Month: August 2018

Swimming Frustration

Posted by Derek on in SwimTraining, Training

As noted in my weekly review, I am very frustrated with my swimming.  I just don’t feel as though I’m making any progress and I know I have a huge issue with sinking legs.

So for the last couple days, I’ve been trying the Total Immersion skills and even those are going badly.  I would try and slow down but instead of floating, I would often end up at the bottom of the pool.

I tried some deadman floats as I’ve seen on YouTube and with those, my legs never float at the surface.  I just have very heavy or dense legs.  I just feel like I need help, but I can’t afford to pay for private lessons

In doing a lot of reading and watching a lot of videos, the advice I’m getting to try and fix my sinking legs is all over the place and in many cases, the advice is contradictory.  Here are some examples:

The arm in front should be on the surface of the water The arm in front should be pointed downward to act like trim tabs
You should be relaxed when swimming You need to engage you glutes and back muscles and keep your knees straight
You need to developer a strong kick to keep your legs up You should be kicking very little

There seem to be only a few things that don’t seem to be in dispute:

  • You need to be rotating your body
  • When turning to breath, don’t lift your head out of the water

I decided to try some floaty pants (neoprene shorts).  They will arrive tomorrow.  At this stage, I don’t care if this is a crutch and I’m quite happy to swim in them permanently.  After all, the only triathlons I plan to do, Ironman 70.3 FL and Ironman AZ are always both wetsuit legal.

 

 

Week in Review: August 20 – August 26 2018

Posted by Derek on in BikeTraining, RunTraining, SwimTraining, Training, Weekly Review

This week was pretty similar to last week in terms of the amount of workout time of just under 8 hours.

The most frustrating part of my training is the swimming. I just don’t feel as though I’m getting any better. For a change, I’m going to try using the Total Immersion swimming methodology for this week.  I had bought the video course on Udemy a while back when it was on sale and I just picked up a couple books on the program.  I decided that for this week, I’m not going to focus on swimming laps, but instead, I’m just going to focus on the skills from the program to see if it can help with my sinking legs.  I’m 90% sure that is the source of all my current issues.

 

Goals for the Week: I don’t expect any changes to my running and cycling.  Swimming wil be to simply do the Total Immersion skills and then perhaps go to the pool one day towards the end of the week to see if I can see ay difference

Tri Bars

Posted by Derek on in BikeGear, Gear

When I bought my bike, it came with regular road bike handles.  The bike was actually available in two versions, a road bike, and a tri bike.  The frame was the same.  Here is a stock photo of the tri version:

After riding the road bike with aero bars attached, I started to not like how it looked.  I wanted that sleek tri-bike look.  Also, I thought it would be nice to have the shifters on the bar end.  So, I ended up buying the various parts I needed – bullhorn, brake levers, and bar-end shifters and this week, I had a bike mechanic install them.  He had to run new cables, but in the end, I think the bike looks great.

I rode 17 miles with them this morning and I love the shifters! With the original STI (integrated) shifters, I’m never quite sure if I wnt up (or down) one or two gears, but with the bar-end shifters, it is all indexed so a single click is a single gear change

All I’m missing are a set of deep section carbon wheels.

Week in Review: August 13 – August 19 2018

Posted by Derek on in BikeTraining, RunTraining, SwimTraining, Training, Weekly Review

During the course of this week, I have managed to complete the half-Ironman distances….it just took me the whole week.  I swam for 2,000m, rode for 73 miles, and ran for 13 miles.  Ok, I was short 0.1 miles!

This week I got a new toy, a Tacx Vortex smart trainer.  I did one ride on it on Saturday using Zwift.  It wasn’t bad.  The Zwift course had more hills than I’m accustomed to.  Over the course of 10 miles, I climbed 497′.  Compare that to today’s 40 mile ride where I climbed 694′ and today’s ride was abnormally bumpy as I had to go over 3 highway overpasses.  I much prefer riding outdoors even though it’s by myself, but the trainer+Zwift will be an acceptable alternative when it’s raining and when winter comes around.

My running continues to be ok.  I still haven’t managed 3 days of 5 miles, but I’ll get there.  I’m just really happy that my Achilles isn’t causing any issues.

My swimming continues to improve slowly, but my Thursday swim was especially satisfying.  For the first time, I felt strong.  I still had to rest between laps, but I didn’t have that sucking air feeling.

My workouts for the week:

 

Goals for Next Week:  I would love to get to running 5 miles for the 3 running days.  I don’t expect to increase my swimming and I’ll be focusing on swimming 500m each day. I just need to work on reducing the rest between laps.  On the bike, I don’t expect to increase my mileage or time, but I will consider trying to a FTP test. I should be ending the week with between 7 and 8 hours of workout time.