We started the practice with the usual warm up. At that point, I was focusing on keeping a good body position, especially trying to keep my legs from sinking. Right now, one of my favorite drills is to wear a pull buoy on my ankles, so I forced my hip to stay up on the water.
I have been feeling how fixing my body position helps my stroke. Now the 4x100s kick that we did before the main set, don’t hurt as bad as before.
The main was 4x100 negative split (free), 4x50s buildup, and 2 sets of 3x50 (S1) descending to hard.
I felt good during the hundreds, despite not being consistent with the training recently. When we got to the 50s descending, the lack of training started to hit me. I could feel my arms burning during that third 50 butterfly. But I kept a positive attitude and tried to push myself harder.
Overall, I think the practice went great. But I am looking forward to summer vacations and having more time to focus on swimming.
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I want to talk about one of my favorite swimmmers from the last Swimming World Championship held in Fukuoka.
And it cannot be anyone else but the rising superstar Léon Marchand.
This 21-year-old French swimmer not only had one of the most outstanding performances of the championship, winning the 200 and 400 IM and the 200 butterfly, but also smashed the oldest world record in swimming history, held by the greatest of all time, Michael Phelps.
Phelps had been the world record holder since 2002 and broke it for the last time in 2008 in Beijing, China. It took over 15 years for someone to get even close to the record, but it wasn’t until recently that Leon started to scratch the record, going 4:04.28 in June of 2022.
Many thought that Phelps' world record would remain intact for many years more, but Leon smashed it by going 4:02.28 in this world championship.
Leon Marchand took a whopping 1.34 from it, becoming the first-ever to break four minutes, three seconds.
"That was insane; it's one of the most painful things I've done. It was amazing to do it here and the time is crazy," Marchand said poolside after his 4:02.50 victory. "The best is yet to come.
"It’s excellent, I train everyday for that. I’m two seconds faster than my previous record, I beat the world record, it’s amazing… I don’t know what to say, I’m so happy."
There are some people discussing whether he’ll break the 4:00 barrier or not. I think if he does it, it will be one of the most amazing accomplishments in swimming.