Mass swimming

I guess you can tell by previous posts that I love to swim. I've always been a water baby, but who wouldn't be when you grow up in Southern California? I remember days after my parents divorced, we'd spend weekends with my dad on his sailboat where he lived. The marina had a small pool that was always over-chlorinated. My brother, Rob, and I would swim until Pop would pull us out, our eyes swelled shut from all the chemicals. Even in high school I swam my senior year and felt completely at ease. It was a place where the sweat wouldn't show.

But now I'm sort of re-finding my love of swimming through triathlon. It's a sport where I feel more competitive than most I do.

Today, my triathlon training buddy, April, and I did our first workout with Texas Triple Threat, a local triathlon club. They hold a swim every Sunday morning. This time of year they practice in a pool, but come late March, we'll be in Lake Lewisville doing open water swims.

April and I felt a bit of trepidation showing up at 7:30 this morning with about 25 other people. We thought we'd be outmatched by far. She set herself with the slow group and I set up about in the middlle as I eyeballed many a tattooed person with the Ironman symbol. It's terrifying.

Lo and behold, I warmed up and was held up by some of these guys. The coach suggested that I move up not one, but two lanes to the nearly fastest folks. After a warmup, we did 30 minutes of a continuous swim. The water was boiling like it does when you throw fish food into a pond full of koi. There were no lane lines to break the surge. It felt like it would in open water. It was incredible!

I got in with the guys in my group and was starting to pass... or try to pass. The guy with the purple cap and giant feet ahead of me apparently didn't get the memo that when someone touches your feet (several times, I might add) that he should've stopped on the wall and let me pass. I'd even hang out on the wall until he was halfway across the pool and catch up to him without much effort. I could see his inefficient stroke ahead of me and he drove me nuts. Finally at one point about halfway across the pool, I noticed that there was plenty of room, so I turned back around and got ahead of him. It worked until later when he was able to somehow get back ahead of me by sitting on the wall for a break. Bastard.

Thankfully the coach saw my frustration and suggested I move up to the fast lane. Finally I was in my element and excited to be pushed to keep up more. Where I enjoyed the more even pacing of the slightly slower lane, this lane really made me fight more to keep the pace higher. I think I'll go there next time. It felt so good to be in the top tier of swimmers. My biking and running aren't nearly as good so it feels great to be adept at one of the elements of triathlon

After the 30 minutes continuous, we did a few drafting/mass start drills which were a blast. We paired up and tried to keep up or physically pass some of the other swimmers. One guy pushed hard on me and game was on! I drafted him for the rest of that lap, but on the return, I pulled on his ankle and slowed him down, allowing myself to get just ahead of him. Yay!!!

On a side note, oh my Gawd triathlon guys are great looking! Holy cow, I think I finally may have found a bit of heaven. Now if I could only snag one of them...

Seeing progress

133 days until the race.

Finally! There is progress in both my weight (down almost 5lbs since Christmas) and fitness! It's almost like finding old friends again. I am finally feeling like an athlete again and clothes are fitting how they should be...without hurting to wear them. Hee hee!

The warm weather certainly has helped get me motivated again. I'm beginning to think I'm a lizard, needing the warmth to really gain energy. Three times this week I was able to get outside and have great workouts because of the warmth and it made me happy.

Sunday afternoon, I conned my tri-training compadre, April, into getting in a ride outside. It was about 55 when we started and nearly 63, 2 hours later. Awesome! We rode from her house out a hilly route I've done before and came back. It was a bit of an awakening for both of us that there is a lot of work ahead, but we managed. I think we'll hit that route again with all the hills.

Monday after work I was able to get a good run in around the 'hood. It was windy and only 4 miles, but it felt fantastic having the sweat running down my forehead while outside again. I think I even was able to wear shorts! Love it.

Yesterday was the peak, though. I knew it'd be in the low 70's so I went into work early with my bike on the rack. My friend, Rick, and I zipped out of work at 3:30 to catch the last 2 hours of light. We were able to get in 2 fairly fast loops in around White Rock Lake, despite 25+kt winds when we headed south. He took me up one killer hill where I was breathing so hard I couldn't even cuss. Yep, definitely need to work on the hills more, especially for Kansas. We made it back to the cars right at sunset, thankfully.

I left him and headed to the gym to get in a quick pool workout as well. I wanted to work on speed rather than distance.

200m easy warmup

4x50m alternating single arm strokes (left side needs work)

4x50m alternating breathing sides (left side needs work here too)

10x50 on the 1:00 - stay at a consistent time (managed to do consistent :37-:38 every time)

200 cooldown

Love it!

Hopefully tomorrow will bring another warm-ish day to get out for another long afternoon ride. I've put my aerobars on so I need to get used to using them and get the bike set up correctly so that parts don't hurt and I ride more efficiently this way.

Stay strong and train hard, y'all!

Swim practice with the kids

Normally I don't really care to hit the YMCA for swimming in the afternoons, but with the icy weather, roads were crazy in the morning and I wasn't even sure the gym opened on time. So I packed my gym back with swimming and running gear for after work in hopes that the one lap lane available during the kids' swim team practice would be open.

Perfect! I showed up and got in the pool just before 5pm as the next wave of kids poured into the pool and got it churning like a bunch of hungry koi. I'm always surprised to see how in synch they can be once they actually start doing their assigned laps, but beforehand, they're pure wiggles.

The churn in the pool makes it a harder practice, but one that is more realistic to a tri environment. As much as I don't care for all the extra commotion (as compared to the quiet 5am practices), they make for e great workout. I did 2000m and was definitely tired during and afterwards. I don't think I was fueled enough and felt as if I was working too hard for the effort. Remember that for next time.

Out of swimplan.com, this was the workout:

2x100 easy warmup

1x50m right breathing, 1x50 left breathing (repeat 4x)

12x100 on the 1:45. I ended up extending this to a 2:00 interval because of the kids and the effort

2x100 easy cool down

Have a great week.

Swim meet

So it's been 20 (cough, cough) plus years since my last swim meet. Needless to say I was a nervous wreck, but still excited. I was slated to do three events: 50 free, 50 back, and the 4x50 free relay.

SWA is making its debut in the Richardson Corporate Challenge and one of the events was swimming. We had a team of about 10 of us ranging from our early 30's to our early 50's. Making the master's requirement was no issue this year since most of us are over 40.

I've been working out fairly regularly, putting in 2-3 workouts a week in the pool, but doing mostly distance. I found a good website for creating swim workouts that have helped out a ton in not getting bored while still having strong workouts. I've been using them for triathlon training, but they have worked out just as well for the meet training.

The first race I had was the 50 free. I was pumped and only up against 3 other women in my bracket and age group. The gun went off and I could see that I was battling one other woman, but pulling ahead of her quickly on the first lap. I reached the end, did my turn and realized, "Oh shit!". I'd turned about 2 feet too early and missed the wall. (I was worried about this in practice 2 weeks before. That pool has a strange illusion to it that you think you're closer than you are.) I had to do sort of a dogpaddle back to touch the wall to make it legal. I was pissed!!! But that anger turned into energy. I had about a full body length to make up for in 25 meters and I nearly caught the girl. We touched the wall within a 1/2 second of each other at around 37 seconds. I wonder if I hadn't missed the wall how I would've done. Maybe around 33-34 seconds?

The backstroke went a bit better. I still was just a bit too far from the wall on this one as well, but was able to touch it and get a bit of a pushoff from it. I think I ended up at about :42 seconds. For me, I was content with this time because I'm not much of a backstroker.

The relay was the best event all the way around. We'd stacked our team with our fastest four, two of which were a couple who met and swam in college, Danee and Jason. Danee had won silver in the overall 50 free for women. The gun went off. Jim started us off well and got us about 2 body lengths ahead of the competition. I was behind him and kept the lead going with about the same distance. Danee smoked it and moved us further ahead. Finally Jason's anchor leg made us by far the leaders. We ended up taking home overall gold for the relay, a full 6+ seconds ahead of the nearest competition. Whee!

Fun stuff. Now I would love to get involved with Master's level swimming to see if I could compete more. Like I need another excuse for competition, right?

Friday swims

Today was supposed to be a rest day, but I decided to check out the pool at the Y at lunchtime since I'm off early on Fridays. This turned out to be perfect!

My crack-o' morning swims have been tough. I have to be there at or shortly after 5am in order to get in enough of a workout before the kids start in on their team training at 6 and take all but one lane. It's been tough getting in anything more than about 1600-2000yds.

It hit me last night that I should check the Friday pool schedules and sure enough, it's pretty much open swim from about 10am on through the late afternoon. I think I've discovered my prime long swim time finally. So now I'll find a way to get my Friday swims in right after I get off work at 11/12pm and get the distance swims in. Whee!

I found a bunch of workouts online for people training for half and full Ironman triathlons. I tried a part of on on Tuesday and had to quit part way through it because of time. Today, I managed to do a 2600yd decent workout in about 1:15!

That was exciting, but the most exciting part of the day was when not one, but two people commented on my swimming telling me I should swim on the Master's team based on what they saw! Wow! That made my day. One was an older man and another a college kid practicing over the summer. Yippee!!!

Another good swim

Wow, it's so much fun to see improvment!

This morning I changed up the swim routine just a bit, doing sprints first.

100 easy warmup
5x50 at 1 min
5x200 at 4 min
5x50 at 1 min
100 cooldown
(Total 1700)

The first set of 50's I worked on arm turnover more than form. Felt fast and it got the early morning blood pumping. I did most of these at about :40-:42.

The 200's are what really suprised me. The past few weeks, I've been getting them done regularly at 3:13 (for about a 47 second rest between sets). This morning, I consistently did them in 3:03-3:05. Wow! I don't know where I lost that 10 seconds, but they felt so much stronger.

Last week, I worked with a couple of girls on swim strokes and maybe it was a bit of a mind-refresher to me too. I also follow a good triathlon blog and last week she had some interesting video showing Michael Phelps' stroke. http://www.triathlontrainingblog.com/?p=1342 I concentrated more on the stroke, mainly with reaching more in a breath stroke. Wow, I did feel a bit more power. Something must be clicking.

One week to go before the triathlon. Whee!

Swimming discovery

"Swimming is not a sport. It's a way to keep from drowning."
--George Carlin, comedian

This morning I went to the pool before work to get in about 25 minutes of swimming. I want to be prepared for the next tri and not panic again. Yikes!

During the Danskin tri, I noticed that I had a hard time catching my breath, even after I'd settled down. I think this morning I figured out part of the problem.

As I was doing laps, practicing breathing on both sides, I realized that I was starting to lose my breath again. I just felt as if I couldn't catch in enough air between strokes. I realized that I was blowing out my nose instead of both the nose and mouth. I found I was still exhaling when I should only be inhaling. "When I run, I breathe through my mouth more, so why shouldn't it work the same when swimming," I thought.

Sure enough, I started blowing out more air from my nose and mouth and was able to go longer and felt as if I could breathe easier. I found myself going back to the old habit, only to correct it shortly afterwards. It's definitely self-critiquing. :) It may take a while to get into the new habit again, but I figure if I swim twice a week from now until the next tri in August, it should work itself out.

Cheers!