Gray Guys/Girls Masters Focus Triathlete Forum (all levels welcome)--CLOSED (Page 8)

I'm in!

Happy New Year everyone.

It's highly likely my swim fitness is not what it should be.  

The interesting thing is that I have no trouble swimming 30 minutes freestyle - in the pool for workout sessions.  I can do 1,500 TT's with no problem as far as completing them in all freestyle.  But I cannot do this during a race yet. 

I swim over my lunch break 2-3 times/week so getting in much more than 35 minutes is tough unless I move my swim to the morning or after work or extend the work day and can find a big block of time during the day.  I've tried before work morning swims 3 x week but these left me falling asleep before 8:00pm so that didn't last long.

I generally try to get in 1,500 yards or so once I get back into the groove of swimming.  Sometimes I'll put in 2,000.  I probably just need to bite the bullet and do one morning swim a week.

I like Sara McLarty's masters swim site so I try to follow the one with the least yardage (workout C).

Today I plan on doing the postal swim that Stu mentioned.  It will give me a good benchmark to see progress over the next two months.

Originally posted by JREDFLY

Originally posted by lutzman

Originally posted by Kris67 I am looking forward to losing 10 pounds and eating better. When does the challenge begin?

Kristen: James is the master of the contest. We talked about getting it going after the 1st of the year, so maybe we can fire it up starting next week. James, your call? Meantime, it's a good opportunity to eat all leftover Christmas treats prior to the contest. Steve

I was just about to PM you Steve. Contest will begin Sunday night. I was thinking we could have it run till Memorial Day. Everyone needs to let me know that they want to take part in the contest by replying "I'm In" (+ - 10) points for every pound lost or gained (+ 5) points for not gaining weight (+ 1) point for every 30 minutes working out Enjoy tomorrow and the rest of the week. Happy New Year Everyone!!!

I

Am

IN!!!

Got a good 5 mile run  in today.  Time to un-decorate so we can hit the Boot Camp class this afternoon!

James - I'm in please! 

Working on goals and race schedule for 2014 today.  I know there won't be many races but I need to decide which ones I want to do so I can get a general idea of my training schedule for the year.  I'm doing a run focus right now trying to get ready for a possible 9 miler on February 2nd.  I was talking with a couple of people yesterday about the race - they did it last year - and they said it was a tough race.  Of course, there was also 10" of snow on the ground last year so that might have had something to do with it. 

I went for a really nice 5 mile trail run yesterday - met up with some people who do a run there every NYE.  Seemed like a good way to end the year. 
Janet

Good afternoon everyone!  Hope the new year is treating you well.  It sounds as if everyone is thinking about goals for this training season.  I find that I'm a bit more dedicated if I've paid that registration fee!  So I've paid for two races so far.  One in May and one in September.

I acted on a few suggestions this morning and went for a long (for me) swim.

Postal swim per Stu's suggestion. Straight swim for 60 minutes. 1st 30 minutes able to do all freestyle. Then 50 breast, 150 free, repeat 'till end. Tried to remember to reach for the wall and brush my hip per Scott's instruction. I noticed that 'reaching for the wall' made me relax and regroup my stroke. 

Splits per 200 

3:50 
3:56 
3:57 
3:59 
4:01 
4:19 
4:13 
4:13 
4:13 
4:11 
5:12 (miss count?) 
4:13 
4:12 
4:12 

This swim is in a tiny basement gym pool.  Three lanes.  25 yards.  The best part is that the lane lines are just ropes with a few tiny buoys.  So if there is one other person swimming, it almost feels like open water.  I should swim in this pool more often.  

I did a polar plunge today as well. But by comparison, mine was a semi tropical plunge. Water temp 42 air temp 49. It was still cold though. I hurt my foot going in so had to stand for a bit to be able to move, then get help slowly wading out. The goal was in and out, I did not make that.

x2

It's said that the first step towards fixing a problem is recognizing what the problem is so good job, we have likely figured out a big part of what is happening.

Next, at this point, don't worry too much about not being able to repeat the pool swim in a race, for a couple reasons.  I rarely have heard of an Olympic distance swim being held in a pool so your race is most likely in open water.  I say all the time, "The rules change when you get in to open water."  You can expect to be several seconds per 100 slower in open water plus you will be more fatigued and use more energy in open water than in a pool - even wearing a wetsuit.  We can look at those issues down the road a couple months.  Next thing, during a race you are probably pushing yourself a little bit harder than during a workout.  As your swim fitness improves, we can hopefully get you to where you have a very accurate internal pace clock.  Someone can say to you, give me a 100 at 1:54 or give me a 100 at 2:00 and you can hit the number right on.  That will come with training.  The goal is to get to where you can plan out your race swim pace BEFORE you get in the water.  Then you follow the plan in the water during the race.  You will know you can do it because of the training and you won't have beat yourself up early in the race and have nothing left in the tank later in the race.

So now we get down to the meat of the problem.  Simply stated, you are not putting in enough training yards for your chosen race distance.  As a VERY general rule of thumb for a triathlete (remember we are training for a triathlon, not a swimming event), to build proper endurance you want to be training 1.5-2 times the swim segment of your race distance 3-4 times per week.  Then, if you want to get fast, you need to double that (for the record, my definition of 'fast' in this context is less than 1:15/100 yards which would equal about a 20:20 Olympic swim or a 52:30 Ironman swim).  So, the translation - you are training for an Olympic triathlon where the swim is approximately one mile (actually 0.93 miles) = 1,500 meters = 1,650 yards.  That means you should be striving for 2,475 - 3,300 yards three times, preferably 4 times a week (don't know if you are training in a 25 yard or 50 meter pool but short course pools are more common so I did the math for yards).  There are a number of coaches that would have you break the total yards per week into a long, medium and short swim.  I am not so sure I agree with that line of thinking.  I am an advocate of not doing the same workout every time you are in the water.  I think changing up the workouts pretty much accomplishes the same thing as having the long, medium, and short plans.  More about workout plans after looking at your times.

Before I comment on your times, a couple observations.  First, now that you have proven to yourself that you can indeed swim a mile without stopping, you don't need to do that again until your next race.  On several occasions, I have had people come up to me and say something like, "My workout is an easy 200 warm-up then 4 x 1,000."  My response is always the same - a smile and a question, "WHY?!?"  If you take nothing else away from this post, please remember this, you DO NOT need to be doing ridiculous length repetitions - EVER!

Next, you said, "I noticed that 'reaching for the wall' made me relax and regroup my stroke."  What was likely actually happening is that by 'reaching for the wall' you were lengthening your stroke and increasing your body roll, which brought the back muscles more into play during your stroke making your stroke more efficient.  As a result, that 'relaxed' felling you felt was likely because the workload had been spread over more muscles, thereby reducing the work on the shoulders and allowing the shoulder to 'relax.'

When I looked at your splits, I really only looked at the first 8 splits (1,600 yards).  Beyond that, the times weren't very instructive except to say you can do the distance. Over the 1,600 you averaged 2:03/100 yards.  To put that into perspective, 2:00/100 is pretty much middle of the pack across ALL triathletes, as you move up into the older age groups, 2:00/100 moves closer to FOP.

Now, what can we draw from your splits?  You can actually see what is happening by the third split.  Your stroke technique is breaking down almost immediately (6 second drop off between 1st and 2nd splits), then drops consistently after that indicating increasing fatigue, then finally levels off at what I call your "basic swim fitness level," (that's a 'Scott term' so don't bother trying to look it up.  You can take anybody, have them swim long enough and you will eventually get to the split they can repeat over a very long time.  For an endurance swimmer, I like to know what that split time is.  By the way, that is the split time we really want to improve upon).  What your splits clearly indicate is that there is room for improvement in swim fitness and stroke technique (of course that is true for all of us).

I say stroke technique because your split times should not be dropping off so rapidly. That indicates your technique is breaking down almost immediately which indicates your stroke is likely not as efficient as it could be. We have already pretty well beaten the swim fitness horse to death so don’t need to repeat that.

If I were your swim coach, here is what I would recommend –

For the next 2-4 weeks, 3 workouts per week, 900 yards per workout. The ONE AND ONLY GOAL of these workouts is ABSOLUTELY PERFECT STROKE TECHNIQUE. Something along the lines of 200 yard EASY warm-up, maybe 2 x 100 with 1:00 rest between repeats. Then 10 x 50 with 1:00 rest between intervals - during the rest periods, visualize perfect technique and remind yourself of various tips, reach for the wall, brush your hip with your thumb, high elbow recovery, drag fingertips across water during recovery, etc. Follow that with a 200 EASY cool-down. It is VERY important to understand, the point of this is not to ‘workout’ per se. The goal is to commit PERFECT stroke technique to muscle memory. If you fatigue to the point that your stroke breaks down, get out of the water, go home, and try again tomorrow. I am absolutely serious when I say that. You are doing yourself a disservice if you continue to swim with less than perfect technique. The whole point of this period is to develop technique so if it takes you 5 minutes to complete a 50 (OK, I am kidding but you get my point) that is OK. Don’t worry about pace, worry about technique. The real goal of this phase is to develop your technique to the point that it is ‘stored' in muscle memory so when technique breaks down due to fatigue, it breaks down to perfect technique.

Next, I would have you do several weeks of “Extensive Endurance Training,” by which I mean sets of repetitions that, in total, are longer than your planned swim race distance at a steady, comfortable pace with 1:00 rest between intervals. You want the rest period to be sufficiently long that your HR can return to what I term the “base heart rate.” You can determine your base heart rate by taking your pulse at the end of an EASY warm-up. Over time, you will notice your HR returning to the base rate much more rapidly, an indication that your endurance is improving. Most HR monitors don’t work underwater so learning to take your carotid pulse is a handy skill to have. In this phase, switch things up, maybe alternate between [200 easy warm-up, then 10 x 200 with 1:00 rest, followed by 200 cool-down – 2,400 total yards], and then next time maybe [200 easy warm-up, then 10 x 100 with 1:00 rest, followed by easy 200 swim, followed by another 10 x 100 with 1:00 rest, then 200 easy cool-down – 2,600 total yards]. If need be, you can start with less repetitions and build to more reps as your fitness improves. During this phase, the primary focus is building endurance and stroke technique. Note there is not a repetition time, rather a rest time. The same thing applies here, if you fatigue to the point that your technique begins to break down, take a longer rest period. If that does not restore your technique, get out of the water, go home, and try again tomorrow.

After that phase, ‘call me’ and we will talk some more.

Finally, since time appears to be a bit of a concern. The really nice thing about swim workouts is that you can, to a point, break them up. The workouts above shouldn’t take more than 45 minutes, but by the time you shower and get dressed you’re easily up to an hour. If need be, you can break the workout into two workouts and do one in the morning and one at lunch, etc. You will probably get in a few more yards that way assuming you warm-up and cool-down during each workout.

I know there is a lot here. I was watching the Red Wings get beat and then Michigan not playing so well in the Rose Bowl, so writing this kept me from breaking the TV!

Good luck, hope it helps.

Hey Steve,

I have a question.  I think, actually I am pretty sure, I know the answer but thought I would ask just to be sure.

For each of the next several weeks, I am going to have one day each week that is likely going to be the "day from hell," meaning it is a pretty full day.  It happens to fall on a medium bike day.  I can either get on the bike before sun-up, or after sun-down or I can split the ride up and do it in segments over the course of the day.

So my question - All other things being equal (HR, RPE, etc.) Is a 90 minute ride the same as 2 x 45 minute rides or 3 x 30 minute rides?