ENOBUTTERFLY
I'm trying to add Sunday as a second swim day -- or, at least, I'm trying to add a second swim day, and Sunday looks like it. The Wife has found a Yoda class at our warm fluffy towel gym and while she's doing that, I can swim. Or, equally likely, as a result of my whining about wanting a second swim in the week, we jointly came up with this solution :-)
It's not quite the same as having the Alis or the Lauries or the BigRicks or the Emilys of the swim world to keep you honest, keep you hustling. I found a web-site that'll give me a workout, if I couldn't make one up myself, get one from a book, or steal one from someone else's blog entry (!) and do have access to a nice pool to train in.
I have a (side-)goal of wanting to swim the Butterfly stroke. The goal was simply that general, that nebulous, nothing specific, nothing measurable. A desire to turn flailing pool-drinking into something a little more graceful, locomotive and less near-drowning-like. Something controlled. So I turned to some light reading (there are those that do, there are those that teach, there are those that read about it!), for some theory on this short-axis stroke, and I also turned the goal from wishy-washy to specific and measurable. My goal then is 4 x {25m butterfly (can I abbreviate that to butter'? No? ok, then 'fly), 25 freestyle}, each two-stroke-medley 50's on the :50 (huh, or what about just a 100 IM (to overload an already familiar acronym), maybe on the 2:00? Hmmm, let me think on that). By the end of the summer (let's say mid-October, Oct 14!)
Some (alarming? funny?) snippets from that reading:
There is only a short window for breathing in the butterfly. If this window is missed, swimming becomes very difficult.
The butterfly, however, is unforgiving of mistakes in style; it is very difficult to overcome a poor butterfly technique with brute strength.
[Damn, and I've been working on my brute strength, too!]
I'll work on my 'fly during my main set. I want to be warmed up, but not worn out to give it an honest focus.
Today? It was certainly on the flailing-/drowning- end of the ability scale, possibly two, less likely three, strokes put together somewhat fluidly. But overall, we'd have to put that down into the failure column ("There are no 'failures', just results. Build on them" - anon/unknown). However, I am now armed with a bit more info./feel to take back to my books, to see if scholarly repetition in a broader knowledge base gets anything extra to sink in. But generally, we'd have to say the butterfly didn't fly today. To steal from UNIX error codes, ENOBUTTERFLY.
Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, a decent workout (I stole
shubbe's Wed AM workout verbatim (*) + added drills and kicks after the w/up and the attempts to butter' 'fly between the 2 ladders!). Nearly an hour all told. And even some drills (which I have a habit of not doing when swimming on my own)! And evener some kicking (which I have an even stronger habit of not doing when swimming on my own)!!
(*) Which, I suspect, although lacking any (c)opyright, actually came from a paid-for source. It was pointed out to me more than once, when I captured too much detail about a workout on my own blog, that I was giving away a training company's secret sauce. I had misgivings about divulging such "secret information", and I have misgivings about being the recipient of ill-gotten info., like being the knowing recipient of stolen goods, but, I sat down, had a glass of wine on the deck, and got over it :-) Lesson learned: don't 'fess up to stealing another persons workout! (What? Oh, ok: lesson should've learned: don't steal another persons workout!!) Having said that, AnyB, next time, include any intervals and any rests at the wall :-)
It's not quite the same as having the Alis or the Lauries or the BigRicks or the Emilys of the swim world to keep you honest, keep you hustling. I found a web-site that'll give me a workout, if I couldn't make one up myself, get one from a book, or steal one from someone else's blog entry (!) and do have access to a nice pool to train in.
I have a (side-)goal of wanting to swim the Butterfly stroke. The goal was simply that general, that nebulous, nothing specific, nothing measurable. A desire to turn flailing pool-drinking into something a little more graceful, locomotive and less near-drowning-like. Something controlled. So I turned to some light reading (there are those that do, there are those that teach, there are those that read about it!), for some theory on this short-axis stroke, and I also turned the goal from wishy-washy to specific and measurable. My goal then is 4 x {25m butterfly (can I abbreviate that to butter'? No? ok, then 'fly), 25 freestyle}, each two-stroke-medley 50's on the :50 (huh, or what about just a 100 IM (to overload an already familiar acronym), maybe on the 2:00? Hmmm, let me think on that). By the end of the summer (let's say mid-October, Oct 14!)
Some (alarming? funny?) snippets from that reading:
There is only a short window for breathing in the butterfly. If this window is missed, swimming becomes very difficult.
The butterfly, however, is unforgiving of mistakes in style; it is very difficult to overcome a poor butterfly technique with brute strength.
[Damn, and I've been working on my brute strength, too!]
I'll work on my 'fly during my main set. I want to be warmed up, but not worn out to give it an honest focus.
Today? It was certainly on the flailing-/drowning- end of the ability scale, possibly two, less likely three, strokes put together somewhat fluidly. But overall, we'd have to put that down into the failure column ("There are no 'failures', just results. Build on them" - anon/unknown). However, I am now armed with a bit more info./feel to take back to my books, to see if scholarly repetition in a broader knowledge base gets anything extra to sink in. But generally, we'd have to say the butterfly didn't fly today. To steal from UNIX error codes, ENOBUTTERFLY.
Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, a decent workout (I stole
shubbe's Wed AM workout verbatim (*) + added drills and kicks after the w/up and the attempts to butter' 'fly between the 2 ladders!). Nearly an hour all told. And even some drills (which I have a habit of not doing when swimming on my own)! And evener some kicking (which I have an even stronger habit of not doing when swimming on my own)!!
(*) Which, I suspect, although lacking any (c)opyright, actually came from a paid-for source. It was pointed out to me more than once, when I captured too much detail about a workout on my own blog, that I was giving away a training company's secret sauce. I had misgivings about divulging such "secret information", and I have misgivings about being the recipient of ill-gotten info., like being the knowing recipient of stolen goods, but, I sat down, had a glass of wine on the deck, and got over it :-) Lesson learned: don't 'fess up to stealing another persons workout! (What? Oh, ok: lesson should've learned: don't steal another persons workout!!) Having said that, AnyB, next time, include any intervals and any rests at the wall :-)