Yanti and Lynn, Mentors of the Manatee Melee: FULL (Page 31)

I am going on a little camping trip this weekend and keeping training to a minimum, but when I get back I have 4 weeks until a triathlon. I have not been swimming much and need to get back into it. I have a pool at my gym and there are many lakes around me. How much time should I be spending in the water for the next month (days a week) and how much of it where (pool vs open water)?

Background info: I grew up on a lake and am comfortable in the water but I don't love to swim freestyle and I'm not all that great at it. I read the total immersion book and grasp the concepts and am working on applying them but would definitely be considered a work in progress...

I've got to get back to checking more regularily, or setting-up the e-mail notificaitons again (had to turn them off due to size limits of in-box and my travel).

Great work Yanti on the swim!!  Love the mermaid graphic too. 

Adrienne - looking forward to reading your ride / race report.  I'm always interested in people's cycling experiences and such.

As for me - got my A$$ handed to me in the peak to peak tri last weekend (96 out of 111 in AG***).  The only up-side was that I BELIEVE Dave Scott was near the finish shouting encouraging items to individuals - including me.  I started to walk some and he singled me out, gave some quick advise about "resetting my body" and forgetting about my watch.  Really got into it when I restarted my running - real neat.

As for the race, a report will be written at some point; however, I have never been so close to getting off my bike and running as I was there.  I was figuring the probability of being able to run with the bike faster than the 3mph I was riding.  BRUTAL hill within the first 10 miles of the ride (in fact - I believe the up-hill portion was the entire 10 miles of the first part of the ride).  It just kept going and going and got steeper the longer you were on it (believe it ended at ~16% grade).  Much worse that SF since it was SOOO long with no break.  The downhill was nice though - They put up a speed limit of 35 in the steepest part (which I followed), but after the control area, I did get into low 40's.

*** Not too concerned about my placing though - my time would have had me podium in my 1st tri last year.  This is just a reminder that you can't control who else shows up - and in an 5i50 (Ironman run) race in Boulder, it will be the best of the best.  Also note - Boulder was the first locaiton listed in their top 15 places to live for Triathletes.  What does concern me was how spent I was 1 mile into the run.  I was DONE!   Fork in me and call me a roasted pig.  This has me worried about the Boulder 70.3 in August - I dread the though of only being halfway done when I was finishing this time. 

Manatees,  I have survived my first HIM!!!  Overall I'm super pleased by the outcome....I finished with a smile on my face.  

I was very happy with my swim.  I stayed calm and controlled.  That was my mantra for the whole swim, calm and controlled. I exceeded my expectations on the bike.  I averaged 18.6mph and was amazed I finished in just under 3 hours!!!  The run was another story.  The run is my strength, but it ended up being a sufferfest.  The conditions were very hot and humid and a lot of people were struggling.  I walked through every aid station and took in as much as I could.  I managed to run it in to the finish to hear my name and I smiled big for the camera!!  I finished in 6:09.

Will write up a race report in the coming days.  I'm going to bed and sleeping in tomorrow!

It depends on the situation.  If you're feeling strong and safe, you are a manatee.  If you are a damsel in distress in the water you are a mermaid.  The belly button will get you a lot of help.

Absolutely agree!!!

Big bike chain congrats, 18.6 is faaaaaaaaast no matter what the terrain is like, and yeah, I heard about the hella heat!

Asalzwed - 2011-07-20 1:26 AM Hey, as long as it is stuck to the bottom of a body of water I would say it is very representative of myself 

I was thinking more like stuck to the bottom of a body ...

Wow, the Pod's level of awesome has just gone even higher since the last time I checked in.  HIMs.  200 mile bike rides.  10k swims.  Having ones handed to him and finishing anyway.  And all on top of the previous level of awesome of triathlons every week that we somehow take to be "normal" in this asylum, er, pod.  

Congrats to all of our recent achievers: Claire, Adrienne, Yanti, John, et al that I missed.  Good on ya.

[edit: spelled awesomer wrong]

So, up until about a week or so ago, I'd never managed to swim more than 1000 yards uninterrupted.  Needless to say, this had me a little nervous about the olympic distance.  But I've had a bit of breakthrough and the last three times in the pool I've done 1600 yards or more without a stop.  [It's not all crawl yet (I work in a regular rest length of breast stroke) but I'm content enough for now.]

That's the little victory.  Here's the question:

Now that I know I can do the yardage for my target race distance, is it advantageous to start doing drills or some other structured workout rather than just plodding along?  Keep in mind that I don't care at all about speed in the swim at this point.  Maybe next year, but considering that last spring I couldn't swim a length without panicking and clinging to the end of the pool for breath for a solid minute, for now I'm fine with surviving the swim.  So, are there other things than speed to be gained that might make it worth complicating my swim workout?

1. Congrats on coming so far in your swim and the breakthrough!

2. Can you do the yardage in OWS under unexpected conditions? What if they mismeasure the course long?

3. No. However, you might be able to lengthen your swim more easily by doing long intervals (say, 9x200) with short rest (10s, 15s) than just keeping making it longer.

4. If 'Maybe next year' turns into 'I want to enjoy swimming more/get more aerobic conditioning and fitness benefit out of it/definitely next year' then it's time to start work on the foundation of technique.

Thanks for all the kind words guys.  I'm awake now and managed to write a race report.  Back to the land of the living.  

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=261461&posts=1&start=1

1. Thanks. 

2. Probably not.  I'm hoping for major benefit from a wetsuit, but I'm sure that has its limits.  A further complication: there's nowhere to try one around here and not anywhere convenient to practice OWS, so it's likely to be first time in wetsuit and first time in OW on the day of the tri.  Double fun.  Also, in addition to the breast stroke, I'm going to try to learn some other rest/survival strokes.

3. Is that kind of structure something you'd recommend working in sometimes or most of the time?  I.e., should something like that replace my long swim for the week and just do long, slow distance on the short and medium days?  Or, do something like what you recommended most days and just do a long, slow distance day once every couple of weeks to track progress?

4. I was thinking that might be the case.  As it is, just upping the distance is likely to run into diminishing returns at some point such that I'll be spending a lot more time in the water than I can really justify for the cardio benefits.

Note: I'm using a modified TI technique. ["modified" means I'm doing it wrong]