Thursday September 16th -- Due to a bunch of HS meets today, we had a small group training this afternoon. Here are the two sets we did:

Erika and Ridge took care of some 150s

4x150 (210) desc 1-4 Backstroke for Ridge, Back-Breast-Free IM for Erika
8x50 (55) plus an extra 10
3x150 (2) desc 1-3
8x50 (55) plus an extra 20
2x150 (150) desc 1-2
8x50 (55) plus an extra 20
1x150 (150) fastest
8x50 (55) swim down

Erika put up some great training times:
140-137 for the pair on (150)
then 135.1 on the last one 30.4/35.9/28.8

Ridge put some good ones as well, with a big improvement on the last one: 128.9
So 128.9 ....hmmmm. The best 200 backstroke time I can find for Ridge is 207.0. Last year at some meet in January he went 208+...I gotta feel like the dude might be a little faster than that right now.

You just have to practice swimming fast. How is Ridge going to go into a meet and NOT have confidence he's going to DESTROY his best time in the 200 back?

And what happens when he goes a 124.5 in a 150, which is completely do-able? Just throwing that out there....

Ok, so the other set we did went well also:

150 Free (150)
4x200 FreeIM (245)*
300 Free (340)
3x200 FreeIM (240)**
450 Free (540)
2x200 FreeIM (235)***
600 Free (720)
1x200 FreeIM (230)****

For those that don't know, FreeIM is Fr-Ba-Brst-Fr. We do regular IM at times, and we will be doing more regular IM as we go through the fall...but since the fastest male and fastest female 400 IM swimmers in American history train over half their IMs FreeIM, we are going to do it too -- often.

The challenging part of this set was interval related. The intervals were tougher than we've done (but NOT as tough as we WILL do :) ). The swimmers had to do their 3x200 FreeIM on 240, then swim a 450 free on 540....then a pair of 200s on 235, then a 600 on 720.

Katie and Haley were going low 220s (222-224s) for most of the set...holding about 107-108 pace on the freestyles. On the end they both went 214 -- their best 200 FreeIMs of the season at the end of this 3500 yard set.

Avery was going just under 230s the whole way and got to a 224 on the end with about 10 seconds after the 600.

WE WERN'T DONE YET.

Finishing up with no breath fast stuff may be more fun for the coach than the athletes, but it's very effective training.

Katie, Avery, and Haley did 18x50 with every 6th fast. A little extra rest before the fast ones, which were done 25 fast, 25 fast no breath.

On the end Katie was 26.2, Avery was 27.0, and Haley was 28.2

Erika and Ridge did the same type of thing: 20x50 with every 5th fast, no breath second 25.

Ridge was going fly, so we let him breathe....but on the end he dove a 50 with the second 25 no breath kick underwater -- and went 25.3 on it. Ridge can go a lot faster than that but he's saving it for next week when we do it again;)

Erika went a few 25+ 50s, then finished with a push 24.8 (back in 12.2 no breath)....and then a dive on the end: 23.8 (back in 12.00 no breath on final 25).

It was good to see many of our HS meet swimmers get to the pool and put in a 3000+ warmup before their meet. A great team atmosphere today, which has become the norm at Norris.