was basically a continuous swim with real short breaks to grab a kickboard every once and a while.

500 freestyle
100 kick

500 freestyle
100 kick

500 freestyle
100 kick

1800 yards

Simple yet effective :)

I also spent about 15 minutes in the weight room working on my shoulders and triceps for good measure.

Labor Day Work Out

I wasn't so sure that I was going to make it as far as the pool today. I slept in today like it was an endurance sport! And because I'm such a healthy guy I had Wendy's for breakfast at about 3 in the afternoon :)

Here's my work out for today:

Warm Up
400 freestyle
100 kick

10 x 100 freestyle on 2:00 minutes

100 freestyle with fins easy
100 kick

300 freestyle warmdown

2000 yards total

I didn't push it too hard today, my 100's on the main set averaged about 1:30. I had my workout cut short on Friday night by a monster leg cramp that still kind of hurts 3 days later, so I just wanted to make sure I got in my full workout.

Back to the Pool...

Once upon a time I was both skinny and aquatic... these days not so much. I got into competitive swimming at a late age. I didn't start swimming until about the 8th grade back when I lived in Wisconsin. As a matter of fact I was deathly afraid of water until I was about 11 years old. It was weird I just decided that I liked swimming one day. Ultimately I found my way into age group swimming. I swam varsity in high school and I was pretty decent. I swam about a 56 second hundred freestyle, a 59 second 100 fly, and I was a pretty decent backstroker too. My senior year I spent the year in Sweden and kind of fell out of swimming

Fast forward about a decade and here I am trying to get myself back into swimming for fun, fitness, and competition. I got back into the water in the beginning of August and it's going pretty well so far. I decided to join masters swimming so I can do some swim meets as a motivational thing to keep me going to the pool a few times a week. I'm blogging my way through the whole ordeal to keep track of my progress and motivate me to keep doing a good job.

I'm shooting for a meet in November in SLO to see if I've still got it. One can only hope! I've got 3 months to get back into shape and ready to pull down some respectable times at my first swim meet since 1998(!).