Getting worked by Amber on caffeine

There are a lot of crazy athletes in Boulder who swim at Flatirons Athletic Club, but most of them are too lazy to swim at 6 am. Well, maybe they just aren't crazy enough or don't need to get to work by 8. We can't even claim to be there every time, but most of the year we are.

Anyways, its a pretty small group that shows up every Tuesday and Thursday at that time to work out with Wolfgang or Kurt. As a small group, there are usually only four lanes going. The fastest lane recently has been occupied by the Finangers and whoever can keep up with them. Next is usually Amber's lane which numbers between 1 (solo Amber) and 4 (on a busy day). Most of the time she is the lane leader. Next is my lane with 3 or 4 people, which I have been leaded recently. The last lane usually has 1 or 2. Compared to Sunday's workout with at least 6 people per lane for all 6 lanes, our workout is tiny.

The Plan
Since my swimming has been going well, I decided to move up to A's lane today. But, Kurt removed the cover from all of the lanes and her normal swim buddies went to the lanes with my normal swim buddies, so I found myself all by myself with A. Oh, boy. My hope had been to hang on by drafting off the second to last person, but I've never been able to draft off of A for long. To make matters worse, I wanted coffee this morning before the workout and so A had a mug of it as well. We've only had coffee before the swim twice before and A has noticed the performance enhancement that it give. So, not only did was I alone with A, I was alone with a caffeinated A.

The Workout
The warm up went fine, although A took the full rest assigned and I took less to keep up.

Then, Kurt gave us the main set. He started by telling us that it was a 200's day, to which A responded "Great, I love 200's". Red alert, red alert. Kurt told us "4 x 200", okay not too bad, "then 4 x 50's with kicking ...", good, some recovery, "then 3 x 200" uh, oh, I think I know where this is going, "50's again" here it comes "2 x 200" yep, we're going to be doing 10, "50's and then 1 x 200", I hate it when I'm right some times. Then, the timing discussion started and I deferred to A as I was the interloper in her lane. She gave Kurt a range and luckily he picked the top end of it.

The first one went well as it always seems to go and I got 5 seconds rest. After the second, I got 3 seconds rest. After the third, I had to immediately start the fourth. I skipped the first 50 to get some recovery and A told me she was getting 24 seconds of rest after each.

The next set started okay and I got 5 seconds rest after the first. I blew up on the second and missed the interval by 10 seconds. On the third, my goal was to keep A from lapping me. She was at the flags by the time I flipped at 150 meters, but at least I made that goal. I missed the first 50 and skipped the second.

For the third set, I geared up with paddles and buoy and made the intervals for both.

For the last one, I was determined to make it my fastest and I beat my goal time by 1 second. Still 16 seconds slower than the caffeinated A, but there is always next week.

For now, my plan is to only swim with A's lane once a week until I can complete the entire workout as given. Maybe next time, I'll substitute decaf for her.

Peace Out,
E