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.