Sink or SWIM! with WittyCityGirl - CLOSED (Page 30)

Hey Group!! A former mentee gave me permission to let you all know about her swim logs: http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/training/index-weekly.asp?memberid=129125

Betsy0706 does a good job of logging what she does and I thought it'd give some of you ideas for your own training.  I think she was in my group 1-2 years ago, so there should be a good sample of workouts for you to look at.  Enjoy!

I bet the horse is great on the run, but is really slowed down trying to get his wetsuit off? ;-)

I've seen some articles suggest it so people can work on body rotation and not worry about the breathing part.  Like, a kickboard prevents your arms from moving.  The pull buoy prevents your legs from moving... a snorkel prevents your head from moving.

Kate, you're doing awesome. Keep it up!  I'm not sure what advice to give you other than making sure the wetsuit isn't restricting your arm movement so it may lessen the odds of feeling like your arms are lead pipes.  You may have to relax your stroke more, too.  So, you can pull hard/fast to create that forward momentum (you'll glide on the opposite side that's pulling because of this), but then relax your arm as best you can as you recover/bring if forward.  Elbow up, hand down and relaxed/floppy.  You may be tensing up your whole upper body unintentionally.

Oh, fun! Enjoy the ride!

Nice! That's darn quick!  Knock on wood you don't need to use your new skillz during a race!

LOL.  LOVED the picture! I'd kill for some blue sky!  We are in the middle of a 9 day stretch of rain. =( Ugh.  I woke up at the sun was out and by 8:30 it started raining and hasn't stopped.  It seems most of our spring has been that way.  I think I can count on one hand how many nice days we've had from a.m. to p.m.!

Just wanted to give everyone a "high five" for doing an awesome job with inspires.  It makes me feel like we have better "conversations" that way, it's more personal. =)  Keep up the great work!

You should see him on the bike!

That bike fit must have cost you a fortune. 

Worth every penny and he averages 1 mph faster now 

Johanne - I like having the plan for everyday too. I usually post what I'm looking at doing the next day to keep myself accountable - I'm like a day ahead here so I'm basically going to bed when the rest of you get up. Sometimes things change but I still like it. Good luck with those big workouts. Love the pic of your horse. Would taking her/him in the sea have any benefits? I've seen it done on a couple of the movies where they're training them (mainly Pharlap cos it's the only one I've actually watched properly) and am wondering why they do it. Anyway you could always ride the horse to the beach, tether her somewhere and then go swimming couldn't you?

 Sara - thanks. I think that was about the only thing I could find that didn't have anything to do with breathing too. I was just curious when I saw her pull it out of her bag. Everything else I could tell the purpose - cap - so hair doesn't get in eyes, goggles - so water doesn't get in eyes, kickboard - so she could do kick sets or whatever but the snorkel confused me, lol.

Curt & Johanne - you're funny. Love the horse tri comments.

Hit the bike after work.  Wind was down quite a bit and it made it considerably easier.  Held 18.5 mph pace with moderate effort.  Can tell that I'm stronger than last year, but have miles to go to get where I would like to be.  Definitely need more time in the saddle.

After dinner went for a 1000 yard swim.  Took it REALLY easy 29:54 (2:40, 3:05, 3:10, 3:05, 3:02, 3:00, 3:01, 2:57, 2:54, 2:55).  Felt very comfortable and was not breathing hard or working at all.  Need another lesson as I feel sloppy in the water.

Just got back from tonight's OWS--I took your advice, Sara--I focused on relaxing my arms and it helped; also, there were a few others with us tonight, and I got another pointer--She suggested that rather than forcefully exhaling, that I breathe out as if in conversation, letting out the air easily, also to not tense up as much--that really helped...I still got winded, but not nearly as bad as last night, and I recovered pretty quickly from it too.

We had someone with a Garmin  there tonight, and it turns out that we did more distance last night than I thought--I actually swam 600 Meters last night--100 more than my race distance! Tonight I took it a bit easier (I was still tired from last night), but still ended up going for 400 meters...

School is also done for the semester, so I will now commence relaxing for a day or so before my race! (ok, actually, I will be doing a REALLY light run and bike on Sat. morning--coach's orders...)I've been reading all of the posts and will add my 2 cents when I can---they are still very motivating!

Curt - Great work on the bike stuff. I'm sure you'll pick up that 2mph eventually.

Kate - Love hearing about your swim improvement

Me - Decided to steal the bike workouts from the Beginner Exercise program on here and attempted the first one today and I made it - sort of. I went out for a 20 mins basically straight after dinner at BFF's (pasta) and got in 1.14 miles. The only -'s were that I had to rest for 4:23 and walk up a slight incline on the way back. It's usually not an issue but by then my legs were sore (not sure why but oh well.) Oh and my bike likes me again, lol. It didn't complain when I was riding it today (normally makes weird squeaky noises like something is rubbing on something else) aside from a very short, soft one once while I was riding to BFF's in the AM (might log that one even though I don't know how long it was as any bike ride seems like a workout to me right now and it all counts as time in the saddle right?) so I'm definitely going with the noises being the suspensions way of saying "you're too heavy for me" as I'm now shrinking again. Weighed myself this morning and I'm down to 252 lbs (18 stone) which is about 3.3 lbs lighter than last week. So I've now decided to keep up with the weighing weekly and watching my food intake - still need to find one that lets me do the whole thing though.  

Just decided my bike plan - follow the Beginner exercise plan workouts for a month then assess where I'm at and whether to go over to the Beginner cycling plan or just on to month 2 of the BEP. I'm going to start incorporating the biking consistently as of next week

Know the feeling Mike.  Think it's an issue of balance / being careful about over training.  Believe our minds are all willing, but our aged bodies may not be so cooperative!  From all I have read, rest is as important to training as the work outs.  Challenge is believing that and acting on it as we all tend to believe more is better.  Hang in there!

Pass along a big thanks to Betsy for sharing.  Question for you Sara, is this what we should be doing -- one hour with around 2000 yards, 4x a week if we expect to improve?  Are her workouts 'proper' in the mix between drills, speed and distance? 

Biggest challenge for me is in getting the time to do the work required for each discipline.  When I read up on running, the answer is always "run more".  For biking, it's .   Think I'd need 10-12 hours a week to get all of it in.  I liked the cycle I did with the "Time Crunched Triathlete" program, but it was pretty demanding on the body.  Other challenge I have is in the variability of schedule / balance with work, family and sleep

Where's the cape with a big 'K' when you need it?!

Could you imagine what WE would average IF we could draft off of him?!

Have you done any progression drills?  You start by kicking on one side, then the other, then 10-kick-switch drill, then full stroke (for example).  I find it's helpful with the sloppiness because you're adding another swim component (arms) after you've just worked on body position.

His butt is so big we could probably draft 2 abreast.

There's gotta be something in the air today.  Just stopped by a co-workers office and it's stuffed with godzilla toys / animals.  Two other coworkers are in there playing with them.

Not sure a bike ride today is in anyone's best interest!!!!!

Kate, as you improve, you'll (and others in this group!) increasingly be a great resource for new beginners.  You've been "there" with OWS and you're learning how to improve so you'll be a great help to newbies in the future. =)