Manatee Mentors 2015.2 CLOSED (Poptarts? Pet pics?) (Page 60)

Welcome back!

And hopefully I didn't just scare people away from swimming. The going hard part tends to apply to everything, figuring out what it means in all three sports (see anyone first getting a powermeter or training by pace for something fast). Where swimming really steps it up is in the body awareness. What is everything doing? So many types I think form may have been slipping some and I didn't do enough about it. Didn't necessarily seem like hardly anything, but it can mean a lot here.

Fortunately I've been working on that focus ever since I started swimming (I'm an adult-onset swimmer).  The main reason I can't keep track of the number of laps I've done is because I'm so focused on making sure I'm maintaining my form.  I can really tell when my focus slips; my form goes completely out the window!

In my 1st tri, I was able to really get into a groove for the last 3rd of the swim and actually placed 7th in my AG.  Figuring out how to keep that focus while bumping into and around everybody in the OWS is challenging.  I'm hoping that if I can get turn body awareness into body memory, I think I'll be able to drop into that strong clean pace sooner.

There's definitely something to be said for turning off your brain and body for awhile.  Hope you had a fabulous and refreshing vacay.

I did my first masters swim today!

Turns out my stroke only mostly sucks.    Coach (who is also two of my kids' coach, as it happens) put me in my own lane and spent the morning helping me with my stroke.  Crazy awesome he would do that - very thankful.  (good chance he was just protecting the others from me)

Thursday it's the prescribed workout, though. 

Matt

ETA - hey Ben, maybe all you did was scare some of us straight. 

Matt, someone here keeps telling me I need Masters work. I'll be interested to follow your progress.

Thanks.  The original plan was to fly into Vegas, hang out there for a few days and then drive up to St. George for hiking in Zion and some of the other parks around there.  After two days laying by the pool I canceled the other reservations, got a penthouse suite at the Mirage and never left the pool.  My wife was a little disappointed but I really needed to do nothing for awhile.  

Looks like I have lots of trainer time in store this week....

All my swimming since starting in tris have been done in a masters program.  The coach gives lots of one on one time and feedback and still my stroke stinks!  Of course, that was all before my shoulder surgery.  Maybe when I go back (and I really need to!) I'll find that I can now actually do what I'm instructed to do! But I won't hold my breath waiting for that miracle

Masters definitely helped me improve, mostly from the standpoint of wanting to keep up.  But what helped me more than anything was taking some semi-semi private lessons (there were 4 of us--helped keep the cost reasonable).  Despite the fact that the 4 of us needed to work on different aspects of our stroke, that personal attention to my issues was invaluable.  An hour a week, in addition to 3 Masters sessions, for about 4 months in the off-season took 15s/100m off my times.

Janyne, did you see this? 

Looking to talk to runners who've hired a coach to help with marathon training for an upcoming story. Is that you? Let me know! #runchat

— Meghan G. Loftus (@meghgrace) April 14, 2015

Hands!  $6 tutus!  Just what you always wanted :-D

But it's not  PINK. 

Can someone tell me when and why it has become so popular to wear tutus for races?  I don't get it.

I'm assuming that you meant the hot pink? Also $6

Another Masters fangirl here.  It has helped me tremendously, and our group tends to be small enough that those that need it get personal attention/tips/help.  We usually range from 6-15 people (but usually somewhere in the middle) with varying needs and abilities, from the speedy 20-somethings to the 70 year old retired lady who typically goes at the pace she wants, to those in between (yours truly).  It never ceases to amaze me how much our coach sees, stroke/form-wise.

hahaha, it is perfect - especially the hot pink one!  Too bad I don't have it in time for this weekend's race 

That's no small feat keeping up with guys like that.  I'm impressed.

I've only been to Masters a few times and it wasn't really for me.  As with running and biking, I prefer to be a lone wolf.  In the long run I wouldn't be as fast as being pushed and coached within group settings but since I started running 40 years ago (I started young) I've never been able to stick with any running, biking, or swimming group for long.  

Shouldn't be a problem in terms of having to push myself.  As the coach was pointing out form of some of the other swimmers, he mentioned what they'd done. 

Non-complete list of some of the swimmers was something like: former national champion; first out of the water at Alcatraz; first out of the water in their AG at Kona.  Ummmm... and someone else told me LA occasionally swims with this group.

WTF?

Oh, and it's a good thing that tutu wasn't in orange.  That's all I'm saying about that... 

Matt

I haven't been able to find a Master's group in my area that I can get into.  The only one I've found requires that you be able to swim a certain speed/distance to qualify to participate.  I'm not fast enough, so I can't join.  I'll post something in the CO forum here to see if anybody else knows of another one. 

One of the rec centers has a "swim conditioning class" 2x/week.  It's a semi-coached drop-in class where there's a posted workout with a variety of drills and intervals of various strokes.  When I went last year, I really struggled with the drills due to back and hip issues and the instructor ended up mostly focusing on 2 other triathletes who wanted help with their swimming.  It seems to be a fairly small, regular group that pretty much comes in, does the workout, then leaves without interacting much with each other or the instructor.  He told me that he really likes getting to do some one-on-one work with people because it gets boring when nobody wants his feedback/help.  It might be worth my while to check it out again.

For private lessons, I can always go back to the tri coach I used this winter.  She's a really good swim coach and has already analyzed my swimming strengths/weaknesses using video. Even though I couldn't do it every week (she's located an hour away),I'm sure it'd be helpful.

So many options!