Mamma Amy Knows Best - Mentor Group Year One - CLOSED (Page 5)

Hey, I'm a swim coach (for 10 years now) so I may be able to help you! First off, some people advance faster than others. Don't stress over it! Your instructor is completely right, TAKE YOUR TIME! I tell my swimmers all of the time that speed isn't everything unless you have the perfect skill and breathing to go along with it. When I first started swimming I rushed to keep up with everyone. I had the endurance but not the skill. I got my butt kicked in meets the first year. The next year I began to listen to my coach and focused on my skill and breathing. That is when I broke out and began beating people and breaking records. I was a natural swimmer BUT I still had to slow down and focus on my stroke and breathing.

One thing I do for my swimmers is critique each of them. I write down good and bad things, things they do well and things they need work on. Maybe he could do that for you. I laminate my swimmers critiques (I go to Kinko's and they do it for cheap) so they can keep it on the pool deck and look at it in-between sets or drills. I remind them to look at it often so it begins to stick with them and it is second nature. They all seem to do much better when I do that.

I hope this helps! If you need some more help or have any other questions please feel free to contact me! Good luck and stick with it!

My plan is just to start exercising. I've been a total couch potato. I joined a masters swim team. It's been hard to get there, it's early a.m. I'm starting the C25K this week. I use an exercise bke here at home. The tri is a 15 minute swim, 30 min. on the bike and then 2.28 run (I just looked it up, not 2.8 like I wrote earlier). So it's not too bad. If I train.

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Yes! that's me. Glad you have family coming to this one. I might be entering with an acquaintance. If not, I'll drag Dave out to watch!

Hey James - I think you have some good advice from our resident swimmers. I'm no expert but I think you're in a good place if you're swimming with a masters team. For me that has made a big difference in my speed and endurance because it does push me in ways I don't push myself. But I think that you might want to ask your coach for feedback on your stroke if you haven't already. My coach waits a while to give feedback because some people just don't want to hear it and not all masters swimmers are actually looking to get faster. I know - who knew!

I did actually do a private lesson with a local Total Immersion instructor about a year ago. It was great. What was so great for me is that he was in the pool with me so while I "knew" that my body position wasn't right I hadn't been able to turn any instructions so fix that into action and he did 2 things. He recorded me swimming so I could see my position and he then pulled my chest into the right spot so that I could feel the difference.

Lastly, a few years ago ... okay probably 8 years ago literally the week after I had run a marathon I got into the pool to do some swimming as recovery. I literally could only swim 25 yards. It was so crazy - how could I run an entire marathon and not be able to swim more than 30 seconds?  I called my brother (who swims) and asked him how was this possible. He said, next time you run hold your breath and see how far you get. I know ... he's pretty funny that way. What I have learned is that swimming really is it's own conditioning and it relies heavily on technique and breath control. This brings me to my number one personal rule of triathlon training - never skip the swim workouts. I have been ignoring this rule for the last week or so and I am going to pay for it come Monday morning.

Stick with it.

James, I also swam competitively and coached for 10+ years. 

I think that the schedule and group mentality of masters practices are a good thing.  They bring about improvements that can be gained by sheer yardage and endurance.  They also can increase a swimmer's comfort in the water.  Masters can be so different from place to place depending on the coach and the group.

It's encouraging that your coach has you doing drills and has you using different equipment.  This indicates to me that he is willing to differentiate practices to each swimmer's skill set.  Drills can be wonderful for helping a swimmer to adjust their body position and gain balance in the water.  Different drills have different purposes/focuses.  They should be mixed with regular swimming so that the swimmer can try to concentrate on the same skill with the whole stroke.

Some individual tutoring might be helpful.  I honestly don't know how people are able to improve their technique significantly on their own.  I'm guessing that using technology to record yourself and looking at good technique online is of some help, but frequent feedback seems more advantageous to me.

Thanks so much gmorning, LSUrunningmom, miamiamy and rustymom! What a great group!!!

This is all great advice. I guess I was just thinking I was doing too much too soon and it was hurting me rather than helping me.

Amy hit it right on the head - I would run 12 miles on Saturday feeling strong and then on Monday in the pool I would be completely out of breath after 1 lap. I have to go slower and learn to breath better, I tend to forget this when I am trying to go to fast and everything else starts to fall apart.

My coach is a great guy and all the people there are very supportive and I feel very lucky to have found them and would hate to stop going but I have to do what will help me best. Rustymom brought up a good point how my coach uses different equipment with different people but sometimes he includes me in the larger group drills where I can't keep up and I think it is hurting me. There is one drill where we all go in a line following  each other moving across lanes from one side of the pool to the other. If I am last in line I am OK, i just fall behind but if I am not I have someone swimming up my butt and I try to rush and lose what little form I have and start messing up my breathing. I think what I have to do is talk to my coach about it so he is a little more aware of my pure beginner status. Maybe he will be able to suggest something that would work a little bit better for me or as LSUrunningmom said I could just try to get a little more disciplined and "TAKE MY TIME". If that doesn't workout I think I will give the private lessons a try as gmorning suggested and there is no rule that I can't still do this in conjuction with my group.

You guys are all awesome! I do have to say as each one of you were joining the group I was pleasantly pleased as all your bios were popping up with this great swimming experience. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you so much!!!!

I'll keep all of you updated on my progress.

Nice job on the run Amy. I usually go out in the dark and cold at 5:00 AM on my runs but scheduled a mid-day run with a friend for the first time yesterday and I was glad I did. It was 3 degrees up here yesterday morning with a wind chill of -12. Luckily it warmed up to a balmy 20 degrees at 1:00 PM when I went out. I think I am going to try and fit more of these mid-day runs in at least through January anf February.

BTW - I saw gmorning was working on keeping her heart rate down and I have too using this Hadd approach to distance running - Its premise is you are either not running long enough or too fast. It is try ing to build up your aerobic rather than anaerobic stamina so you burn less lactic acid. Anyone use this before? any thoughts?

This is my first time looking into the Hadd approach and I too am wondering if I can adapt it to running shorter (non-marathon) distances. I currently have a half marathon on May 26th that I was going to try and get down to under 8 m/m but my running friend stated I would have to be putting in 50 mile weeks and I don't think I would have the time. For reference my last  5k I did a PR of 8:22's. Right now trying to do 25-30 mile running weeks has been tough with fitting in 3 swim classes plus I still have to start bike and weight training, so this 8 m/m for a half may need to be curtailed. I have a sprint triathlon July 7th which is my main goal because I really enjoyed the cycliing I did at the end of last summer and I want to conquer the swimming. I would like to do one or two more sprints and maybe another half marathon or dare I say a full marathon later in the fall. So I kind of think I am on the cusp of being a Hadd candidate but not sure.

BTW - I too have been having trouble with the site trying to get pictures down to 50 KB and just trying to copy and paste our group names/links. Any helpful hints out there?

Today is the second day I skipped my run. I am having a little pain in my knees from standing all day but since I am resting tonight i should be good for a run tomorrow. I do plan on waking up early tomorrow and going to run and do my weights. 

I am beginning my sprint triathlon training on Sunday. 

I don't know about HADD (gotta look that up) but I use my heart rate for all my zones for training except the swim. I don't wear my hrm in the pool - or a watch actually. I trained for my last marathon using a heart rate training plan and while it took a while it was very helpful. In the beginning my recovery runs were more like walks to keep my heart rate low enough. Seems crazy but it worked for me - that's my PR.

I hope everyones weekends are off to a good start. I totally overslept this morning so I did my 14 miles by myself which was fine. It was a beautiful South Florida day though I have to say. 

Well I did my first marathon (years ago) I trained with a Galloway training group. Walk - run. I would say they do the bare minimum of mileage. They ran 2 times during the week for 30-40 minutes and then the long runs. I finished the marathon in 5 hours and 5 minutes.

That being said - I don't recommend that minimum at all. Personally I find that for me it is a formula for injury to do so little mid-week mileage and then have long runs.

Are you going to use a training plan to prepare for your marathon?

Tomorrow starts the first full week of the year. And the first full week of my training plan. Luckily, Sunday is my rest day (at least until my May half marathon). So I don't HAVE TO do anything. I'm going to try to get it some yoga and/or a short walk. Just need to get some blood flowing and do a little stretching. Today's 4 mile run was quite icy, so my gait was off and my pace was slow. I'm feeling pretty sore in my ankles and knees.

My goal for the week is to not skip any of my standard workouts. (I have a few optional workouts - Sunday swim, weights and core training class; Tuesday run; Wednesday weights.) This week I just want to get all of my training sessions in - Monday spin class, Tuesday yoga at lunch and after work swim, Wednesday trainer ride, Thursday run, Friday yoga at lunch and swim and weights after work, long run Saturday morning. This will be very hard for me, as I've been slacking on my swim workouts for months. I'm struggling so much with my swim stamina and breathing that I dread all my swim workouts. But this is the week I get back in the pool!

Hey JREDFLY,

Just wanted to let you know that I bought the Total Immersion DVD. It's called "Perpetual Motion Freestyle in 10 Lessons". Got it on Amazon.

I watched a couple of the lessons and then went to the pool. Honestly, it was one of the most productive swims I've ever had. The lessons are very good at teaching you what to focus on while you are swimming. Very basic and innovative at the same time. I might eventually get a coach from TI or even do one of their training camps. But the DVD is totally worth it and self-coached.

Hope you are well,

g

Hi G, Thanks for the tip I will definnitely pick up that DVD and give it a try.

Went on a run today with my new gps/heart rate monitor (very cool), while trying to use the Hadd approach. Tried to keep my heart rate under 130 so i had to run 13.5 minute miles. At first it was really hard to run that slow because my usual easy run is at a 10.5 but it got easier after the first mile. Where as the Hadd approach wants you up to a minimum of 50 miles per week I may not have the time to keep it going plus I still need to do some more research on whether this will help me on my shorter planned races - I'll let you know if I find out anythng. Thanks again! James

Hi DLB, There a lot of people here that have more experience than me but I used Hal Higdon for my c25k and 10k training. He has some very popular marathon training schedules (for free on his website) from beginner to very experienced runners. He also encourages the Galloway approach that Amy mentioned  which incorporates some waliking at water stations. To all those that say the marathon must be run with no walking he notes that Bill Rodgers walked twice and tied a shoe in his first Boston Marathon win 2:09 victory (very cool). My running buddy keeps on giving me grief over this and he keeps saying "the Kenyans don't walk" (Ha! Ha!)

Sad note: Went by the Bill  Rodgers running shop at Fanuel Hall in Boston and it closed down last month. The guy that worked their said the big stores and the internet were just too much to compete with. Too bad it was kind of a Boston Runner's Landmark.

BTW - Just google Hal Higdon and his site will come up.

Hope this helps.

Thx James