Working the Taper

I haven't felt much like posting this week...been focused on the swim meet that's coming up this weekend. I'm trying not to be afraid...I signed up for the 200 IM and I know full well it's going to kick my ass...but I'm doing it anyway and I'm sure I'll survive, no matter how ugly it gets.

Milkshake Girl, her husband and I came up with a new design for our team and we've had caps and sweatshirts made so we'll look all slick and matching at the meet. We're the "Upper Valley Stingrays" - Upper Valley because that's what folks call the Upper CT River Valley which is where we live...and Stingrays because it's a fish and the USS team at our pool is the Swordfish so we thought we'd stick with the fish theme. Then when you shorten it, you get "UV Rays" which we thought was a fun play on words...so the logo, as you can see, has the ray with sunglasses on. We thought it was clever anyway...

This is a swim taper week which I've discovered doesn't mean very much in terms of swim volume. We did a little less yardage and some speedwork yesterday so it was nice to ramp things down a bit BUT I've also had a bit of a chest cold thingy so after my long run on Saturday I decided to cancel my early morning runs this week...and I'm heading to the meet on Friday so I won't be at my spinning class either. And I actually feel really antsy, which I'm assuming is good. That's the point of taper, right? I hope so. I took Monday off altogether to beat this lung thingy...today I think I'm at about 98% of better so by Saturday I should be great. I'm starting to feel like all my workouts are amounting to a net gain...for awhile I felt like I was paying off a debt...getting caught up...and now I finally feel like I'm saving and getting ahead...it's all good...

Weasel Boy is coming over from across the big pond (Ireland!!) to swim with us so I'm totally psyched for that...there are 9 of us this time instead of 5 so we're planning on a major coup and grabbing a top 10 finish. We were 14th/39 teams at the December meet so it's not out of reach. My coach is a world ranked swimmer and there are two others on the team that are nationally ranked backstrokers in their age groups. The great thing about masters swim meets is that everyone who swims contributes points for the team, no matter what place you come in...but you get the most points for being in the top three of your age group.

I just spent another half hour working my butterfly problem...I recently switched to some smaller Zura fins and they've certainly helped me get stronger but they've also shown me my weaknesses and my fly stroke is one of them...after watching, Coach suggested that I push in more with my chest so that my hips rise and the dolphin motion is exaggerated...and what do you know?? IT WORKED!!! So now I'm feeling all kinds of better about my fly and I'm ready to tackle the 100 and 200 IM. And maybe at the next meet I'll attempt the 50 fly. We'll see...

AND, the guy that I shared my lane with just now was an amazing swimmer and I could tell that he was swimming sets with the clock...so on one of his rest intervals I asked him if he swam with a masters team and he said he used to but it got too expensive (over at Dartmouth) so he doesn't but wished he did...but he REALLY wants to go to meets so I think I convinced him he should join us...but not for this meet, unfortunately. His daughter swims on the USS team so I'll sic Coach on him and I'm sure he'll sign up... YAY!! I'm always jazzed for new swimmers, especially excellent ones!!

This gray, cold weather is really trying to get me down but so far I've managed to focus elsewhere. Coupled with the fact that I'm restricting my calorie intake to 1800-2000/day, I've been a little cranky. It's amazing though how a blast of carbs can turn it all around. I'm trying to pay really close attention to my blood sugar levels so we'll see how it goes. Trying to eat really good quality foods... so far so good.

No daffodil/apple blossom pics today - they need another week to progress for you and the gray is just too gray... next week...

So for not having much to say, this is a pretty long post. I think there's a live feed from the swim meet and there's definitely wi-fi so if you can't get to the live feed, I'll hopefully be posting real time results all weekend. More details to follow.

Train hard!!!

ps. check out Bolder's bling if you haven't already... NIIIIICCCCE