Easy Day
Steven had asked about my swimming TI drills. I took a Total Immersion Workshop when I first started doing long-course triathlon and it has definitely improved my swimming. I've never had any formal swimming instruction prior to taking the TI course and it helped improve my IM swims from around the 1:16'ish range to around 1:04'sh when the conditions were right (ie- the pool like conditions at IM Canada). All while staying aerobic throughout the swim and allowing me to exit the water feeling pretty darn good for having swam 2.4 miles. It definitely helps to start the bike without feeling thrashed from the swim. I typically throw in a mix of these drills (scroll down the page to the video links) between my longer swim sets. I also wear fins when I do the drills because my kick is pretty weak. The drills have helped me lower my stroke count to about 14-16 per 25. For anyone that hasn't already, I would suggest picking up the TI book and/or dvd - it definitely can't hurt your swimming and could potentially help shave some serious time off your swim. TI definitely provides alot of bang for your buck, not to mention your time. I know it would take a serious chunk of serious training time (and pain) to get my IM swim below one hour and not sure that would really provide any major benefit in an Ironman race that is so heavily weighted toward the bike / run. I'd rather spend any extra available training hours on the bike!
In other news, I officially registered for the Pacific Crest Half Iron today. Steven had suggested I register since it fills up pretty quickly due to entrant limits (thanks for the tip!) - nice to get that out of the way. I wish the training were that easy! ;-)
My training day was pretty light and easy today. I think I have been ramping up the swimming / cycling too soon while trying to keep my run frequency up. My legs (especially the joints around the knee area are feeling a bit sore today). I ended up hitting the gym for an easy treadmill run.
Run Stats
Treadmill 2% incline
45 minutes total
5.15 miles
8:41 / mile pace
149 HR ave (Z1)
Post work, decided to do a high cadence recovery spin on the bike. I hopped on the computrainer and set the ergo-mode on a massive quad-busting 125 watts (ok, maybe not quad-busting) and spun at a high cadence. Seemed to help the legs a bit...hoping they come around in a couple days.
Bike Stats
30 minutes total
18.3+ mph ave
104+ cadence
122 HR ave (Z1)
*peace*
In other news, I officially registered for the Pacific Crest Half Iron today. Steven had suggested I register since it fills up pretty quickly due to entrant limits (thanks for the tip!) - nice to get that out of the way. I wish the training were that easy! ;-)
My training day was pretty light and easy today. I think I have been ramping up the swimming / cycling too soon while trying to keep my run frequency up. My legs (especially the joints around the knee area are feeling a bit sore today). I ended up hitting the gym for an easy treadmill run.
Run Stats
Treadmill 2% incline
45 minutes total
5.15 miles
8:41 / mile pace
149 HR ave (Z1)
Post work, decided to do a high cadence recovery spin on the bike. I hopped on the computrainer and set the ergo-mode on a massive quad-busting 125 watts (ok, maybe not quad-busting) and spun at a high cadence. Seemed to help the legs a bit...hoping they come around in a couple days.
Bike Stats
30 minutes total
18.3+ mph ave
104+ cadence
122 HR ave (Z1)
*peace*
posted by Mike at 10:40 PM
1 Comments:
1:04 - 116 IM swim is great. I'm a 1:20-1:25 guy hoping to get to 1:15-1:20. I'm pretty much self-coached which is issue number one. I've looked at TI before the workshops are a pretty large $$$ amount so I'd have a tough sell with my wife. I have read the book, but I think I was too new to swimming to get much out of it so will read it again. I'll look into the DVD thing...unless you have some and are the sharing type?!
Congrats on Pac Crest, too. You are going to love it!
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