Finishing up 27 years with a BANG!

I will never forget the last day of my 27th year on this planet. My coach whooped my boo-tay this morning!!! haha! This morning was week #2 of his swim workshop. He really knows how to drop the hammer on us!

Swim:
100 WU
5 x 100 (25 right, 25 left, 50 @ 3 stroke drill)
100, count strokes per 25
5 x 100 (50 shark, 50 swim)
5 x 100 (50 paddle, 50 swim)
5 x 100 (50 fins, 50 swim)
5 x 100 (hard on 1:45, held 1:25's)
400 CD (50 paddles, 4 x 50 hard,  50 REALLY hard (35.5), 100 easy)
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3100 yards

My coach loves my stroke. I learned today that I am in the "fast" lane in the group of 16 folks (Sweet!) and that I have a very efficient stroke. We counted how many times we stroked with our right arm per 25, and my count came to be 8, as in I take 15-16 strokes per 25. The other two in my lane were @ 11 or around 22 strokes per 25. One guy is much faster than me, the other is slightly slower. So even though the one guy is faster, he uses up more energy to go faster. I feel good about this!

The big thing pointed out to me this week is that I need to work on my "catch." If I "catch" the water sooner, I will be pulling more water sooner, meaning propelling myself sooner and farther. One final thing that I am proud of is holding those 1:25's on 1:45 so late in the workout. There is one thing about hitting a 5 x 100 set in the beginning of a swim workout, but doing this at the end really skyrocketed my confidence in the pool, and its only December!!!

Sorry if I am gloating too much, but this was a REAL breakthrough swim for me!

Then we ran. 10.16 miles in 1:20:25 / 7:55 pace

Let me first mention that the group was small, only 6 of us. These guys include multiple Ironman finishers, first place podium finishers, a 9 time Kona qualifier (my coach), 17:xx 5K timers...........and me. You always hear that if you want to go faster, train with faster people. Yeah I totally signed up for the "fast" and "experienced" group. You don't get this kind of training experience by reading a book!

This run was humbling not only because of the pace, but also the freaking terrain!!! Look @ this course!

Multiple Slices of Humble Pie were eaten on those giant uphills.

And my resulting run splits:
Mile 1: 8:30
Mile 2: 7:33
Mile 3: 7:26
Mile 4: 8:36 (first big uphill)
Mile 5: 7:43
Mile 6: 7:14 (yay downhill!)
Mile 7: 7:14 (yay downhill!)
Mile 8: 9:26 (grumble grumble GIANT uphill!)
Mile 9: 7:48
Mile 10: 7:34

I needed this run. After last weekends 10K PR, this was a good eye awakening that last weekend was good, but its time (already) to step IT UP!


My poor right foot though, has taken a beating with the blisters lately. Time to bust out the moleskin and tape!

Sorry, its kinda gross....

That is all for me this weekend. Tonight I celebrate my brother turning 30 and me turning 28! Our birthdays are only 4 days apart. I am taking tomorrow OFF!

Swim, Swim, Swim your arms off

December is all about the swim! But it is so early, you ask? Not for refining swim technique its not!!

Last Saturday AM, @ 6:15 in the pitch black, I did my first of six swim workshops with my coach over in Monroe, CT. Yes, the 1 hour drive is worth it. I-95 @ 5AM is awesome to drive on since there is NO traffic!

16 of us signed up for this workshop, and it is awesome to know that most, if not all of us, are coached by this one guy. AND! I think we are mostly Ironman distance focused. It is a good group I can tell, and hopefully NO egos, since were required to leave them in the car.

Session #1:
400WU
One arm drill, 8 x 25, alternating between left and right arms
Shark Drill, 3 x 50 (will explain below)
Fists, 3x 50, 25 fist, 25 swim normal (will explain below)
10 x 25
5 x 100 (50 shark, 50 swim)
9 x 50 ((2 50's with paddles, one 50 without) x 3)
150 video

Shark drill: Helps for rotation and following through with the catch. Stick a kickboard between your thighs like a pull buoy and swim. Work the rotation so that you can reach back and touch the top of the board to finish your pull, aka following through with it. GREAT DRILL!

Fists: Obvious drill. Make your hands into a fist and swim. I have always done this drill, but sucked at it. Why? NO ROTATION!!! Add proper rotation, and your core is doing most of the work to propel you forward. This drill is great because when you open your hands back up, they feel like the size of tennis rackets pulling you through the water.

I am glad that I put in some swim volume this fall. It really paid off for this workout since what I wrote above isn't that bad speed related, but those are the kind of drills that will hammer you when you have no swimming base.

Coach did some above water video of us and of the many things wrong, the most glaring thing to fix is that I am opening my kick up (scissor kicking) when breathing. I am compensating for balance to breath. I have overall good balance in the water since I am not sinking, but my balance goes to crap when I breath. A good challenge to fix!

Coach also asked me if I have a "competitive" swim background. Haha! Nope! But it was a nice compliment and I am trying really hard not to let this go to my head ;) I am neither the fastest nor the slowest out of the group, which is fine. Speed doesn't matter in this workout anyways, at least not yet. ;)

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Now last night I started my 2nd workshop. This one lasts for 10 weeks. I would say that the workshop with my coach is for a much more advanced group, since most of his athletes are Ironman focused. This 2nd group with the local tri club is not as gung-ho, but is a really fun group. NO egos in this group and it is the kind of group which will work hard and have a ton of fun in the process.

The guy who leads the class is a really nice guy, but not a swim coach. That is ok though! The way he structures the workouts makes sense and the drills he had us do are right down to the fundamentals of swimming and are just what I need.

So last night the theme was GET LOOOOOOOOONG. Just look @ my AWESOME diagram for visual stimulation. What out Da Vinci!

This is what 4 years of art school gets ya! haha!

So if you look at the above masterpiece, which stick figure do you think is going to go faster? Well, that depends on the density of the wood of the sticks, right? (ok, lame joke)

But really, I had been swimming more like the stick man on the left, which creates a LOT of drag in the shoulder areas. These following drills had me swimming like the stick man on the right by the end of the night:

Thumb to thigh: Swim like normal, but brush your thumb along your thigh for a full pull, then bring your thumb along the side of your body on recovery. Teaches you to be more streamlined.
Catchup: Both hands touch before the pull.
Catchup with Board: Same as above, but use a kickboard
Catchup with pull buoy: Same as above, but use a pullbuoy.
One arm with board: Swim one armed at a time. DONT let your pulling arm tough the board. Let your arm extend past and under the board for proper rotation!

By the end of the night, I felt like a 50 foot sailboat: Loooooooong in the water with the MOST effortless glide I have ever felt.

Both classes have their strengths and weaknesses, but I have a feeling both with compensate for the other. I feel progress is ahead in my swim!

In fact, we had to do a 500 yard TT for a base time last night. I bested my previous time for a 7:30 flat @ 1:30 pace! Boo ya!!!

outdoor run and final swim class

I actually ran outdoors this morning. It was 50 degrees, so why not take advantage of that!

I was quickly reminded (as I was on Saturday AM) that a treadmill does NOT replace running outdoors. Sure, you can run fast on a treadmill, but that is peanuts compared to the variability of running outdoors on uneven and rolling terrain. I put in a good run: 3.82 miles in 33:45, or about 8:50 min/miles.

Then tonight was my final swim class. We were videotaped completely above water this time, which was good, because it showed off this funky right arm recovery swing that I did, some strange left handed flippy thing before the recovery, and a left armed cross over. YIKES! Thats quite the list on my "bad habits to break" list. Fortunately I think I have kicked the squiggly arm, but I am going to monitor that sucker to make sure it DOESNT come back. At least with swimming its pretty dang clear on what you need to fix. Well at least I will have goals!

I am still writing up my adventure relay race from this past weekend. Its a looooooooong one.

NO MORE SQUIGGLY ARM!!!!

Woo hoo! I didn't do the squiggly arm tonight! YES!

So I am pretty excited, and the entire class cheered for me! FINALLY! I broke the curse of the squiggly arm. But whats funny is that I developed an arm crossover on my left arm. Oops! Well thats nothing major compared to a bad squiggly arm. I'm gonna see if I can get the video to show a bad example of what I used to do, and what I did tonight.

But in the meantime, here is that MAP test that I tried to do last weekend:

swim class, week 1

Just got back from week 1 of my 10 week underwater video swim analysis class. There are 11 or 12 of us, so a pretty good sized class with 4 people in each lane. I'm in the middle speed lane, but about the slowest in the middle lane. Oh well, we aren't here for speed, just technique.

We started with an 8 minute warmup and I swam however far it takes to do in that much time. I was feeling it by the end. I have only been in the pool once since the Westchester Tri over 2 weeks ago. I soon found my rhythm again.

Then we moved onto drills. The first was easy, just kick on your stomach while pressing your chest down. Then we did that dreaded drill that I always choke on water on. Swim 45 degrees on your side with your arm 45 degrees down. Every time I roll I sink and I swallow water. Well guess what I get to work out this week!! Yay..........blah.....

Then we got to the swim video part. Upon review of the tape, I actually looked pretty good in the water. My body was horizontal and my kick was nice and conistent. My arm work is what was pointed out as not being so good. Basically I am trying to do a catch drill and I am letting my forward arm hang out in front too long. I am also crossing my arms over, which is making me zig-zag in the water, also not good. So already I am getting some great feedback.