Shellback1998 Group - FULL (Page 7)

Hi Linda! 

I'm with you there about wearing a wetsuit for the race.  I just calculated your time and it's not bad actually!  To help clarify, it seems you swam 16 lengths for your 1/4 mile in your pool right?  16 lengths = 8 laps = ~1/4 mile.  As Scott said, you swam a pretty good pace for a newbie!  ^_^

~Roland

Do a golf swim tonight, what I mean by this is... Do a 50 yard swim, counting your strokes right hand touches water, left hand touches water, that would be two strokes. Now, add the time it took you to swim this distance. Add the two together, so lets say your SPL is 18, and it took you 45 seconds to swim a 50, 18+45= 63. That would be a round of GOLF. If you're Golf Score is between 60-65, I would say you got great balance in the water.  But the score is depending on height and weight.  My score is around 71, so in theory, I am not a very balanced swimmer. 

Scott

Hi Scott! 

As I study the TI video more and more it does look like I need to start over just like you said.  It will take a commitment for sure to break myself down as I'm sure you had to do since you had years of swimming experience already.  Right now, I have to find my "sweet spot."

~Roland

Yup, finding the sweet spot is fun. Then you get to do Skate, Zippers, Long Vessels etc. Watching those videos, and how effortlessly these people swim is was dis hearting. I'm not a twig, by any means and I my legs just sink to the bottom of the pool. I had a bad cross over on my right arm. Doing the drills is good, especially for you since your race is September, so you're more likely in a base phase. Don't let the drills interfere with the actually distance though. For all of you racing soon, do the drills, but get your volume in. Sooner or later the drills will have muscle memory and start to stick. These drills, I plan to do for a at least a month this coming off season, as I still don't have them down perfectly. 

Scott

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the formula!  Looks like my golf score is 66 based on last night's swim... my stats were 20SPL @ 46 seconds/50 yards.  Looks like I need to work on my stroke efficiency to get balanced.  We both have work to do huh!  ^_^

~Roland

Thanks. It all happened so quickly that I went from oh crap to concern to crap what will this cost me in the blink of an eye.

Scott & Roland - Hey thanks for the swimming support.  I think I will time my 1/4 mile once a week, and practice, practice, practice.

Today, I biked for 14 miles (58:33) and went right into the 3.5 mile run (35:23).  My legs felt like rubber off the bike but I kept my pace (borrowed my daughters heart rate monitor) and tried to keep my heart rate in zone 3.  The funny thing was that right off the bike was a hill and I had the jello legs, going up hill and had to pass a boy scout troop.  The boy scouts were about 10 years old and carrying huge backpacks.  They seemed to be walking at the same pace I was running, but they let me pass them.  My guess is that by letting the little old lady wobbling up the hill pass them they all received another merit badge, but hey I'll take what I can get.

Anyway, good day for me.  Hope all is well for everyone else.

Linda 

Hi Linda!  Very nice brick bike/run combination!  I have yet to do one of those.  I think I'll save them for later after another 6 weeks of base.  How long have you been training? 

~Roland

Don't mean to butt in, but I thought you should give credit where its due.

Here's Jesse's post on swim golf, what the scores mean and drills you can do to improve based on your swim golf scores:

http://kropelnicki.com/?p=249

Jesse's blog is a really good resource -- more information than even the QT2 member pages, its well worth a read from end to end.

I ended up running yesterday after all. One mile warm-up @ 9:58 then 3 miles tempo @8:25.

Master's swim today.

 The 6 100's are an interesting drill because you have people all over you at the start which is exactly what it's like in an open water TRI start. I wish we didn't do 6 of them though. I was pressed for time and would rather have done two of these and then got the yardage in. People end up goofing off and treating it like play time and tackling each other and I don't blame them because it's a break from the serious norm but needing to get home for the wife it wasn't the right day for me.

If you can get a set of people and practice this it really will help. If you think people get stacked at the start of a running race it's so much worse in the open water swim start when you land on people's calves and the same happens to you when the horn goes off.

I'm off from work today so hopefully the weather holds and I'll get in a bike this afternoon.

Yeah, I never did any of that at my masters swim. I'm glad you did though . I need to get a job like you, I'd love to get my 90 mins bike in, then I have hill repeats this afternoon.  Your run was pretty solid. What was your HR? 

Good job!

Scott

Swim golf is a very common concept and one that most swim coaches have been using for a long time. One of our master's coaches was a college coach for years and he stresses it. I don't know who came up with it first but really just about every concept in all three disciplines are being plagiarized from one source or another.

148 average

Mile 1 9:58 with 130 average HR

Mile 2 8:23 with 150 average HR

Mile 3 8:25 with 156 average HR

Mile 4 8:25 with 160 average HR

My company does a fiscal schedule for vacation time so I have to burn 13 days between now and the end of June. So I'm off today and tomorrow thus my ability to bike this afternoon. Normally not an option but I do have flex hours and they don't care if I start at 6AM or 11AM as they know I'm getting the job done and then some. Being in IT I get a lot of work from home days too which really helps.

What happened between miles 2 & 3 and 3 & 4, were there hills? You were negative split for the first two, but you positive split for 2 & 3, and equal split for 3 & 4. But Higher HR

Scott

No it was consistently flat. I was trying to run 8:20-30 so the one mile being two seconds faster isn't really meaningful and miles 3 & 4 being identical is pure chance. On a hilly course I wouldn't be upset with 8:20, 8:35, 8:25 for my miles. Is this thinking wrong?

As for the heart rate going up it normally does for me little  by little on a tempo run but not normally 6 seconds from mile 2 to 3 and then 4 from 3 to 4. I think this may have been because I'm not accustomed to running in the afternoon? It's one theory at least. Normally in the morning it would be more like 1-2 BMP increase with some variance for terrain. Is this not common?

Nope, it looks fine was just curious. I try to negative split throughout though. If they are hills, I would keep the pace. But watch my HR. If my HR climbs to the end of my next zone, I slow the pace down, but I give myself 10  beats for hills. 

Scott

Wow, it sounds like you have access to a great masters program.  I wish I could say the same.  I stopped by to check out my local masters team, only to find that there's no coach.  It's basically a group of 2-3 swimmers who get together 3 times per week.  Not worth $75 to me.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

It really makes a big difference. Keep looking and eventually you'll find something in your area.

There's this guy in masters swim who's in his early 50's and is about 5' 9-10" and probably weighs 200+. He really looks like he pounds the beers and buffalo wings nightly. When I first started doing masters I though well I should at least be able to beat this guy. So I went to the slow lane and was shocked to see him in the fastest lane. He is an effortless jet in spite of body type. The secret is he's been swimming competitively since he was 9 and swam for his HS and college. So his form is picture perfect and he puts in minimal effort because he has minimal drag. Meanwhile I put in maximum effort to make up for my crap form and excessive drag.