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.