Friday, September 6, 2013

Feeling like meeting Santa for the first time

Yesterday afternoon I was busy all day at work and noticed I had a voicemail:


Then she called me and I picked up.  She agreed to meet with me after I had messaged her on Facebook about the possibility of seeing her at another one of her book signings when I'm in California for Kelly's Anacapa swim.  She offered to meet for lunch!  So I am meeting her Thursday afternoon after my flight comes in to Long Beach.  I'm so excited I feel like a little boy who gets to see Santa for the first time.  Sounds kind of nuts, I know.  But she is an icon, a pure legend.  Her experience and background in open water swimming is historical.  She can easily be listed as one of the five most historical figures in open water swimming.  

My copy of her new book, Open Water Swimming Manual arrived last night and I read the first 6 chapters.  Lots of good material.  The biggest thing I discovered that I am lacking is doing drills especially on skulling drills.  

This morning I incorporated some skulling drills into my workout:

400 - 4 x 100's odd skull drill, even catch and pull drill
200 kick
100 - 4 x 25's free fast on :30
900 - 3 x 150's, 3 x 100's, 3 x 50's odd free, even IM :10 ri
1500 - 5 x (200 pull free, 100 IM) :10 ri
900 - 3 x (100 kick, 100 IM, 100 free) :10ri
50 easy

4,050 yards total in 1:10

There's been a lot of talk in the marathon swimmers forum on Diana Nyad and her swim.  I have some opinions on this and really need to get them out, but that deserves a post on its own which I will do shortly.

On another note: I have really appreciated Donal Buckley's comprehensive and thoughtful posts on MIMS and what the organizers can do to really step it up to a quality event worthy of being included in the triple crown of open water swimming.  I'm planning on applying for this swim and really hope that the organizers take all of his points as constructive feedback and make some appropriate changes.  

Here's the posts I'm talking about: 


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