Birkierunner's group - ROUND 2 - CLOSED (Page 3)

Today- scheduled off day- good thing- cuz I hace 2 funerals to attend - ugh

Tommorrow 9 miles, Sunday 19 miles!!!!!  Why am I looking forward to it???

because you're in MY mentor group    Good luck

What kind of goal time are you shooting for at Disney?

51m 11.30 miles 13.29 miles/hr

Nothing long, just trying to get my fitness back.

CoachH - 2008-01-05 4:08 PM

Birkierunner - 2008-01-04 7:18 AM

OK, folks...tell us about your big weekend training plans.  Anyone racing?   I hope to get in a 3 hour x-c ski Saturday then a longish run on Sunday combined with either a bike or swim.

24m 919.00 yards 02m 37s /100 yards

51m 11.30 miles 13.29 miles/hr

Nothing long, just trying to get my fitness back.

Hey, no need to get anything LONG in...short and frequent is GOOD if that is what you can get done!!

Hello Glen!

I am sure Jim will provide you a lot of useful tips to master freestyle but I will share my experience with you. I had the very same problems several months ago. While my crawl is still far from perfect, I can swim >1000 m with it.

Freestyle is technique oriented style. I've read somewhere that 90% of your speed is from proper form and 10% from your fitness. One can argue about the exact ratio, but the comparison makes sense.

You can master form by making drills. The most basic one is side kick drill. You can see some more details about it for instance at:

http://swimming.about.com/od/freeandback/qt/freestyle_side.htm

This drill helps you focus on your body position and rotation.

You have nice collection of more drill at Total Immesion site:
http://www.totalimmersion.co.uk/02Free_Stuff--Videos.html

Total Immersion is a method of teaching freestyle and it includes bunch of usefull drills. My tip is to do the side kick and other drills with fins, especially if you have poor kick (it has something to do with ankle flexibility often). With fins you focus on drills anbd proper form instead of struggling to kick.

It is good idea if someone could take a look at your freestyle and give some advice. I improved after joining local Masters group - perhaps you have one nearby as well. You can also attend Total Immersion classes - many claim they are very useful.

Please let me know if you have any questions about this. I am fresh to the topic as drills is what I have been doing for 2 months with Masters.

Cheers :)

Marcin

Hi Glen

I sense a lot of anxiety about swimming in your post.  So, the first thing we need to do is RELAX. This stuff is supposed to be fun   Everyone has to start out somewhere, so you need to take it one step at a time.  I am very glad that Marcin stepped-up and provided some insights from his experiences with starting out with the swim.  That is what builds a great mentor group!

The very first thing I would do, as Marcin suggested, is to find what types of swim lesson programs your local pool offers.  It is impossible to teach someone to swim here on BT, so having someone show you in person is an irreplaceable experience.  I would start with private lessons first because then you will have the full attention of the instructor, rather than 20 other swimmers in a Masters program.  If you can't find a private instructor, then the Masters program is the next best option.

Don't worry about swimming the distance of your races coming up this summer. That will come in time. You just need to get in the pool.  Swim what you can, come back the next day and swim a little further, repeat.  And it won't happen with going to the pool once a week.  I'm forcing myself to get to the pool at least 4x a week this winter because that is my weak event. BELIEVE ME.....I'd rather be outside x-c skiing or running, but I know I have to swim if I want to improve this coming season.

Besides local instruction, there are other resources out there.  If you become a performance member here on BT they have swim drill videos available to you.  Outside of BT, there is a book on Total Immersion that strives to give beginners a feel for the water.  They also hold weekend workshops throughout the country.  There is some debate about whether TI is the way to go, but I think it is a good starting point with people that have swim anxiety.  There are other more advanced books such as The Swim Coaching Bible and Swimming Fastest that you might want to check out down the road when you get more experience.  There is a swim coach that advertises an online swim course on BT (look in the sponsor link) but I don't know anything about the quality of his program.

Hopefully this helps a little.  Let us know what you find out about swim programs available to you.  And don't hesitate to ask questions.

No posts here... seems every is busy with training So how are you doing?

For me this is revocery week, with volume and intensity dropped down. I really need this week as the previous one was really exhausting.

Cheers

Marcin 

Well I did my longest run ever Sunday, I was pretty happy with it.  I have three 20 milers yet before my marathon.  Moday I did a recovery swim and today just 5 miles.

Thos weather is great- my kids want to know if they will be able to swim soon......lol- not outside anyway

Have a good week!

Oh I have a cold weather running question- WHY am all red, rashy and itchy when I get done.  Others have told me they have this too but not as bad as me.  OK- hasnt happened the past few days because it has been nice out.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the "expert answer" also....'cause I'm definitely not an expert on this topic      I'll give it a shot though.   I think everyone would agree that if you weigh less it is easier to propel your body, especially uphill.  Your VO2 is the amount of oxygen (ml/min) that your body is using at any given moment (Skiba 2004). Your VO2max is often corrected for body weight and expressed as ml/kg/min.  So, by definition, if you lose weight you automatically increase your VO2max and should be able to go faster.  However, you are likely losing weight as a result of training, so there is a confounding of the effects of training and the effects of losing weight.  But I don't think anyone would disagree that losing weight helps you get faster.

What is the ideal weight for you?  Only you can determine that because everyone's body structure is different.  For me, during the past 30 years I've developed a "feel" for when I'm in decent racing shape and it usually corresponds to when my weight is around 158 - I'm 5'11".  I have a Tanita scale that measures body composition and according to that I'm probably around 6-7% body fat at that point.  I'm not sure about the accuracy of those scales, but it at least serves as a reference point I can use throughout the year in relation to my situation. 

Unless your trying to get into the elite age grouper category, I wouldn't obsess about the body fat percentage too much.  I think the "how much fat can I pinch on my waist" technique is probably a good way to monitor your body composition throughout the year.  I can tell you right now, I can pinch a LOT on my waist after the holiday season

According to this site, a loss of one pound translates to 0.62% and 0.42% increase in running and biking paces, respectfully.   I stumbled on to this calculator that attempts to predict increase in performance based on weight loss.  Both of these sites state that the predictions are based on the (unrealistic) assumption that no other changes accompany the weight loss.  Like I said above, your training will not only increase your fitness but will help you lose weight. 

Pretty quiet in here  Remember the only dumb questions are the ones that don't get asked.  Or, someone throw out a topic and we can get some discussion going. 

Big weekend coming up.  Anyone got any big plans?   I'm hoping to get a long x-c ski in on Saturday, but there is a huge ski race going on that morning on the same trail (I decided not to race) so I need to get there at the break of dawn to get my "out and back" 40km in before I take a chance on getting trampled by 500 racers on the course.