Sink or SWIM! with WittyCityGirl - CLOSED (Page 22)

Thanks for the RR, Simon.  That's such a bummer about the bottle neck.  Imagine what your PR would have been without the treading water?!  Next year you'll CRUSH that time!

Curt, great job!  Can I recommend that you throw in some EBEH reps into your workout?  So, let's say you're swimming 10 x 100.  Try some of them 25 yards easy/25 yards build (start medium pace and build to a sprint by the end of the length)/25 yards easy/25 yards hard.  The change in pace REALLY stresses your body (in a good way!!!) so that it might help you shave off those last few seconds.  It should force your body to recruit more fast twitch muscles so you can go faster.  It also helps that heart to work on recovering more efficiently and then putting out maximum effort immediately after.

Best wishes to you Itzia!  That's a heck of a challenging life change that you're going through, so kudos for being a parent that can look for a balance between self and family.  You're a role model for seeking out healthy behaviors during a time that can often be stressful!

Hello friends!

It appears that BT ate some of my posts when I was on the work computer (karma?).  I competed in a 77.7 mile relay with 6 other members from our local triathlon club (www.broomecountytriathlonclub.com).  It took us just over 12 hours to get around Seneca Lake by foot and the fastest team took just over 6 hours!  I was able to bike a little between my run legs (each person ran three times), so on Saturday I ran 10 miles and biked just shy of 30 miles.  Man, I was tired from that!  But, it was SO fun to have a small team work together to accomplish the task of getting around a lake. =)

So, in just about 6 weeks I have to bike 148 miles from Boston, Massachusetts to Windsor, Vermont for the Harpoon Brewery to Brewery ride www.harpoonb2b.com .  I had planned on a few century rides before 6/18, but the weather in New York has been AWEFUL!!  Binghamton is in the top 10 U.S. cities for worst weather.  We've had rain every day for several weeks and today is no different.  We've been flooding on and off so it's been disastrous for road conditions/training.  I decided to take my bike to the LBS for a tune up and new tires and make this week a run/swim focus week until I get my ride back.

You're all doing a great job of posting on the thread and in your logs.  Keep up the great work!

Does the fact you're riding to a brewery help with getting you through the ride? . Good luck with the ride - that is a long one. I just looked at a map, and was tired just looking at it.

I'm going to be off training for a couple days due to craziness at home and work travel. I was up past midnight last night doing stuff at my house in prep for some work happening next week. Will continue the next couple of nights. I have to get up at 3:45 am tomorrow for a long day trip for work as well. Hopefully Friday I'll be back at it. Good work everyone else!!!

Mike - yay for the new pain free PR distance. Hope your daughter keeps improving with her swimming too and gets in to the local swim team. Sounds like you're both water babies though

 Johanne - glad you had fun on the girls weekend. Sorry about the flat tire on the bike, hope the people at the shop can fix it and  teach you how to do it yourself. Don't feel bad about skipping of ditching workouts, theres such a thing called life and sometimes it just inteferes

 Curt - Sounds like everything is starting to come together with the swimming. Good work with the running. Can I ask the actual distances between your "landmarks" that you use to time yourself?

Curt - Love that everything is getting better including your recovery times

 Itzia - Wow on the bike ride. Sorry about the divorce. Hope the single parenting thing goes well and get in the training where you can. Hope things get better for you.

Sara - great work on the relay and bike miles. Have fun with the brewery to brewery ride

Me - I've pretty much been living in bed the last couple of days with a sore leg, headache and a cold - mainly cough - but I headed out with BFF for lunch today and it wasn't too bad - I had to sit down a few times and the cough agravated the headache but that's about it.
I'm going to try a 20-25 min walk in the morning so I can go check the post office box and see if my new blood test card is in, then I'll  probably go up and get it done if it is. It may even make it easier to get the blood out of me, lol.  I think that'll be my only walk before the race though because I don't want to pust things too hard.
Oh it aslo appears that I'm going to be spending the day after the race at the beach with BFF (doing the race with BFF and her Mum) so that should be fun. I probably won't do any proper swimming, lol - still not that big a fan of open water - but I may give going in and generally mucking around a go if she can find a swimsuit by Sunday.

Hope the rest of you have a good day. I'm going to bed, lol

Like the idea on the EBEH idea for 100's Sara.  I'll give it a go the next time I'm in the pool.

Got home in time to head out on a bike ride.  It went really well -- kept the RPMs around 90 for the entire thing and was using my lungs versus my muscles.  18 mph for the loop was not bad, but faded on the last 1/3 badly.  Felt really good when I got home, so I decided to head out for a brief run.  Legs felt funny, but I was really moving.  Estimated the pace / don't know the distance, but was certainly sub 8:30 based on my one reference point from a standard run. 

ETA --- Let it be known to all that Mike now also goes by the name "Mr. Inside-Out".  Check out the other forums for the rest of the story..... 

Sorry Mike, can't resist that one!!!!!

Final couple of weeks of classes, which means I have been somewhat absent--after May 20th, I'm free! Anyway, still training--this Saturday the organizers of the tri I am doing on the 22nd are having a course run through(technically, its a swim, bike and run through--we're basically going through the whole race, and then they will feed us...). So I will be getting an idea of what I am in for at my first tri! Every day, I feel a bit more nervous...

We hit the pool yesterday, my coach says that my swimming is really improving--I've got most of the technique--I know what to do, I still get messed up with my breathing--I end up in sort of 'panic' mode and then I cant get my breath right...stupid subconscious, always messing with me! After the swim, we did a 2.5 mile run (with a bit of walking)--there is also improvement there, but not quite where I want to be yet...That was on top of the bike commute on Tuesday, where I beat my PR twice--in the morning it took 50 minutes (it had been 55 min.) and in the afternoon, the ride was only 45 minutes--I'm quite happy with that.

Thats about t for now, I'll check in when I can (hopefully my brain wont melt away from school in the meantime!

Hmm, Kate, can I suggested something few other coaches/instructors/mentors may suggest?

Breathing is a survival thing and a mental thing, that's for sure, but so is learning how to control breathing and learning how to teach yourself that you will "survive" without air (for a short amount of time!).

Do you ever try swimming underwater?    Try this... push off the water and flutter kick about a foot under water with your hands out in front.  Try to keep your body level as you count one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand.  Come up for a breath and go back under to flutter kick one foot under water.  Exhale as you kick underwater. 

When you become comfortable with that, try this.  Push off the wall, hold your breath for 1-2 seconds and THEN exhale for 3 full seconds...  over time (as in weeks!) increase how long you hold your breath before you exhale.  It's called hypoxic training and can be considered controversial because it's often a bad idea to hold your breath under water.  BUT, your body DOES adapt by adjusting it's chemistry so that it can buffer the carbon dioxide hangout out in yoru blood.  It's often that CO2 that makes hyperventilating stressful on your body in combination with less oxygen.

Why suggest that?  I think when you become comfortable under water and on top of the water then you build confidence that you can handle either situation.

Let me know what you think!

Don't know about the rest of you, but I can't say enough about how great it is to have folks on this site to offer suggestions!!!  I absolutely love the mentor group idea as the tips for one, often help many.

Thanks again Sara for taking good care of your "mentees"!

Its in some 'embarrasing tri thing' related thread. The jist of it is, last Monday when I went swimming, I couldnt' figure out why I was feeling strange while in the pool. Only when I finished, and got out did I realize my swimsuit was on inside out.

I left San Jose this morning at 5:30, drove down to L.A. to pick up my daughter then we got into Tempe about 7:30 tonight. Long day but glad we made it! Tomorrow morning I'm picking up my niece at the airport (she was smart and is flying!) and we'll go to check in in the afternoon. Latest report is the race will be wetsuit legal I'm a little nervous but excited to get my first race of the season done.

Who else is racing this weekend?

Johanne

Kate - Glad everything is starting to come together with the swimming. Hope the swim, bike, run through of the course for your first tri goes well and good luck with all the school stuff.

 Mike - That's better than the story I heard on Graham Norton the other night. Guy decided to wear a small swimsuit to accentuate things for a photo shoot (not sure what it was for) and after walking around the pool with everyone smiling and staring at him he found out that he was "hanging out", lol

Johanne - Sounds like you've had an eventful day. Good luck with the race.

Me - Finally got a walk in and everything seems to have fixed itself bar the heel but that's seems to be a permanent thing - hurts after I've been walking for a while. Only did 11 mins (0.44 miles) from the station to home and I probably started out too fast because I was going slower by the end - then again it could have also been the slight incline I was on. I also took my BFF swimsuit shopping so we can go to the beach after the race on Sunday and ended up with a new one for myself too.

Next walk will be the race on Sunday.

Back at it today after 2 days away due to work/home goings on. Did a short swim, and it felt good, but could have done more, which brings me to my topic du jour. I'm looking for help/input from anyone on this --

How to deal with lack of focus and motivation during swimming workouts?

I have been in a rut swim workout wise for a couple of months now. I get to the pool, I sometimes don't feel like swimming, but I get in and swim about (with a plan), but about 1/2 way through, I call it a day, and head to the showers. Its not a physical thing, and I'm not tired/wiped out, in fact, I could easily keep going, yet I don't. Take today for instance. Haven't worked out in any way since Tuesday, and did about 1/2 my planned workout at the pool. WTH? I LIKE swimming, I enjoy it, but the thought of just going back & forth over and over just sucks the willpower out of me, it seems.

I don't have this issue w/ bike or run at all. In fact, I think I get mentally tougher in those sports with each workout.

How do I toughen up on the swim? Just HTFU? My pace per 100 is around 1:40, and has been fairly consistent for a while. Its not an effort thing, and in fact someone this AM told me I was a 'pretty good, fast swimmer'. (!!!). But I just lose my motivation when I'm there. Anyone else experience this? Maybe its just a plateau? I'm still a real newbie swimmer (couldn't do 25 yards last July),  so maybe thats a factor? Perhaps a new swim workout routine? right now I'm following a plan and in general the workouts follow a WU/Drills/Main set/CD pattern. Maybe for my main set I'll go do the '0 to 1650' endurance build plan. I think I need some concrete goal in front of me to get me truly motivated, and maybe that would help (althought I could swim 1650 now if I tried).

OK, I'm now rambling. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Absolutely!!  The first multi-sport race I ever did was a duathlon in Vermont because we were supposed to get Blue Moon beer at the end.  A last minute switch resulted in Harpoon beers.  I was barely interested, so now I train so that I can finish and still eat/drink!

You're welcome. =)  This has been a fabulous group! I'm really enjoying it.  We have people with all sorts of good questions who happen to be fabulous cheerleaders!

lol.  That would feel funny!  I was happy to read that it wasn't a situation where your threadbare suit finally ripped open in the back!  I see SO many speedos that are one wrong move away from a peep show!

YAAAAAAAAAAAY JOHANNE!!!!!!! I'm so excited for your race!!! Can't wait for the RR. Enjoy it, I hope you have nice weather!

Oh! Have fun at the race AND at the beach!  Are you able to take pictures of you at the race and the beach? I'd love to see some sun and sand!