I just swam in 72 degree water at Santa Monica College

Santa Monica College, home of KCRW and NPR has one of the best pools in Southern California. The staff is great, it's clean and I appreciate it so much that they let SCAQ swim there. Tonight, they got their boiler back on line but a 50 meter pool takes a long time to heat, Consequently we swam in 72 degree water.

Santa Monica Swimming: SCAQ Workout Today

I took these pictures 20 minutes before workout. Santa Monica College has a really nice pool and if you get a chance to go swim there I really reccomend you do so. What I like best is their overflow gutters. Note that the water comes right up to the tippy edge; this allows chop to exit the pool and flow back into the pool vents below rather than backwashing into the pool.

Dimitriy coached today and it was primarily a middle distance workout.
200 warmup
12 x 50s - swim/drill the first 6 @ 55 seconds build/easy the second 6 @ 55 seconds
6 x 200s @ 3:00/3:40 - My fastest 200 was 2:30, slowest 2:45
6 x 150s with descending intervals easy/hard which I made
6 x 50 descending intervals easy/hard with the last interval 3 seconds

Swim homework assignment for the next few weeks

1) Go to Erik Hochstein's sprint workout on Sundays at LMU. (Erik is a former Olympian from Germany who won the bronze medal in the 4x200m Freestyle Relay at the 1988 Summer Olympics. I was once swimming with him at a workout at Santa Monica where we did a 200 as part of the main set; Erik was swimming in the fastest lane and I was like 4 lanes down from him, he swam a 1:46 and I did a 2:24. He lapped everybody in the whole pool.)

2) Swim at Santa Monica on Wednesdays with fins to loosen up and improve my ankle flexibility.

3) Push-ups and crunches on workout-free days and stretching every day to gain more shoulder and hamstring flexibility.

4) Do a freestyle technique clinic with Bonnie or Jamie to check out my stroke. (When I sprint I have a tendency to be choppy.)

5) Swim more 100s for time and focus on pacing.

6) Start swimming 5 days a week rather than 3-5

Sunday workout at Santa Mo.

Renee coached and my spies tell me she is a formidable open water swimmer. The exact adjective-and-noun used used to describe her was, "Amazingly fast". So, triathletes of the world, schedule a clinic with her.

Today, we finished faster than we started:

Warm up:
2 x 200s @ 3:15
2 x 200s @ 3:00

More warm up:
4 x 100s stroke drill/kick by 50s @ 2:30?

Main set part A:
1 x 100 - Sprint first 25, easy last 75 @ 2:00
1 x 100 - Sprint first 50, easy last 50 @ 2:00
1 x 100 - Sprint first 75, easy last 25 @ 2:00
1 x 100 - Sprint @ 2:00
1 x 100 - Easy @ 2:00

Main set part B:
1 x 75 - Sprint first 25, easy last 50 @ 1:30
1 x 75 - Sprint first 1/2, easy last 1/2 @ 1:30
1 x 75 - Sprint first 50, easy last 25 @ 1:30
1 x 75 - Sprint all out @ 1:30
1 x 75 - Easy @ 1:30

Main set part C:
1 x 50 - Sprint @ 1:00
1 x 25 - Easy @ :50

Repeat six times through.

The video clinic I had with Bonnie has really helped my swimming. I find that when I am fatigued and completely wiped out, I use less effort to maintain momentum. Let me tell you, it's all about the elbows leveraging a strong catch.

One of Dimitriy's Gulag workouts today at Santa Monica College!

225 yard warm-up because the last 25 yards put us at the opposite side of the pool so the sun wouldn't be in Dimitriy's eyes. The damage that followed:

8 x 75s conducted in this manner:
1 x 50 Backstroke 1 x 25 Breaststroke @ 1:20 interval
1 x 75 Freestyle @ 1:20 interval
Repeat six times.

1 x 300 Freestyle @ 4:30 interval
1 x 100 Freestyle all out sprint @ 2:30 interval
1 x 100 Freestyle easy @ 2:00 interval
Repeat four times through

200 Free warm down.

On paper this looks like cake but in practice when you are holding a 1:20 pace on the 300's the all out sprint thereafter feels like water-boarding torture!

Why I support college swimming!

I gave $530 to the LMU pool last summer to help support their team. Soon, a brick will be dedicated at the pool with my eldest son's name carved on it. When you donate money to college swimming you are supporting programs that will elevate both swimming and the community at large in several different ways.

Three reasons why we should aggressively support college swimming:

1.) College swim teams provide outstanding pools for masters swimmers and those that want to be swimmers such as triathletes and kids.

At the time of this writing there are about 10 pools open in the city of L.A. available for club or masters swimming. (This excludes the Los Angeles Unified School District pools since they have their own schedules and priorities such as PE, water polo and school swim teams.)

L.A. has a population of nearly 4 million people and with 10 pools total to represent 400,000 citizens each, this is obviously not a big enough aquatics infrastructure to support quality club swimming. College pools, on the other hand, are more interested in both swim clubs and masters programs so more college pools means more quality pools for triathletes and clubs.

2.) College scholarship opportunities for like-minded athletes.

Cullen Jones; (pictured above), is tied with Gary Hall as my favorite sprinter. Cullen goes to North Carolina State University and is majoring in English with a minor in Psychology. Hailing out of Irvington, New Jersey, a town that has a 17.4% population which is below the poverty line, Cullen attends NCSU as a result of a swim scholarship.

It is looking pretty good that Cullen will be a member of the US Olympic Team come the 2008 Beijing Olympics and it wouldn't be a stretch to say that he may break Popov's 50 meter long course record between now and then. He would be the first American of African heritage to hold that record.

Swim teams are yet another sporting opportunity to get bright individuals into a cool university. Let's not allow these opportunities to fade.

3.) The sport itself, which includes future Olympians, master swimmers, swim clubs, triathletes and even sprint triathlons will evaporate if college teams fade away and pool construction halts. This is a variation of reason number one with the added threat of non-competing pools being converted for other real estate functions. If there are no teams, why own a pool?

What you can do? Donate to college swimming programs or withhold donations to schools that plan on dropping swim programs. Write or call the NCAA and demand that they defend all Olympic related sports especially swimming.