Today's swim

First of all, GO BIG Z! Congratulations to my favorite professional cyclist, Dave Zabriskie, for winning the US National Time Trial Championships today! (Yes, that's an old photo, not from today.)

Now about that swim. Today's workout was nothing remarkable, except it was in the "warm" (86*F) pool at the Y because the "cool pool" where I usually swim was closed for maintenance. So I had a toasty time and worked on EVF (Early Vertical Forearms) and wide arms and slipping my hand into the water near my ear and keeping a gliding extended arm.

3450 yards. If I had kept up a proper lap count I would have done another 100 yards to break 2.0 miles, but my arms were getting tired so I stopped.

Just for my own personal blog record, here are my workout times for various distances, done consecutively:

• 100 yards: 2:10 (= 2:22/100 METERS pace)
• 200 yards: 4:40 (2:20/100 yard pace)
• 300 yards: 7:19 (2:26/100 yard pace)
• 400 yards: 10:03 (2:31/100 yard pace)
• 1200 yards: 31:22 (2:37/100 yard pace)

Those were all at a reasonably comfortable pace, not pushing it. The 1200-yard time would only give me a 1:51 Ironman swim, but that's still 29 minutes ahead of the cutoff (2:20 at Ironman Florida) so that I have some wiggle room. Plus I don't have to turn around 47 times during the Ironman swim. I'll take it.

I can tell my shoulder muscle endurance is down because I haven't been doing that many swim workouts lately. I need to get it back up to 2 to 3 times per week for the next 7 or 8 weeks.

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Update: Here's a more recent photo of Dave the Champion! (Strangely tilted, though. He actually has a fabulous horizontal-back aero position.) YOU DA MAN Z!!