Wednesday Training – 3rd October

Wow. Post-long weekend craziness at work meant that despite my best intentions I didn’t make Tuesday training this week. I was at my desk working away when I realised time had gotten away from me and it was too late for me to make training. Very sad!

Still, next week should get easier – when daylight savings starts the pool will open later and the training timetable will be changing to include a later session on Tuesdays that will make getting there a lot easier.

Wednesday, though, I made sure I got there. I can’t say I had the best attitude about it as the long weekend work fallout was continuing, and I had a super-sore calf muscle (result of a nasty cramp while diving over the long weekend), but I always convince myself to go anyway with the logic that a half-assed workout is still better than no workout at all.

And of course it never really works out that way. It was a tough pacing session and I found myself focussing so hard on trying to keep my pace that all the cares of the day melted away. It was a kind of funny session as I found myself behind my friend Julie, who started swimming the same day I did (and has a Can Too Trivia Night coming up 1st November at the Harlequin in Pyrmont…quick plug!). She’s a bit quicker than me, but I found with a consistent effort and the effects of drafting, I was able to stay right on her feet for several of the 200m sets. I felt a bit bad about it, but there was no way I could possibly have passed her, and it was taking all I had to stay in that draft, so it was still a good workout and not at all a cruise for me. Same effort but much faster times! (wish that could happen more often…)

I may have been a bit slack on my tumble-turn resolution, though…I tried the first couple of laps, but there were several of us in the lane swimming very similar paces, and my turns are still somewhat lacking in coordination. After nearly taking out other swimmers a couple of times I decided to give it a rest tonight and focus on the main set. A concerted effort will be made next week to get back on track!

Wednesday Training – 26th September

I pulled up a little sore on Wednesday after swimming hard on Tuesday night. Just a bit tight across the shoulders and arms. Sign of a good workout!

The set was more pacing, at randomly chosen varying distances (a “listening” drill from coach Kingy) rather than the usual planned and printed up set. Good fun and another hard swim.

The drill we did at the start was one that I really struggle with. I’m not entirely sure what it’s called (perhaps if my dodgy description rings any bells with anyone they could post a comment?), and I didn’t have any luck finding a YouTube clip to show you, so here goes my best explanation.

1. Push off the end of the pool backwards like you would for backstroke.
2. But keep your arms by your sides the whole drill.
3. Propel yourself by kicking.
4. Using your core (not by turning your head) rotate your whole body 180 degrees until you’re face down in the water. then rotate back the same way back onto your back.
5. Do the same thing the other direction. Then alternate directions the whole way down the pool and back.

This particular drill is designed to work on body rotation. This is an unbelieveably big part of good swimming technique. Super important.

Good swimming technique, at its most basic, is about two things: maximising forward momentum, and minimising drag.

A good body rotation helps with both of these things through:

• Helping get a good long reach when your arm enters the water. Try reaching your arm forward standing straight and holding your torso and shoulders rigid. Then twist your torso at the waist and angle your shoulder forward and look how much further you can reach. Same thing in the water.
• Your arm comes more easily out of the water and higher on the return part of your stroke. Air has a lot less resistance than water so this is a good thing!
• Your body is more streamlined and glides more efficiently through the water. Think about if you’re in the surf and a wave hits you front on instead of side on…..

In my case, this particular drill means water up my nose, wonky zig-zag path up and down the pool, and sore legs protesting that they aren’t used to getting so much use!

Guess I must need to keep practising!

Edit: if you odn’t believe me, I found a great SwimSmooth article on rotation. Much more comprehensive than mine and definitely worth a read!

Tuesday Training – 25th September

Tuesday Training – we were light on for people so there was plenty of room in the lane. We did a straight up pacing set against the clock…..time trial 100m average time: Swim 100m. Rest 15 seconds. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat…….

Sounds simple, right?

Surprisingly gruelling. It’s a really tough job to do the following things:

1. Hold yourself back in the first couple of laps
2. Keep up on the last few laps
3. Stay focussed enough to know what your pace is. Every lap. Without getting distracted by the voices in your head.

I’ve been feeling great in the water lately and about as fast as I’ve ever been (possibly faster), so decided I would make a really concerted effort to stay right on track.

First couple of laps were fine. I still can’t seem to ever get the first one right and was a touch fast, but then I settled into a rhythm.

About two-thirds through I was starting to feel it. My face was flushed (yes, you can definitely sweat when swimming if you swim hard enough) and my breathing was heavy at the end of each lap.

As the set progressed it was getting harder and harder. My shoulders were aching and I heard Coach Zoe speaking to one of the other swimmers as I finished a lap and stopped for my 15 second break…..

I think a few people might be coasting tonight. *pauses a second, then hears me* Except maybe Jacki. There’s a good bit of huffing and puffing!

And I was certainly puffing. I hammered it out til the end of the hour, fighting increasing discomfort and resorting to the mantra approach to staying on track…. “train hard, race easy. train hard, race easy. train hard, race easy”

So did I do it? Maintain my new and improved pace for the whole set? Well no. I lost it on the last 2x 100m. But you know what….that’s only 2 out of (ummm….lost count somewhere along the line….) somewhere between 15 and 20. Great progress and I’m more determined than ever to get there (and maybe faster again!).

Wednesday Training – 19th September

Wednesday training this week was a far more successful outing than Tuesday’s failed attempt at cheesecake redemption!

Coach Kingy was back on deck and so was the pacing training at the new and improved (read: harder) time.

Also returning was an old favourite of Coach Kingy…pyramids! These are a very special form of torture, particularly if you’re doing pacing, and they work like this:

• 100m. Rest 15 secs
• 200m. Rest 15 secs
• 300m. Rest 15 secs
• 400m. Rest 15 secs
• 300m. Rest 15 secs
• 200m. Rest 15 secs
• 100m. Rest 15 secs

All at a consistent pace. Obviously this set can be dialled up and down depending on how much time you have and how fast the swimmers are and if you’re doing drills as well.

It’s a good one at really learning to maintain that pace we’ve been working on over longer and varying distances. In an ocean swim, you don’t have  that neat end of each pool to tell you when you hit 100m, so it’s good to know what that pace feels like over different distances. It’s also a good one for developing stamina and endurance and I know my arms were feeling it by the end!

Allison was back from what sounded like a brilliant swim tour in Fiji and it seems we’ve hit a point where we’re swimming almost exactly the same pace, so we stuck together and switched up leading a bit (I’d like to point out that I bravely took the 400m leg!). I do love having someone to pace off, both at training and in races, so it was nice to find and stick with a buddy and I was pretty happy with the pace we maintained.

On another note…bet you’re wondering if I faced my fears and tumble turned after last week’s master class. Well, good news…I did! I decided to make myself do it at the deep end turns only, to start with. I kept it up most of the way, although I found as I got tired towards the end of the set I started to go a bit wonky and became a bit of a danger to myself and other swimmers. Oops! At that point I eased up a bit, but will keep at it until I can get in more per set, faster and better.

Wednesday Training – 12th September

I was almost a little hesitant about Wednesday training this week. After going out a little hard on Tuesday night, I was just a touch tired and sore in the arms.

Then there was one of those good news/bad news situations.

Good news! No pacing tonight!

Bad News. Tumble turns.

In ocean swimming we rarely need to tumble turn. Most of us avoid it like the plague. I personally have an unnatural aversion to them. I once put my neck out doing one incorrectly and have been a bit traumatised ever since.

So I was definitely outside my comfort zone. Well outside.

So I decided to do the only sensible thing under the circumstances: Sulk a bit, then pull on my big-girl pants, suck it up and get on with it!

It was actually a pretty good session. Nobody’s ever really taught me how to do a proper tumble turn. Coach Zoe was running the session and I knew from seeing her swim in the MS Megaswim team, that she could do a killer, effortless-looking tumble turn, so that gave me a bit of confidence that I might get the hang of it. She also explained some of the ways that learning to tumble turn could help in the ocean (not freaking out if tumbled by a wave, timing)

Zoe, as expected, was great. She broke down the turn into different aspects and had us lined up against the side of the pool, and somersaulting down the lanes.

It must have looked ridiculous!!!! To be fair, though, we wear goggles and caps so we’re pretty much already on the ridiculous-looking side of life.

In the end, I managed one or two successful tumble turns.

Goes to show, that if you put your mind to something and have a good teacher and you never know what might be possible.

I was tossing up whether to continue using them in my training, when this conversation happened…

Coach Zoe: So I’m OK if you don’t want to use these every turn, but I would encourge you to tumble turn at least a couple of times per session.

Jacki: Will they make our time trial times quicker?

Coach Zoe: Yes, absolutely. Up to 5 seconds per 100m.

Jacki: Sold!

Tuesday Training – 11th September

After the 4 week specific 4T Tuesday sessions were so successful, it seems they have been confirmed as continuing. This is great, except for the fact that my boxing class is also moving next term to Tuesday nights (or 6am Fridays). I know it falls under the hallowed auspices of #firstworldproblems but it is a choice I’m going to have to make at some point down the line.

This week, though, there was no clash. Work wasn’t too crazy, sunset is getting later and I was in a really optimistic state of mind.

After a good result with time trials last week, we were ready to start all over again with a new and improved pacing time.

I powered off, feeling great and ambitiously thought I’d round down to make my laps easier to calculate…it can be a touch tricky if you’re not on a 5-second mark, especially as you get towards the end of the session. I lose the ability to even count as I get tired, let alone calculate lap times!

We did 500m with 100m on new pace. That was fine. I was feeling great!I can feel myself getting a bit fitter and I’m finally over that stupid cold and it felt magnificent!

The second part of the set was 5 x 200m on the new pace.

I’m not sure quite what happened, but I think it’s called hitting the wall!!

I may have gone out a little ambitious…I certainly felt it at the end of the session (when I felt decidedly flushed in the face and out of breath) and then again the next day (sore in the shoulders!).

Thing is, though, I know myself well enough to know that I can push through it. Any new thing for me takes 2 weeks to condition. It’s like clockwork. If I stick at it, and keep pushing. I’ll get there…..

Wednesday Training – 5th September – Time Trial!

Last night’s training was the big day of reckoning – us against the clock!

5 weeks had elapsed since the last time trial and the squad had been doing the extra 4Ts Tuesdays and working on pacing for weeks now to improve times.

I, only the other hand, started strong, but had that horrid cold and did my dive course and have been kind of all over the place with my training.

I was a little nervous.

I worked from home yesterday, so I drove down to the pool. It’s closer to my house than my office, so I was there plenty early. It was a particularly gorgeous day yesterday and the sun was shining and it was balmy warm, so I had a bit of a wander in the park as the sun was setting and that helped with the nerves.

We did a warm up and a 3-5-7 breathing drill to get our arms warmed up and turning over. Despite my reservations I was feeling pretty good in the pool. I’d had a very early (alcohol free) night the night before, eaten thoughtfully through the day and I think that helped.

We did a 200m as timed 50m sets on our pace with 15 seconds rest in between. It wasn’t taxing at all, but it was good for me to get that feel for how fast I should be going out at the start.

Then we started the time trial. 500 metres, same as last time.

I continued on, keeping to my pace. To my surprise I was feeling good. Very good.

At about half way through I surprised myself by catching up to Leanne, who was swimming in front of me and had started 10 seconds earlier. I used her to pace myself for about 100m as I know we swam a pretty similar time trial last time and that she’s been a touch quicker than me in the pool lately. I was feeling like I could overtake, but didn’t want to go out too hard too soon and leave myself with nothing for the finish. I wanted to trust in all the pacing work we’d done!

Then , just as we were heading in for the 2nd last turn, I knew I could ramp it up the rest of the way. The leader in our lane came from behind and passed the both of us, so I took the opportunity and jumped on her feet for a tiny boost and overtook!

The next 100m I ramped up to 90% effort and I had a good feeling, then on the home stretch with about 20m to go I really went into overdrive!!!! I was focussing on keeping technique and getting enough oxygen and turning the arms over as fast as I could!

I hit the wall and Coach Kingy noted my time. There was a bit of confusion since we needed to adjust for staggered start times and I get very bad at basic maths when I’m tired.

But I had dropped a full 30 seconds from my last time!!!!!

I was both floored and ecstatic with that result!

Near as I can tell there are a couple of reasons why the improvement was so massive.

1. I think I must have had a bad swim last time trial. Compared to other time trials I’ve done it was slow.
2. The change in strategy definitely helped. Keeping a consistent pace and then finishing strong is, intellectually, a better idea than killing yourself on the first hundred and dying for the rest. I’m so trying this out this race season.
3. The coaching and training sessions definitely helped. I may not have made all of them, but I’ve been pretty active (apart from when I was sick) and it all helps with general fitness.
4. Knowing the time trial was coming meant I could prepare physically by not coming stressed and rushed from the office, make sure I didn’t do anything silly the night before and could make certain I was eating well and hydrating on the day.

Afterwards we did a bit of a swim down and then the coaches gave us an early mark so we hopped out and showered and changed and all went out for dinner and wines!

It’s called rehydration people 😉

Wednesday Training – 29th August

Consistency is important in training. Last night was the first time I’ve done a proper pool session in two weeks thanks to this cold, and my god did I feel it.

Last time we did pacing drills I was easily keeping to my pace and feeling confident I could start shaving time off each 100m. Last night, I stayed on pace for the first 500m, and then could not get back to it for anything. I felt like I was giving it everything I had and I was still coming in at least 5 seconds under for each 100m!

It felt rough at the time, but I try to use the lesson in a positive way, to remind myself that the opposite can also be true for me – if I can train consistently, I will improve.

With a short rest before starting, and enough concerted effort to make me breathless and a little bit nauseous, I managed to come in under for my final 100m, though, so I still have faith that I might be able to shave some seconds off my time trial next week. Watch this space….

Olympic Open Water Marathon – Analysis

OK, I’m a bit behind on my reading, but given I’m about to share an after-the-fact analysis, I’m letting myself off the hook.

Read this interesting analysis of the strategies of the gold medalists at the Olympics open water swimming recently.

Had quite a bit of detail, but the main thing I found interesting was:

 1.They grabbed the early lead and held it throughout much the race.
2. They significantly increased their pace on the fifth of six laps.
3. When they decided to make a break, there was no turning back.
4. They sprinted hard on the last lap while being chased by 3-4 competitors.

Point 2 was particularly interesting given the focus we’ve been giving to pacing at training lately (or at least those not struck with the dreaded lurgy).

I did find point 1 quite surprising, too, given the advantages of drafting…those winners needed to be super strong and super good to lead from the front the whole way. Can you imagine this sort of strategy in the Tour De France? Me either. Definitely some points to ponder!

Additional

While I’m at it…..the next thing I came across was this article explaining exactly how fast Ous Mellouli, the gold medallist swam. (spoiler: really fast!) Apparently under 1:06 for each 100m for 10k in less than 1 hour, 50 minutes. Just thinking about swimming that fast makes me kind of feel like vomiting!

4Ts – Tuesday Time Trial Training week 1

This email arrived in my inbox on Monday:

“Hi Swimmers
The regular Time Trial (TT) in the pool helps to measure your improvement from the training you have been doing. At the last TT 56% of people improved their time over 500m. That is a fantastic result. We’d like to see this trend continue!
 
Usually the TIme Trial in the pool comes as a surprise, but training for a specific goal is effective in increasing your motivation and enjoyment of training.
Imagine if we all set our selves a goal of swimming at least 5 seconds faster at our next time trial. That seems very achievable – 1 second faster per 100m.
To achieve an improvement is performance we need a plan.
 
PLAN
Next 500m Time Trial date is on 5th September 2012
Keep coming to Wednesday 6pm for the regular pool session coached by Kingy
 
ADD from tomorrow>>>
Tuesday Time Trial Training  >> 4 week effort – called 4Ts
 
4Ts session
6pm Tuesday Victoria Park Pool
Swim with the coach/s
 
Warm up 200m
15-20 x 100m on YOUR TT pace with 15 seconds rest between each 100m
Warm down 200m
 
You will need
1.       Watch
2.       Be able to operate and read the time on your  watch (or ability to read the strange clock at Vic pool)
3.       Your TT pace (we will have a sheet for this)”

On Tuesday I had plans, but they were with Fiona who fully understands the importance of swimming, so I rescheduled and trundled off to the pool for an extra session. Last year I was doing 3 sessions a week plus boxing all winter, so really it’s just back to the same for me, rather than adding an extra session altogether.

The session was quite different in a couple of ways. For a start, the coaches were swimming with us. Usually at least one of them stays out of the water to answer questions and provide directions and offer feedback and advice. In this case, too, the session, what it would involve, and what it was designed to achieve was fully spelled out beforehand.

These sessions are quite simply designed to get us used to swimming a certain pace consistently without burning out too quickly or tailing off too much at the end.

This is harder than you’d think.

For a start, I had a new watch and just could not seem to figure out how to get it to work properly to time my laps. In the end I had to just stop playing with it and took note of the time and did the sums in my head. Hoping this will improve with time.

Making this more difficult is the fact that I’ve found with swimming (and particularly when I box) thatI become less and less able to deal with numbers the more tired I get. I find this particularly funny given it’s my job to work with numbers every day…and give me an hour at the pool or punching, and I can’t add two and two together! Still, with 4 weeks of focus, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get the hang of it.

Watch this space…my time trial was a full 30 seconds slower than I did for one in February this year, so with a bit of focus and strategy I’m hoping for big results!