Going slower to go faster

It seems to me that with a lot of sports, to make steps forward, sometimes a step backwards is required.

This is even more the case it seems in the more technique driven sports.

The thing that got his idea ticking over in my head was the current renovation I am doing on my swim stroke.

I come from a swimming background that spanned from around ten years old until I returned to competitive swimming for a season after “retiring” from triathlon at about age 18. I would like to think I was a pretty handy swimmer and I was able to be in the first two or three out of the water, or there abouts in the majority of the triathlons that I did.

I have found recently that I still swim pretty quick, compared to the age group triathlete population, however nothing like how I use to swim.

I have spent the last 18 months hunting for my old stroke, which use to see me to much quicker times in the pool. As yet I have not found it.

More recently I decided to stop hunting by feel and to start getting a little more scientific in my approach; I have been consulting with a number of sources and have started to develop my understanding of what good technique is.

Previously I was one of those athletes that didn’t care and didn’t want to know why, I just wanted to be told what to do and how to do it and don’t bore me with details. I think this is a real shame, because all the guidance and information that I had access to through some pretty stellar athletes/coaches in the past, is mostly wasted. I have little idea about the theory behind anything I did back then and have almost been learning from scratch this time round.

I have learnt that if I question why and research the theory, eventually it clicks, I have an “aha!” moment and I can apply the theory myself and generalize the concepts, rather than relying on someone else to hand it to me on a platter.

Back on topic – going slower to go faster. Bilateral breathing. I have been ignoring the message from almost every coach I have trained under to bilateral breath. When at my fastest, I only breathed on one side. However, recently I have followed the trail of technical inefficiencies in my stroke back to my one sided breathing (among other things – flexibility etc). I am not going to go into the technicalities of the problem here, as I find explaining swimming technique in writing similar to reading the articles in a penthouse, you really need to see it live to get whats going on and a picture is worth a thousand words. But the point I am trying to illustrate is that I am currently trying to breath bilaterally. I am finding this straight forward enough at easy to moderate pace, but when the pace is wound up, I feel short of air and find it hard to find the rhythm I am used to.

I am finding it easier over time, but I am having to swim slower at times to maintain what I feel will be a faster more efficient stroke once I have it nailed down.

Sometimes in the interest of going faster you have to take a hit in speed, check your ego and work on technique, at a pace that you can maintain, then start to wind it up again when you have it down.

A word of warning: I wouldn't recommend doing this too close to your 'A' race, as there may be reactions from your body to the new movements both injury and fatigue wise. Which you don't want in race season.

James' 'Weight Update' #4

This morning, post swim training and ablutions, my weight was 81.3kgs. I guess some credit goes to fluid loss in training, but I'm going to take some credit for myself too. Looking like a close run thing for the under 80kg goal at the end of June.

External motivation - Winning isn't everything, but losing sucks

Whew! What a big day at work. I'm pretty tired and the next two weeks look pretty full on training wise. The volume and intensity of my Ironman training is increasing significantly. I am a little nervous but definitely excited to see how I cope. I have taken tonight off on my physio's recommendation, because my right hamstring is still a bit tender from the half-marathon I did a week and a half ago. I'll run easy in the morning to see how it pulls up. I am reasonably happy with how my training and fitness is progressing, though I have some that my swimming is not really coming along. This is probably the result of a combination of two things. One is the training fatigue I am experiencing from the other discipline training that I am doing. The other is the fact that I usually share a lane with an absolute fish in the pool. My ego takes a battering (I'm sure there is an unintentional pun about fish and batter in there...) every swim session and I have been finding it hard to sleep the night before swim squad. This is likely an illustration of my personalty, I really much prefer to win than lose and I find it hard to cope with ongoing not winning. I guess I had better get used to it in the near future though, as I will regularly be surrounded by Ironman athletes that can wipe the floor with me from here on in. I think it is important for me to start developing some personal goals in the pool, such as times I want to make or sets I want to do well. That way I can start to see some success in my training instead of loses. One of the pitfalls of being an externally motivated Ironman is that unless you're the world champion or a top end professional, you are going to lose to someone...

Magnesium supplementation update – I have been taking the Ultra Muscleze now for a week and a half. I have had no problems with cramp at all in that time. I had a slight twinge in my calves in the pool on Monday morning but I regularly get cramps in the pool, so I feel there has been an improvement. I have a big brick session on Saturday morning, so that will be make or break time for my magnesium supplementation program. If I have a cramp free morning then I will call it a success and give Ultra Muscleze the Ironman Cafe seal of approval. Stay tuned.

Training fatigue and hot/cold recovery

It has been a testing last few days, both physically and mentally, with the Saturday Morning Brick Session and the ongoing training since then. Yesterday I had one of the flattest Ironman training days I have had in a while. I felt tired when I woke for swimming and once in the pool I knew it was going to be a slog. I felt some residual fatigue from the 2km swim the night before and it didn't warm out. We did what I would usually find a pretty tame set of 12x100m on 1:30, I struggled from the get go and by the end was getting no rest, I felt like i was swimming in caramel sauce...mmm caramel sauce. It was hard on my body and probably harder on my ego. But, I have to look at it in the context of the big weekend I had and learn not to let individual sessions or sets overshadow the big picture. I am sure I am going to have a lot of sessions where it seems like I am going backwards or just don't have the energy to perform up to my expectations, but, who cares how fast I go for 12x100m eight months out from my goal Ironman...?

I had a couple of solid run sessions today, both including intervals building to max effort. On a positive note I felt pretty damn good this morning and not too bad this evening. I haven't felt any pain in the 'Old Rec Fem' in a few weeks and I'm continuing with regular physio appointments to improve my core strength and posture with a hope to keep future injuries at bay and to increase my performance.

I have been using hot/cold recovery lately and I feel that it is helping me to recover faster and train day in day out. I either do 3-5 sets in the shower of 30secs cold water and 1min hot water, or 3-4mins in a hot bath and 1min in a cold shower. The idea behind hot/cold recovery is that the repeated constriction and dilation of leg muscle tissues pumps wastes out of your legs and helps reduce inflammation and bleeding in the muscles. I am still unsure how much of a benefit it is. I feel it does help to a degree, it reduces the muscle pain I feel, which in turn probably helps me train harder. Whether it increases my performance or not, I'm not sure. One thing I am sure of is that I would like to find some sort of waterproof underwear, because, ice cold water is not welcome on some parts of my body no mater how therapeutic it is. I have considered cutting leg holes in a shower cap, but I would have to kick my own ass if I was getting around with a shower cap on for a nappy.

There has been some research into the benefits of hot/cold recovery, if your interested I have placed a link to a good article on the Peak Performance online website below.

Hot/Cold - Don't pour cold water over hydrotherapy

Insomnia and early squad sessions

Man I'm tired. For some reason unknown to me I woke up this morning at 3:45am and couldn't get back to sleep. I had to be up by 4:45am to go to swim squad, so I lay there for an hour thinking how much it sucked that I had to get up so early. Squad training was tough, we've done a fair bit of speed work lately and today the coach wanted to see how/if our endurance had held up through it. We did sets of 25m sprints followed by 10 x 100m on the 1:30. This was no problem, but it didn't end there, we then did the same set twice more, but with the 100m on the 1:25 instead. It hurt and I blew up at some point and lost count and when you lose count in a big set like that it just adds to the misery. Because not only are you hurting like hell, you have no idea when it is going to end. You just look at the people around you silently pleading that they don't push off for the next repeat. It is a great feeling when it done though.

Resting up the old 'Rec Fem'

So I've been taking the physio's advise and have been resting and icing me Rec Fem (thats physio lingo). I swam yesterday morning, again doing the whole session pull. It was a nice relaxed session and I felt strong. Luckily I was not scheduled to do any running till next week and I have an easy 3 hours on the bike tomorrow. My quad is feeling better by the day and I am confident that I will be back on the road next week. All plans for Ironman in December look to be on track for now. I did feel a small panic when I hurt my leg but realistically it's not going to be a biggie. It's all part of Ironman/triathlon training, if you listen to and take care of your body, it will do the same for you.

Day off work after yesterdays Mag Trainer day of hell

Just got in from this mornings swim squad. I was feeling pretty flat when I got up at 4:40am but once I got in the pool I felt pretty strong and despite the aches in my legs, I had a solid session. I'm glad its the last day of the school holidays, because the pint sized pool demons that invaded our squad two weeks ago will go back to burning up the pool wherever they came from and let me rebuild my self esteem. I admire their swimming skills but being carved up by kids that look about 12-13 is killing my ego. Be gone little critters!

Yesterday morning was a strength session on the Mag Trainer which was reasonably painful, but was short and sweet. It was an hour including 10min warm up and down with a bunch of 20sec max efforts with the tension and gears cranked to the max, on a two minute cycle. Coach says that they will stretch out to five minute plus intervals as we get closer to Ironman, eek!

Last night I went along to the Mag Trainer group session. Usually its held in a gym in the city but we didn't have keys this time for some reason. when I arrived everyone was debating flagging the session, I said “Nah, we can do it outside over here.” So we did our session on the footpath outside the gym under the light. It was actually pretty sweet, I normally cook in the gym, outside last night was nice and cool. We did a 15min warmup then 4 x (3 x 5 min @ 90, 110, 120 rpm), it was a full on cadence session. The goal of the workout was to develop the ability to pedal efficiently at high cadences. The optimum cadence to cycle Ironman at is around 90-100 rpm, which is around the same cadence you should run at. The theory is that if you cycle at the same cadence you run at, you will adapt to running faster when transitioning from the cycle to the run.

I had a day off owing to me from Easter, so I thought that since I was struggling so much the last few days, that this would be a perfect opportunity to rest up and prepare for this weekends training. It feels good to do a training session then head home to relax and recover. I guess this is how a professional athlete feels, heh.

Recovery swim for my weary body

I was prescribed a sleep in this morning , I didn't have to get up till 7:15am, Yes!

My body was particularly weary from yesterdays run technique session, in which I developed some concerning quad pain and last nights long run interval set of hell.

I tried to stretch as much as possible today which seemed to help. I think I will look into a sports massage in the next week or so. I was having them regularly before relocating to Australia two month ago from New Zealand, and when funds permit I will continue that. There was an article on the Inside Triathlon website recently, that discussed the benefits of massage for triathletes.

Tonight I swam an easy 2km with some drills included, it was nice and relaxing and I feel like most of the aches have resolved themselves. Swimming is a great recovery activity, if you can slot in easy swim I think it is often better than straight rest. I recommend using an easy couple of kms swimming as an active recovery.

Easter Monday: morning swim, evening magtrainer session

Started the morning off with an easy 2km swim at a pool that I haven't been to before. It's a 50m pool, which is a novelty for me and it was a great pool to swim in. Though there were a few people in the fast lane that overestimated their abilities. I gave a couple of them the sly elbow and kick when they wouldn't pull over a bit after I tapped their feet a few times. Had a lot of pain in my neck when trying to breath to the left (which I don't do often) due to a combo of yesterdays ride and sleeping on it funny, I guess. A massage and anti flame seem to have helped a bit.
This evening I did a strength session on the Mag trainer. A warmup followed by a bunch of 20sec bursts with the tension and the gears cranked to the hardest they would go. It hurt like a b***h (b***h isn't one of those words that converts into asterisks well is it). Then a 20min spin in the TT (time trial) position, that hurt more. It was like a deep dull pain that I can imagine would last for the whole Ironman ride if you went at the right tempo, ouch!
All in all a good days training.