Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Glenn Mills not only endorses the 'blueseventy,' he sets a masters world record in one and feels guilty about it.

Erik Hochstein sent me this as a supplement to the Gary Hall jr. endorsement below. Glenn Mills storms a 200LCM breaststroke ion one and feels . Here is a snippet:

"...When I touched the wall on the finish, and glanced up to the clock, I was hoping I would be within a respectable measure of David Guthrie's World Record of 2:26.1, and the time I saw surprised me for the first time since I was 15 in a swim race: 2:22.6. I waited for the clock to reset, or change. I figured there was a missing light because I knew UMD had just ordered a beautiful new scoreboard. The more I looked, the more confused I got. Did I really just go 2:22? No way. I couldn't have gone that fast. The last time I swam this race meters, I went 2:30 in December, and it HURT! The 2:10 yards in Austin was a good race, and I was READY for that one. I didn't do anything for this... except, change my stroke a bit, and put on a Blueseventy suit. ..." [Link]

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Quote: "In other words, my body was winning out over my brain... or... dumb jock syndrome."

For someone who is supposed to be so cerebral about swimming, a curious statement.

Quote: "In my opinion, which is absolutely correct for ME, and no studies in the world can dispute what I feel about my own swimming, this suit has allowed me to swim faster than I'm supposed to."
Many of you know that, other than swimming, my favorite sport is Formula 1 racing. It is arguably, the most technically advanced sport in the world. Each season brings advancements, rule changes, tire-compound changes, so many little things that to the naked eye, we can barely notice, yet they spend MILLIONS on these subtle changes."

Doesn't like swim studies, but admits that technology reveals things that the eye can't see, or obviously from his post his body can't "feel".

Glenn said...

hey anon... Who said I was supposed to be so cerebral about swimming? Also, where did I say I don't like swim studies? They can give good info on what athletes are doing but too many people take them as gospel. If you read what I write, I usually have an overwhelming tone of "try it yourself" before you start trying to justify studies..

No studies apply to every athlete, so your can either read or do.

Finally, don't worry, my body "feels" fine. :) I just have to experience how to "feel" in this suit and one meet won't do that. I'll figure it out and go faster. Hope you do the same

One final thought for you on the dumb jock statement. I spend my time thinking about how others swim or only think of my swimming in practice. When I race, I race. If you think too much in a race and you end up looking at feet. I'm not a fan of that. Sometimes in my aggression, the jock comes out and I make mistakes. It happens when youre fighting to win. Have a great day.

Glenn said...

hey anon... Who said I was supposed to be so cerebral about swimming? Also, where did I say I don't like swim studies? They can give good info on what athletes are doing but too many people take them as gospel. If you read what I write, I usually have an overwhelming tone of "try it yourself" before you start trying to justify studies..

No studies apply to every athlete, so your can either read or do.

Finally, don't worry, my body "feels" fine. :) I just have to experience how to "feel" in this suit and one meet won't do that. I'll figure it out and go faster. Hope you do the same

One final thought for you on the dumb jock statement. I spend my time thinking about how others swim or only think of my swimming in practice. When I race, I race. If you think too much in a race and you end up looking at feet. I'm not a fan of that. Sometimes in my aggression, the jock comes out and I make mistakes. It happens when youre fighting to win. Have a great day.

Tony Austin said...

I should have responded sooner.

I sat at my computer yesterday for 20 minutes typing and retyping a response for I really didn't really understand the critique. I ended up deleting the text and deciding to sleep on it till I could my head around it. I should not have done that.

I don't see any hypocrisy or such but maybe you are pointing out the irony? I am unclear.

I am glad he posted his feelings about the suit for I don't believe the rhetoric coming out of the sponsored, mercenary, athletes such as Michael Phelps who talks up the suit, has never set a WR in it, but wears a Fastskin Pro. (Correct me if I am wrong?)

I don't know about Glenn being cerebral about swimming, I find his writings accessible and easy to understand.

Also, Glenn Mills gives 95% of his content away for free. such as podcasts, videos, articles, opinions and reviews. Whether it is cerebral or not, it's still free.

The products he does sell like the videos and such I have found really useful especially the Kara Lynn Joyce video which narrated by the swimmer herself.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous --
"In other words my body was winning out over my brain...or...dumb jock syndrome."

It's called self-deprecating humor. Most of us are charmed by it. You're being way too literal.

Mills' second point which you quoted was obviously that no study can tell him how he FEELS, only he can know that; a fairly self-evident point. And the bit about Formula 1 racing, which you quoted in part, was a leadup to his conclusion that even though he has mixed feeings about the added costs, technological advances are a fact of life in other sports as well, so we may as well accept them. I'm a Luddite so I happen to disagree with him on that philosophically, but Mills' points were quite clear and his article well written; I'm not sure where the confusion comes from.