Going Longish

blog

2009-07-06T02:51:00.000-07:00

A busy weekend - well Saturday!
Saturday I planned a swim session down at Market Bosworth Water Park.
I got to the pond at 7:30, wetsuit on and number given (59 it was popular today!) water temp 21.5c so warm!

So the plan was 400m warm up nice and very easy, relaxing and ensuring breathing was OK, and then one 750m lap and maybe a 400m to cool down. Finish off with a stagger out of pond and get wetsuit off asap.

So I stuck my nose clip on and off I went. Breathing and everything! Even the load of weed and laughing ducks didn't disturb me but I did have to stop twice for a good old cough!

After that I got out (no dizzy feelings!) and had a drink and adjusted the wetsuit trying to give more movement round my arms. One problem I do have with my wetsuit is the size! Because I am busty with a belly I have a large but the lower body is a bit lose so when I get out it gets sucked down as such! So legs are easy to get into position but upper body less so.

Anyway next was the big loop. Deep breath and off I go. I got into a rhythm, not a pretty one but it was working for me. For me it made me feel more confident and comfortable and no breathing issues. I was breathing less but not laterally. Each time I breathed I was looking forward and checking where I was. Because I was breathing out less I was able to return to a more horizontal position so my shoulders tried less.

By about 2/3 of the lap I felt good and decided to try for a second lap non stop ... and so I did just that!
So that was 1500m non stop and 1900m in total giving my longest swim this year and my longest for ages (since 2006!!). It felt good and again no dizzy head on exit.

As I got out of the water I lapped my watch and tried to get out of my wettie as quickly as possible. It seemed slow and stuck on my arm a bit again but when I checked my watch the actual wetsuit removal was 47 seconds! Felt like 2mins!

Even better ... my goal for the swim at London is 40mins ... today I did 39!!!

Later at the gym (son was in a swimming lesson) I did a mini brick session 5km bike 2km run. OK so it was short but the jelly legs weren't there - a good sign - and it didn't feel too bad despite the earlier swim. Overall this has made me more confident for the London Tri in 3 weeks.

Going forward ... From September I will continue to do at least 1 swim a week but mainly drills. I need to "break down" my stroke and fix my little "issues" before I then start working on endurance and speed. Things like breathing better. It seems that when I breath laterally I almost pause my stroke and also breath when my arm is still too low in the water plus I lift my head rather than turn it!! All minor things that when added together impact a fair bit!

Swimming and plans

2009-07-01T06:08:00.000-07:00

Given it's boiling outside (hottest day of the year) I decided today was a good day for a swim!

I did a total of 1.25Km at a pace that should match with my prediction of 40mins of the 1.5km at London next month (OMG NEXT month!)

On my way in I bought a nose clip. I have used one before when I first started doing proper head in water front crawl but not used one for years.

Basically I've been thinking about the whole OW wibbles and think it may be a water in nose thing so I got one to try today so that I can use in on Saturday's planned OW session. See when I first push off my head says "remember to breath out so water doesn't go in your nose!" and when I first started the head in water thing I was always getting it wrong and I HATE water up me nose!

Using the clip isn't glamorous or exactly nice but when I pushed off I just went straight into swimming no extra thoughts. I was also thinking more about my breathing (every 2 strokes rather than my normal 3 as that is what I do when in a wetsuit) and sighting. I suppose it's just one less thing to think about. I figure that if I am worrying about breathing and "dirty" water up my nose on top of the tension of being in open water this could help "fix me". Roll on Saturday to see!

Other thoughts .. It's too hot to train at lunch which is when I do the majority of my training. So plan … next week I will do a drive to work cycle home on Monday with cycle in drive home Tuesday well club run Tuesday! This gets some training in!

I'm also going to get the velcro strap for my garmin so I can clip it to my bike then onto my wrist for run/bike splits in brick sessions and at the tri. Also I will get the garmin cadence sensor and get on the turbo trainer to get some more bike sessions in. This will allow me to get a "distanced covered" as well as start looking at my cadence when cycling. I already know I have a low cadence (both cycling and running) and that if I can increase this it will help with my speed on the bike.

So lots to think about!

Test Day

2009-06-30T04:59:00.001-07:00

Test as in medical!
I've never had any sort of medical!
A few weeks ago I was invited to take part in a medical study which looks at the effect of cocoa on blood or something like that.
Anyway I did the screening today and this alone should tell me some good facts which will be useful for a benchmark in fitness.
I'm on holiday a week Saturday so I'm going to take the next week seeing what I normally do and eat and drink then on return I'll be kicking some nutritional and fitness butts!

Terrapin Triathlon - My 1st Open Water Tri!

2009-06-28T22:54:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was the day of my 1st open water triathlon.
Being local I registered last night.
Last night the snot had dried up and I felt good!
In the morning I was still snot free but the throat was dry. This I put down to drinking wine the night before (not much) and not having a drink of tea and or water after like I normally do so I carried on happily.
Market Bosworth is less than 15mins from home and I was the 9:20 ladies wave. So why was I up at 6am?
Got there nice and early and removed the lights and bike rack from my bike ('cos I is a serious triaflete me!) then I started to panic!
I racked my bike looking and feeling anything but professional with so many poncy bikes about!Wetsuit on and down to the water side.
The official ref had already said the water was warm enough that we didn't need to use a wettie if we didn't want to.I got in and we had a few mind warm up.
Straight away I reverted to my "Hold your breath" routine. I've learnt that breathing is actually a GOOD thing!! Especially when exercising! but just could not relax and breath. As soon as I tried to do front crawl and put my head in the water I held my breath.
Then we were off. To start with I was OK, breathing and doing front crawl and then nope stopped breathing! Not sure if this was because I was so nervous, the whole "lots of splashing people" thing, the lurgy or what but from then on most of the swim was breast stroke. I got really annoyed with myself and muttered as the safety man gently rowed his canoe next to me. All these things probably made things worse because I was getting wound up. Wetsuits are not designed for head up swimming either. The whole swim felt really hard work and made me doubt my ability to do double the distance in 5wks time at the London tri.
Swim should have been under 20mins, actual time 25.
I got the the end, struggled to locate the pull cord of my wettie but no dizziness today. Off to my bike and YEAH! wettie came off OK!
In what felt like slow motion I got the bike and off we went.
The bike had a bit of grass to start with and then onto the road. The course was mainly fast but the "pimples" which I had driven in the car last night seemed a lot bigger! The first half of the ride went really well then I started to tire and, if I am honest, sulk a bit. Having checked the route on my garmin at home the second half had a general UP feel hence it feeling harder! Still a good ride so pleased. I was able to use my gears more and do a lot of faster work, only problem being my legs aren't used to that work so maintaining the pace was hard even when the circumstances said I should be OK! Oh and the butt still had the London 2 Brighton tenderness there!!
Onto the run and I didn't have the jelly legs! Well surprised but they were heavy and tired. The course was 3 laps, so about 1m each. I managed to run the whole of the 1st lap but I could hear and feel my chest was wheezy. So during lap 2 I did do some walking whilst trying to keep the pace as I could see my time was better than I had hoped for despite the swim. Lap 3 was all focus. Chest not happy but I kept going. I didn't push too hard as this was a training run but did keep focused!
My goal was about 2:15 ideally under 2:10 and close to 2hrs and I came in at 1:58!! OMG!!
So pleased over all and looking for under 4hrs at London. Still need a lot of work though, especially in the pond!!

Been Shopping!!

2009-06-26T12:08:00.000-07:00

One problem with being under the weather is that you spend loads of time wandering around the web!
Today I have just ordered (from the States)
Pose Methods for Triathlon Training
I hope it arrives soon although Amazon quote a couple of weeks :-(

A Frustrating Start

2009-06-26T06:32:00.000-07:00

So after starting to think POSE yesterday I was all fired up. Over night and today my head cold has developed. This means I'm "resting" and reading.
I have my 1st open water tri on Sunday and unless the cold drops to my chest I will still do it for a few reasons

It's a training session really as I want to experience race conditions in open water!
I'm not expecting a fast time anyway!
It's good practice at getting out of the wet suit quickly - so far I've failed to take it off quickly at all!

So instead I am reading. For now I am reading a great book by Mike Stroud called "Survival of the Fittest". This one is a motivational book rather than training. It's stories of great feats such as the 7 marathons in 7 days on 7 continents done by Sir Ranulph Fiennes. With my head full of cold it's good just to read as I won't take much information in just now!!

In the meantime I am trying to get hold of "POSE methods for Triathlon Training" but it seems to be in the US only.

POSE is about using body alignment to run effectively. I believe (!) that the basics are keeping your shoulders, hips and the ball of your foot in line so that you have a slight lean and therefore gravity makes you run! You pick your feet up (using hamstrings) and the foot is on the floor for a very short period of time. These things together means you are using less muscles which reduces the chance of impact injuries (something I have suffered from) and fatigue.

Next week I will start using POSE techniques! Today I take drugs and use lots of kleenex!!

Learning To Run

2009-06-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

Yes this may sound a bit daft but today I started out on a mission to learn to run.
I've been running for almost 7yrs now so why am I now "learning"?
When you start to ride a bike or drive a car or swim you need to learn, yet when we decided to run we just go out and run.
When we are kids we run totally differently to how we run as adults. Just watch any child and adult and you will see!
I'm going to learn a technique called pose.
It's about being more efficient and use less muscle power and energy to achieve the same end. To reduce the chance of injury further and to improve more.
It's all about using gravity and working with your center of balance.
It will be a long journey as I need to change the way my brain instinctively thinks but it will be worth it!
Only snag being I seem to have a head cold!
I also have my first open water triathlon this weekend so proper training in the pose way will start next week!
In the mean time I am starting to read. As I mentioned before this year is about forming a base, losing weight, gaining fitness and technique. So a natural extension of this is to learn as much as I can about fitness, training techniques, nutrition etc. Add a desire to one day become a personal trainer and it makes even more sense!!
Right off to read!!

Day One!

2009-06-24T13:38:00.000-07:00

Today is the start of a new and exciting challenge for me.
I will be undertaking a half ironman distance triathlon in June 2010. I then plan to continue with my training to get a new personal best for a marathon ... and hopefully qualify for the London Marathon.
I decided this today.
It will happen.
This time I am training for me though. Previous challenges have been for charity. This is to prove to me I can do it. That I can change myself and become the fit trim and slim toned Pixie I want to be and have wanted to be for years.
Here's to the future!
Evil Pixie