Wednesday, February 23, 2011

SNORK!

Remember the Snorks? I really don't, but it would be kinda cool to breath underwater. Oh wait, they make snorkels to do just that! ;)

(source)

So I finally bought a snorkel for the pool, the Finis Center Mount Swimmer's Snorkel. I couldn't not buy it and not get pictures!

Gimme Cross-Eyed!

Gimme Creepy Smiley

Now gimme ANGRAAAAAAY!
I then proceeded to chase the cats around making Darth Vader breathing noises.

I got it because I have been working hard lately on getting symmetrical in the pool by breathing to both sides and getting my rotation even. I find it easy to rotate to my breathing side, but not my non-breathing side. By taking the breathing issue out of the equation, there is no side to favor, just both.

Do you ever do face down drills where you run out of breath so fast that when coming up to breath you lose your momentum or form and it takes a bit to get recomposed that by the time you reach the wall, you only got in 3-4 good cycles of the drill? Frustrating, right? This happens to me with skulling and catch drills. These drills are slow because you have little arm pull and you rely fully on kicking to propel you. Since kicking is so oxygen expensive you have to breath often.

With the snorkel, that is no longer an issue!

Here is a REALLY good catch drill that have helped me get a better "feel" for the water....also known as the "Ice Cream Scoop" drill:



I tried it out tonight and my first reaction is that a nose clip is a MUST HAVE. Water goes right up your nose! You don't haaaaave to use a nose clip, but I would highly recommend it. I got by without, but next time I am using one.

So I did some catch drills and they are MUCH easier to do CORRECTLY by not having to breath to the side. I HIGHLY recommend getting a snorkel for drills like this! After doing the drill, I swam normally and OH MY GOD I have a catch! haha! Getting that catch as early as possible is so critical in grabbing that water and getting more propulsion.

I did:
500 WU
500 yard mix of catch drills
5 x 100 on 1:45
500 yard mix of catch drills
5 x 200 on 3:30
---------------
3000 yards

Finally, if you want a great read on some do's or don'ts for us mere mortal age group triathletes, my coach, aka THE MAN, wrote up a nice piece.

My favorite part:
"If going long in training, dial down the intensity. If going short, make it count. Duration usually doesn’t cripple us. Intensity doesn’t either. It's combining the two that gets us into trouble."

I wrote him an email tonight explaining "over the past 7 weeks of working with you, I feel sorta super human for this time of year!"

13 comments:

  1. bahah that thing is super dorky looking!!!

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  2. yep, besides dorky (which I reaaly don't care about), thinking about it would mess up the rest of my swim focus. I say BUSTED.

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  3. im osrry for not commenting as much as i used to. ur training is wayyyy over my head. im trying to follow but its difficult.

    fun pix! u r snorky!

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  4. Dude, you gonna need a bigger bag to carry all your pool toys ... LOL!

    Gonna have to read that article by your coach. I really like his take on nutrition on his website - right to the point with no fluff!

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  5. I know my form slips when i breath, I noticed it doing drills about a month ago, I hope to get a snorkel in march to help work on it.

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  6. OMG.

    I think you've crossed some line drawn somewhere! My dork-o-meter is pinned in the red zone right about now lol!

    I've never seen a setup like that, I'd like to give it a try one day lol. In the bathtub, with the door closed and nobody can see me hah! :)

    Keep up the good work! lol

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  7. Okay, the pix are very amusing. And I will check out your coach's article.

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  8. DId you know that there is nothing in the USAT rules that you can not use a snorkle at a race

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  9. JP - We all know what you do in the bathroom with the door closed.... LOL

    BDD - UHHHH Seriously? That is flipping awesome!

    Jon - Loved the write up. I know the saying is that you can't win the IM race in the water... uhhh, apparently they have not had you race one yet. You are going to have such a dang buffer on your time LOL!

    Keep up the good work, your swim is phenomenal!

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  10. In high school swimming my coach used to make us do all of these underwater drills- like swimming a 50 underwater, doing a 25 sprint, then another 50 underwater and he would tell us that we were not allowed to come up for ANY breath and if we ended up on the bottom of the pool he would rescue us. I HATED these drills, so as a bday present my bff on the team bought me a snorkel. Unfortunately my coach wouldn't let me use it during practice.

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  11. I need to go back and re-read this b/c I couldn't stop laughing at the pics. That is hilarious looking but I'm sure it will be of great benefit to you and eventually me as I start to incorporate that into my training.

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  12. Like scooping Ben & Jerry's with your hand? Hmmm... maybe I'll skip the pool and just practice with the ice cream. That will work right?

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  13. I loved the Snorks! :)

    And yep, I've seen people both years at IMFL using these. Can you believe that one?

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