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Where I’m At, One Week Out

Wow, y’all, it was an emotional roller coaster through the English Channel playlist on the way to the beach this week. It was “Try Everything” that really got me again (what is it with that song?), but a playlist specifically compiled to get me pumped up about training for the EC was potent stuff on my way to my last U.S. swim (and after a hard week at the pool and with England prep).

I messed up tonight

I lost another fight

Lost to myself, but I’ll just start again

I keep falling down

I keep on hitting the ground

But I always get up now to see what’s next

Shakira

I don’t think I ever would have predicted how much I would love training for the Channel and getting ready to move to England, but I especially would not have guessed that something you love so much could still be so very hard.

And I really, really love it. This has been one of the happiest times of my life – great family, great friends, great job, great boss, great coworkers, and a great goal.

But it has also been hard enough to feel like I’m in one of my favorite childhood movies (whose soundtracks are heavily favored on my EC playlist and had me reacting so strongly on my drive to the beach on Saturday). Perhaps it is no accident that most of my faves involve training sequences followed by a challenge that must be undertaken. The Karate Kid, Rocky, Iron Eagle, Top Gun… even Star Wars. My husband (inexplicably) does not share my love for these films (except Star Wars), but there was nothing I liked better as a kid than seeing someone train hard and triumph.

(Side note – he’d rather watch Spaceballs than Rocky. How messed up is that? A good marriage is forgiving your spouse for not liking Rocky while they forgive you for not liking Spaceballs. But seriously guys, Spaceballs is dumb. Hate mail if you must.)

This week saw me exasperated by website glitches hampering England Business out of the pool, and needing to fall back on my ultimate mental game several times in the pool. When a set gets hard… really hard… I visualize the coast of France slipping away from me and just. go. harder. 

After a week of this, I really needed a swim in the ocean. I am happy to report that on the way home, my playlist no longer held the power to reduce me to tears. And I’m looking forward to a little break – my training plan this week is “as desired,” and I’m getting on a plane on Saturday. England Business will be done then… one way or another!

Have I Forgotten Something?

As I come down to the final days of England prep, my (extensive) (obsessive?) lists are bearing out well so far. But of course, the concern is always the thing you haven’t thought of and should be doing.

Friday at practice, head coach John walked over and said, “Should we reverse circle-swim for the last week to get Laura ready for England?” I kid you not, despite having a college teammate from Trinidad and Tobago who had to adapt to our circle-swimming direction, I had not considered the possibility. Remotely. My mind was blown 🙂

E looked it up, and it is even crazier than I thought possible – according to the internet, they alternate directions in alternate lanes. There is some logic to this (although, as we both pointed out, perhaps not for breaststrokers and butterflyers who end up side-by-side; or backstrokers accidentally groping and being groped by strangers), but logical or not – how do they do it?!? 

For any non-swimmers reading this, it’s as if the rule was that you drive on the right on north-south streets, but on the left on east-west ones.

Do English brains not form unconscious habits? It’s hard enough to switch from circle-swimming to swimming straight – my brain has something extra to remember. But to suddenly have to come off each wall the opposite direction, perhaps in the middle of a practice? All props, British brethren. I will strive to adapt to your tribal ways.

Obviously, this is not something I forgot that I can do anything about… it just makes me wonder what I’m forgetting that I can address.

My Final U.S. Swim Before the Channel (Tear)

Just a beautiful last swim with the boys before heading off to the UK. Perfect weather, and 55 felt lightly refreshing. I still can’t keep up with Michel, but I’m as ready as I can be.

England Business (Feb 28-March 4)

Weekend – checked off “Take cat to WV.” It was great to see the fam before we go!

2/28 – Took care of house stuff, booked train tickets from London to Bournemouth, emailed lettings agents about utilities and wifi (and let them know arrival time)

3/1 – did more stuff 🙂

3/2 – did a bunch more stuff 🙂 Got J registered at the HS, including the in-person appointment – the registrar was really nice and incredibly helpful. I’m getting things done more quickly now (although it definitely helps to wake up at 5 am and start, say, emailing all your contacts to let them know your phone number won’t be working). But I had time to relax for a bit and it was very needed. (Although I forgot to stretch – doh!). Anyway, did several more things (working on setting up utilities for the flat, for instance), but I’m going to leave it with “did a bunch more stuff” instead of trying to think of all the little bitty things that I did. I will say this – the water company guy was Scottish, and I very much enjoyed having my water service set up by James Bond. You can call me “lassie” anytime 🙂

3/3 – Am having to set up a UK bank account… in order to get wifi. This seems pretty silly to me. But the other option is wifi that makes E say, “What is this, 2005?!?”

Mission 1 accomplished – sort code achieved

Mission 2 accomplished – it took longer to get wifi than it will to swim the Channel

Also called KW about A’s SSA – waiting to hear back.

3/4 – Heard back about A’s SSA (keeping him in advanced math). They will be able to do an override to put him in the online Math 6+ next year, and he will just need to take a test at the end of the year to continue with Math 7+ in middle school. So, yay 🙂 (And, yet again, a million thanks to so, so many helpful people out there!!!)

Side note – J’s bus came so early that he missed it (which he never does). Someday the extra minutes in a warm bed that I have promised myself will actually be mine.

As I write this on Friday, as usual I’m thinking, “what did I even do, and how did it take so long?” But I sent the pool open and close info to coaches, answered Am’s questions, put all of our info into Delta (except the Passenger Locator forms that have to be filled out within 3 days of travel), confirmed carry-on sizes, looked through the government sites to verify nothing has changed as regards travel, printed out our most recent bank statements in case we need to prove to England that we are solvent, etc, etc, etc. I often wonder how I would be doing this if I weren’t a bit underemployed at the moment. And of course the answer is – you do what you gotta do. On the bright side, the lists look good and I’m knocking off early to stretch, eat, and relax just a bit before practice.

The Week at the Pool

Summary

Pool Yardage ~ 39,000 (+ 144 jump squats and streamline jumps)

OW Yardage ~ 3000

Total Yardage ~ 42,000 (+ 144 jump squats and streamline jumps)

As I said above – a really tough week. Ironically, the 16,000 yards on Tuesday was the easiest bit. Once you start trying to make me sprint… that’s when I fall apart 🙂

The Gory Details

Monday 2/28 – Theme: Swimming Potpourri (~4800)

• 300 w-up 50s/25k
• 6×100 IM – 2 kick on 2:00 descend, 1 drill on 1:50, 3 descend on 1:40
• 100 ez
• 9×2-Turn 50’s IM order (we re-did BK to work on faster flips) on 1:10
• 100 ez
• 3x broken 200 IM (1:30,:50,1:00; :45, 1:35, 1:00; :45, :45, 1:35) 100s ez in between
• 100 ez
• Another 100 ez?

• 3×100 on 1:25
• 2 on 1:20
• 1 on 1:15
• 3 on 1:20
• 2 on 1:15
• 1 on 1:10
• 30 seconds rest
• 3 on 1:15
• 2 on 1:10
• 1 on 1:05

I made it down to the next-to-last 100, felt a little nauseous, and decided not to break my record of never puking in front of the kids in my next-to-last week of practice.

• 75 ez
• 50 free and 50 back in relays
• 300 CD

Tuesday 3/1 – Theme: Total Annihilation Tuesday (Final American Version) (~16,600)

Trying to cobble this together the next morning… we’ll see how much I remember.

Practice 1 (Senior Group) (~1650)

• 200 ez
• 500 loosen
• 6×100 – 2 swim on 1:20 long and strong; 1 kick on 1:50 fast
• 4×25 on :30 – 12.5 fast
• 50 ez
• 6×25 on :40 – 15 m fast
• 50 ez

Practice 2 (Pre-senior Group (~7250)

• 1600 w-up

• 6×800
• 1 – 50 fast/50 mod on 10:40
• 2 – 50 mod/50 fast on 10:40
• 3 – IM on 12:40
• 4 – 75 fast/25 mod on 10:20
• 5 – 25 mod/75 fast on 10:20
• 6 – all out with fins (9:46)

• 200 ez
• 7×50 kick on 1:00
• 300 CD

Practice 3 (Gold Group) (~3600)

• 5 min social kick (300 – had extra time) 
• 200 ez
• 4 x 25 (1:00) burnouts
• 4 x 25 (:40) w/ fins – 15m UW fast
• 4 x 25 (:40) w/ fins – 15m fast swim
• 4 x 25 (1:00) runners/dives
• 1 x 50 from a runner
• 4×75 – 25×10/3/10; 50 DPS (14 with no u/w – feet crampish)
• 3×200 on 3:05 (2:45ish)
• 2×200 on 2:55 (2:31)
• 1×200 race (2:22)
• 300 ez (at least – waiting on Silver group)
• 3×100 on 1:35 (1:21)
• 2×100 on 1:30 (1:15)
• 1×100 race (1:08)
• 200 CD

Practice 4 (Varsity Group) (~1000)

• 200 w-up
• 12×25 (4, 6, 8, 10 kicks off wall) on :40
• 100 ez
• Fins
• 2×50 fly kick on front hands at sides
• 4×25 fly drill
• ?

Practice 5 (Masters Group) (~3100)

• 300 ez
• 8×50 w/paddles on 1:00
• 3×100 on 1:25
• 2×100 on 1:20
• 1×100 on 1:15
• 3×100 on 1:20
• 2×100 on 1:15 (second 1:16)
• 1×00 on 1:10 (1:12)
• Lots of rest
• 3×100 on 1:15 (made one, missed one, 3rd on 1:20)
• 2×100 on 1:20
• 1×100 all out (Hardest 1:14 I’ve ever gone)
• 100 ez
• 8×25 on :30 w/fins – wrong Canadians
• 250 ez

It went well. It’s great for 16,000+ yards to feel like, you know, a Tuesday

Wednesday 3/2 – Theme: Hangover (~6200)

• 1600 w-up (missed the first 100)
• 25 ez
• 4×100 broken off the blocks and from a runner
• 300 ez
• 5×100 broken off the blocks and from a runner
• 275 ez
• 5×200 on 2:35 (something like 2:30, 2:30, 2:29, 2:29, 2:28)
• 200 ez
• 5×100 on 1:15 (more like 1:16. Funny, it doesn’t look that bad on paper, but boy does it feel like failure in the moment 🙂
• 200 ez
• 5×50 on :40
• 200 ez
• 5×100 on 1:17 (made these, basically)
• 200 ez
• 6×25 on :30 (ez)
• 50 ez

Thursday 3/3 – Theme: A Much Needed Break, Eventually (~6100 + 144 jump squats and streamline jumps)

• 1600 w-up
• 12×75 IM order with 15 streamline jumps at the deep end and 15 jump squats at the shallow end (I couldn’t walk after doing a set like this two years ago, and I need to be able to walk (and lift and carry and pack) right now, so I did 12 each)
• 200 ez
• 10×100 all out w/fins on 2:00 (a couple of 1:03s, a bunch of 1:02s and a 1:01 to finish)
• 300 ez
• 5×200 smooth with paddles on 3:00 (thank god!)
• 200 ez?
• 20×25 on :30 – 12.5 u/w, 12.5 fast
• 400 CD

I felt so much better after we did the 200’s with paddles.

Friday 3/4 – Theme: Just About Exactly What I Was Capable Of… Very Little (~5200)

My knee hurt (didn’t occur to me until one of the kids said it might be from yesterday’s jumping. It did mildly disturbing popping things when I squatted down to stretch this morning), my toe hurt (sometimes a toe will randomly get red and hurt for awhile. It always goes away, so I have no idea what’s going on there), and my brain hurt.

• 1600 w-up
• 10×100 kick w/fins on 1:25
• 200 ez
• 10×100 kick on pull buoys (I used a board) on 2:10
• 200 ez
• 10×100 kick using fins as a board on I-don’t-know-we-didn’t-come-close-to-making-it
• 200 CD

The group’s mental and physical fitness seemed to closely match my own today