The First of Many Laps

I spent my lunch hour at a pool trying to work on my stroke. I've read that it is better to work on the stroke than swim for endurance. I've tried to put instruction from YouTube videos into practice. The results were not immediately successful. I think this will be a long road.

I tried some of the drills recommended in my triathlon book (Complete Triathlon Book by Matt Fitzgerald), but they weren't so successful. I tried the "catch-up" drill, but got out of breath (when do you breath and how). I tried the "count stroke" drill, but got out of breath and also lost track. I also tried the "close fist" drill (swimming with close fists) and that worked better. I found that doing 100 yds and being concious of my form was possibly the best.

Among others, I did 3 seperate sets of 100 yards at freestyle, all were 2:44 or 2:45. I wasn't trying a all-out pace, but a pace I could somewhat maintain. I also did 100 yards of backstroke and I clocked it at 2:40, even though turns were much more slow and awkward (I cannot do flip turns).

It will be a long road. I have to remember that I have gone running 53 times since August, but this is my 4th time in a pool. I plan on trying to go twice per week.

Helpful Online Swimming Videos

This is a work-in-progess post. I've been scowering YouTube looking for helpful videos. I've found a few  and tried to put them into practice. When I find additional ones that are good, I will add them.


Freestyle Swimming Technique

 

Freestyle Body Positioning

"Breathe to Air"

Three good swim drills ( "slow arm recovery," "quick catch" and "high swingers")

Common Freestyle Mistakes in Swimming

Preparing for Open Water Swim

 Breathing in Freestyle

Freestyle Stroke Analysis

Grant Hackett - Front Crawl Technique

The Swim Arm Cycle

Open water swimming - sighting technique with Keri-anne Payne

From "The Race Club"
Secret Tip - Head Position Part 1
Secret Tip - Head Position Part 2

Helpful YouTube Running Videos

The benefit of running today as opposed to trying to run in 1995 (when I was in high school) is the advent of the internet and YouTube. Information is much more readily available, but sometimes the good information may be hard to find.

If someone was starting running, and especially if they were prone to shin splits, I would heavily recommend the first two videos. As for the five mistakes, I was making four of them. Implementing the tips from these videos has changed my view of running from "I hate it" to something much more managable (I still don't love running).

Five Beginner Running Mistakes:

Forefoot running explained:

Newton is a new shoe company that has designed their shoes around forefoot running. I started running on my forefoot a few months before I bought their shoes. Watching the video made me realize it wasn't a gimmick. It made sense. I've owned them for two months now, and I am a happy customer. My joint pain is less and I think my run time is up because the pain is less.

Newton has other good videos, but this one below hit home for me. Despite trying to run on my forefoot, I would still feel some shin pain from time to time. I think this is why (I was still overextending).

Longest Run Ever (5 miles)

I ran five miles on Saturday. Yup. Five miles. Since my in-laws were in town for my son’s 1^st birthday, my and I were able to go together. I first ran with the Mrs. for 2.4 miles at her pace (11:29/mile), and then I ran 2.7 miles at a faster pace (10:14/mile), but slower than my recent training pace.

I didn’t really care about time at all, though. Since my previous furthest distance ever was 3.28 miles, so running 5.1 miles has been a huge ego boost. I now have confidence that I could run a 10k. At the end, I wasn’t out of breadth, but my legs were very tired. They are still sore today.

Back in the Pool

So I got to go swimming over lunch. The place is really nice and the cost was low ($5/visit). So I swam a total of 650 yards in about 18 minutes. I started with 250 yards, but got myself all out of breath and I couldn’t probably recover even switching to backstroke. So I stopped, rested and started again. I did 300 yards, all freestyle. It was slow, but I was happy to be able to maintain the stroke, since that is where I want to get to eventually.  Backstroke laps won’t really help my eventual goal. However, the overall time was as a slow as when I did add in backstroke. Later in the season they are supposed to switch the lanes to lengthwise so each lap will be 50m, which means less turns. I stink at turns, but there is no point in learning them if tri swims are open swims.

I’ve gotten my 5k time down to 28:22 minutes, so part of my mind was expecting to immediately be producing equivalent times on the bike and the swim, but that is far from true. While I’m not quite at square one as I was when I started running, I am much further down on the learning curve.

Time on the Bike

I got to take my bike for another spin this morning. It’s basically the 4^th time I’ve taken it out for exercise. I went 5.5 miles. I didn’t really get too out of breadth, but my legs get tired. Cycling definitely used different muscles that running – more the quads rather than the calves.

Part of mind thinks I should be able to do 15 miles at 20 mph already. I’m not like I was with running August, but there is some build up required. The other part of my brain has me practicing things like going over potholes or rounding corners (trying to get a feel for the speed to make a certain turn). The rationale side of me says all of these things take time to practice. I am still getting used to being on a bike again. I still have 21 weeks until a triathlon. For reference, I’ve been running for 17 weeks.

Longer than 5k

I did run on Sunday for 3.28 miles, which is my new longest distance and still maintain a pace of 9:50 min/mile, though I felt tired when I started. I think if I can build the endurance to run a 10k, then I should be able to have the endurance to do the triathlon. Similarly, I should be able to swim 1k (all freestyle) if that is my only exercise. I might try going swimming tomorrow. I’ll start with 500m. I haven’t swam in 7 weeks. For reference, at that time I was running 2.5 miles at about 10:45 a mile.