The Birthday Set

I'm pretty excited to be celebrating my birthday this year. I am so thankful for every one and every thing in my life and I am feeling truly blessed. I wanted to spend the day doing the things I love - training at Asphalt Green, pool time and spending time with friends and family enjoying amazing drinks and food. 

I was planning to attend Masters practice at noon today, but I knew I had other appointments and was not going to be able to swim the full hour, so I did hop in the pool an hour before. When I swim on my own, outside of masters, I usually have a set workout or drill that I'm ready to focus on. So today, I did something different - asked my coaches and friends for their favorite sets, added my favorite sets and came up with "The Birthday Set," which is an awesome collection of contributions from some of my swim inspirations - The AGUA Coaches - Jonas, Jessie, Kelly, Glenn, Rachel and my swim inspirations Bob Bowman and Michael Phelps. Hope you like this set and perhaps you'd like to try it out. 

Christine's 2013 Birthday Swim Set  (3,500 Yards)

Warm-Up:
400 Freestyle 
300  - 4 x 75 IM Order Kick-Drill-Swim 

• Here are the drills I used: 
• Fly: 3-3-3 Fly 
• Backstroke: Corkscrew Backstroke (3 Free - 4 back) 
• Breaststroke: 1 regular breast stroke then breaststroke pull w/ dolphin kick - alternated
• Freestyle: fingertip drag

2 x 100 IM on 1:45

Main Set:
25- 50-75-100 

• 25 Fly
• 50 Free
• 75 Fly 
• 100 Free

Reverse Set 

• 25 Free
• 500 Fly
• 75 Free
• 100 Fly

(Feel free to substitute fly for another stroke - I just felt like flying today)

Limbo Kicks 50's 

Starting at 1:15 - decrease each 50 by 5 seconds, until you don't make it. 

I stopped at 40 seconds. = )

8 x 25 Variable Sprint on :30

• Half Easy/Half Fast
• Half Fast/Half Easy
• All Easy
• All Fast

4 x 50 (25 Sprint IM order, 25 Free Easy) 

8 x 50 Free on :50

100 Free on 1:40

25 Free Full Sprint on :35

25 Free Easy on :35

Repeat 4 times 

300 Pull with paddles and buoy