Trans Tahoe swim 2011

Team Zola

Saturday workout PCC

This was the 3rd Saturday morning workout at PCC Master's.  I swam the one prior, at 7:15am in lane 6, the farthest right.  It's my least favorite due to the wall, along over half our lane.  It's not forgiving, if you drift in your lane a bit.

It was a fast fun day.  I even kept up in the 2:50 200M  and the 100 M at the end of the workout, I held a good 1:20 pace, without draft.  A nice workout!  And, great to see Damon and Bill in the pool.  Damon's not been swimming much, but still had good speed, at least compared to me.

Jib Jab
I have been missing the Saturday workouts.  Mostly 'letting myself off' instead of having something else going on.  Bill said he's working on improving his speed too, and said adding 5000M on Saturday is helping.  I'm going to give it a try, although I got in about 3300M today.

PCC new landscaping

Finally, we are re-landscaping our backyard, so I've been trying to notice gardens I like.  This one is subtle, but nice.  I like it.  Why?  I am not totally sure.  It's simple.  Nice vegetation.  Not over filled or sparse.  Contrasting colors.  I like the spiky guys, and the little variegated bush.  It's got a little purple flower on it now.

It's February Meter Mania! Yahoo!

The Board:  Tracking our meters in the pool.

It's Meter Mania month!  We just finished Fitness Olympics, which was right after the triple crown, and without a day in between, we are into Meter Mania at PCC.  What is meter mania, you ask?  It's a quirky little annual event we do, as you guessed, every February!  As it turns out, it's not just us at PCC involved.  I believe it's a national thing.  I heard at the pool the other day, one of our members was #3 in the country for meter mania.  I don't want to even guess how far he went, but apparently it was a noteworthy celebration.  So, what we do during meter mania is count how many meters we do every day, and put it on the board.  Sound fun?  NO!!  Is it? well, yes! Strangely, it's a blast!

Jib Jab
I am not big on new year's resolutions and all that kind of thing.  Don't get me wrong, I like goals, and think they are important, but somehow, new year's resolutions seem doomed to failure.  I heard most people have one or more of the following goals.  Lose weight, get in shape, or improve their finances.  As it turns out, when asked, over 2/3rds say, they did not achieve their goal.  Anyways, there it is.

Having said that, I like meter mania.  Essentially, it takes it down to the minute by minute minuscule decisions we make every day.   Oh, the board, yes, I think I will do a couple extra meters today.  Or, I will skip the hot tub and start early today to get some extra meters.  And so on.  Pretty soon, those microscopic decisions change your direction.  They make a difference.  The silly little board does it.

Double Jib Jab
Interesting question.  On New Year's day, I was at the beach with family.  I wasn't there for the last leg of the Triple Crown.  So, unwritten protocol says, you can make it up.  Even in the next week or two.  Well, I got sick, and was traveling, and well, didn't get to making up the last leg.  So, it's February now.  So, yesterday, I swam 10,700 meters.  Yep, 10,700.  That's closing in on 7 miles.  How long does that take?  It depends on how you do it.  What I did, is started at the 6am workout, then did the 715am workout, and then the 830am workout.  When all was said and done, I did some additional laps between workouts, and finished the last workout with 10,000 meters!! Sweet!!  You know how your mind sets the goal, and your body can get you to THAT finish line, and no more?  I did that.  I was done, done, and done, but my buddy Rich joined me through the whole thing!  What a guy!!  So, actually, he arrived a little later than me, so he wanted to get another 750 meters after we were finished.  So, I said, okay, I will too.  I was tired, but if I started slow, I figured I could settle into it.  So, I follow him, and pretty soon he is pulling away from me, but I think we can circle up the next time he stops.  Well, after 650 meters, he hasn't stopped, and he lapped me!  So, I fall in behind him again, and 100 meters later, I am done.  10,700 meters! Yahoo!!

Is that double dipping?
I know.  Those who were paying attention, caught that.  I finished my Triple Crown 10,000 *and* counted those same meters in Meter Mania.  Is that fair?  Am I cheating?  Some would certainly say yes, but I say no.

Tell me what you think....!

Here's why I say no.
You know that feeling when you say, yes, I will make that up.  I owe you.  Next time on me, and you have the best intentions, but never quite get to it?  Yes, I already have my Triple Crown apparel I sport, but how can I wear it, knowing I didn't finish?!?!  I know, so much controversy.  Anyway, there it is, those little micro-decisions playing a role.  Meter Mania did help me finish Triple Crown.

The moral of the story?
It's all good.

Triple Crown PCC Aquatics Center

Peninsula Community Center Pool

We already swam the middle leg.   I started my swim with a bunch of my fellow Masters swimmers at 6am last Saturday.  Before the day was done, we set a new record with 64 swimmers in the pool at once.  I got out of the pool, having finished 7,500 meters for the Christmas swim, celebrated with my buds, and home by 9:30 am.  BAM.

What's the Triple Crown?
It's a fun event we do at PCC Masters, and I think it's something that many Master's teams do.  It's a holiday event, with swims on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day.  Actually, the Christmas swim is on an alternate day, ours was last Saturday.  Each day has a longer distance at each of the three levels.  To accommodate all our swimmers, we have 2 start times.  I usually do the early one, 6am.

Here's my guess at the meters at each level:

Level/Day             Thanksgiving             Christmas            New Years Day
Bronze                       1,500                           2,500                       3,500
Silver                         3,500                           5,000                       6,500
Gold                           5,000                           7,500                     10,000
 
The gold levels equate to 3 miles, 4.6 miles, and 6.2 miles on New Year's Day.  That's at least 3.5hrs for me.

Jib Jab with Tim
I took this picture after our workout.   You can see two people still in the hot tub.   Notice all 6 lanes of the pool.  I've been swimming lane 4 lately.  Each lane is a progressively faster pace, lane 5 being the fastest, and lane 6 is available as needed.  When you think about 64 swimmers in this pool at once, it's well, amazing.

Typical Workout on the board

Here's a typical workout.  You can see we do all strokes.  Anything from 25 meters, to 400 meter swims.  All said, including 500 meter warm-up, 2,900 meters for those in the faster lanes.  The number matrix shows times for each length.  The numbers closest to the left are for the faster lanes.  For example, top left in the 2nd set (#2) is 600 which means 6 minutes for 1x 400 meters.  That's a 1:30 pace per 100 meters.  Pretty rockin for me, and I am happy to say, I made it!

PCC Pool

A couple more shots- This shows our coach, Mike on the pool deck.  The motto sounds a lot like Mike's motto for us.  It's incredibly straight-forward, yet incredibly life-changing.  "Get in, go back and forth."

 

Double Jib Jab

Swimming has become an integral part of my life.  It seems every day I swim is a good day.  Every other day may be too, it's just those swim days seem particularly special.  Here's a couple pictures on the 7 minute drive to the pool.

Meter Mania Month

This is meter mania month for Peninsula Community Center Masters (PCA Masters).  It's kind of an interesting phenomena, in that we have the exact same workouts at exactly the same time of day, with the same coaches, the same swimmers, the same number of minutes per workout, and yet, for the shortest month of the year, we count how many meters we swim, and without scientific data to show it, we swim a lot more during this month than any other month!  So, what's up with that?

It's all about setting tangible goals, and measuring results.  In our case; count your meters.  We know how we are doing along the way (we write our daily results on the wall).  We think about it, notice it, talk about it, and somehow, there is this motivation to push the number up.  How far can we go?  It's funny.  Some folks look forward to meter mania all year, and then swim 10,000 meters a day!  For reference, we normally do about 2400 - 2700 meters a day, which takes about an hour.  10,000 meters would take a good 3, realistically 3.5 hours in the pool.  

Some people have to do more than most.  Some have to have a 'respectable' number of meters, but pretty much everybody has to do more than they would any other month in the year.  Just for fun, I asked a few folks what their goals were, and why they do it.   Hey, I am going to put my numbers up, for everyone to see!  Or, I did so and so last year.  This year I am doing (put in the number) more.  The more was typically a lot, too!! 50%, double, even triple last year!

So what?  For me, the moral of the story is:  Be careful what you measure.  You will most likely do more, do better, or improve, whichever way you want the number to go.

Here's some of my swimming examples where I was measured:  Swimming from Alcatraz to San Francisco.  Go.  You get a medal for it.  Or, let's swim 5000 meters on Thanksgiving, 7500 meters on Christmas and 10,000 meters on New Years!  You get a sweatshirt for it!  Here's a cool picture of Aquatic Park looking back at Alcatraz, and seeing some swimmers out there.  One more:  Trans-Tahoe relay - 5 man teams, swim across Lake Tahoe (12 miles).  Go.

Anyways, I am thinking about what else to measure.