Feather Star

Don't forget to reference these helpful links as needed: The Basics, Glossary, How To Read a Workout, Pacing Table.

Warm Up
650 free swam as:
500 as 125 catch up, 125 kick, 250 swim
5 x 50 free descend @ b +5
(900)

Set 1
4 x 50 free @ b
3 x 100 free @ b
2 x 150 free @ b
200 free @ b
2 x 150 free @ b
3 x 100 free @ b
4 x 50 free @ b
All swims holding best pace that you can, get your times for each swim
50 easy

Set 2
5 x 125 kick @ swimbase +15 followed by 25 easy kick
(the point of this is to make the base, then take the 25 easy to recover)
10 x 50 stroke @ b +10
This can be done as all stroke, or stroke/free by 25
10 x 25 free @ :30, 3 FAST 1 easy

Warm Down
350 easy your choice

Total: 5,000

THESE STRANGE, plant-like creatures hide in plain sight among bright corals and anemones, firmly anchored to the sea floor, as their slender, branching limbs billow like colourful fern fronds. But things get weird when they break free ­­­– swimming, floating, or even walking through the ocean. Those lovely fringed arms are covered in tiny, mucous-secreting tube feet that can move independently of each other, and this allows the feather stars to catch plankton and other microscopic morsels floating through the water. But how they get the food to their mouth is a whole other story.

The process begins with the foot furthest away from the mouth being cleaned by the foot directly below it, bundling up the mucus-filled snack before transporting it, foot by foot, along the arm. The next foot down wraps around the one above it, and scrapes the food off for a second time. This process continues all the way down the arm of the feather star, creating a bolus of food that gradually increases in size.

The bolus eventually makes it to the mouth, where it’s ingested in a U-shaped gut.

That horseshoe gut is important, because allows the feather star to position its anus right next-door to its mouth, because why complicate things when you can have everything coming and going from roughly the same area of your face?