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The Road Less Traveled: IM 2012
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Ran on the dreadmill last night. It wasn't good. As usual when I run late in the day, I got severe heartburn and eh, tummy issues. It worries me when I think about IM nutrition, I doubt I'll cope well. Another problem to solve.. Still, 40 mins closer to my target this week.
Swam this morning. 2.1k. Everyone in the pool was faster than me. I must be doing something very wrong. But endurance wise I could swim a lot further given the time so thats something. I think.
The fact that you could swim a lot further is something quite positive. For me at this point in my life, I'm much better at endurance than speed. Endurance will be your friend in the IM. But tummy issues....:eek:.....that will need to be sorted!
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I was getting it a lot last summer but only on tempo or interval runs. Thought it might have been caffeine. Not sure what stopped it in the first place I just hope it's not back as a regular visitor. It's not exactly something you can tough out when the faster you run the worse it gets.
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Did the Hell and Back 10k yesterday. I always think I can run until someone puts a few hills in my way and I realise I can't.
It was a tough old slog, my legs tired quickly, probably from all the turbo I've been at. Anyway I managed a 1hr 12, somewhere near the top quarter of the pack. I'll take that for now. Next year once all this long stuff is done, I'll look at getting fast! 0 -
Did the Hell and Back 10k yesterday. I always think I can run until someone puts a few hills in my way and I realise I can't. It was a tough old slog, my legs tired quickly, probably from all the turbo I've been at. Anyway I managed a 1hr 12, somewhere near the top quarter of the pack. I'll take that for now. Next year once all this long stuff is done, I'll look at getting fast!
What?
You think you can just walk away like that?
tsk, tsk....0 -
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Swim session. Coach surprised me by announcing that myself and another girl had to do a 1500 tt tonight as we missed one ages ago. He always seems to have the knack of making me do these on weeks when I've just done some crazy race. After a short warmup we ploughed into the trial. I'm pretty evenly matched with this other girl and we were on each others toes all the time just swapping every now and again. I felt I swam better when I didn't trail her, my stroke was better. But couldn't shake her off all the same. We finished two seconds apart. My time was the same as the last 1500 I did about a year ago. I'm not sure what to make of that. Clearly I'm not improving. Whether thats down to the extra training load or a lack of effort or speed work I just don't know. My technique has to be better, so I'm a bit puzzled by it. I'm swimming against the tide here and going backwards. I plan to do another tt on my own on a day I feel fresh and see how that goes, and other than that put more sprints in my sessions. 0
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This titbit from a Gavin Noble interview struck a chord with me this time last year - it even has Interested's and Tunnys favourite cafe. It may not apply to you so much though as all your sessions seem to be coached. But it did draw me away from a lot of fuzzy technique work which without a coach, I hadn't a clue was it of benefit or not or was I even doing it right. So these days very little technique work and loads of HTFU sets for me (although I am thinking of increasing my swims to three a week and including an easy technique session with fins on my rest day during Finks build phase as I don't think two is enough - I like my swimming).
So perhaps ignore my ramblings
T: At this time of the year triathletes are always thinking about improving their swim over the winter. Are their any top tips that you can give?
GN: Swimming is an interesting subject. I don’t think I shocked people who attended Tricamps but I maybe had a different approach. In 2008 when I started helping a small group of athletes the first thing I said was that I would not be wasting any time in swimming training on fancy drills or technique. We incorporated some technique work but that was disguised in strength sets or specific sets designed for open water triathlons.
If you have for example 3x60min sessions per week you have to be time efficient and get the very most from each session. Unless you have a coach on pool deck all of the time then I believe your wasting your time with many of the drills coaches offer as the secret way to improve. With my group I was not concerned with turning them into beautiful pool swimmers. I trained them to be conditioned, conditioned for the demands of triathlons.
There is no secret drill or session that will suddenly transform your swimming. I know people get very frustrated with swimming as you improve very quickly in biking and running proportionately to the time you spend out on the roads. But not so with swimming and therefore triathletes look for the reason why. The best way to improve your swimming this winter is to swim with a group and swim consistently every week. It is not by going and getting a one off 2 hour technique session. 2 well structured 2km swim sessions for a period of 12 weeks will have you swimming better than 1x5km session every so often.
As triathletes our challenge is then being able to transfer that to the open water, no black lines and lots of hustle. I sometimes think only a triathlete understands that . . .0 -
Swim session. Coach surprised me by announcing that myself and another girl had to do a 1500 tt tonight as we missed one ages ago. He always seems to have the knack of making me do these on weeks when I've just done some crazy race. After a short warmup we ploughed into the trial. I'm pretty evenly matched with this other girl and we were on each others toes all the time just swapping every now and again. I felt I swam better when I didn't trail her, my stroke was better. But couldn't shake her off all the same. We finished two seconds apart. My time was the same as the last 1500 I did about a year ago. I'm not sure what to make of that. Clearly I'm not improving. Whether thats down to the extra training load or a lack of effort or speed work I just don't know. My technique has to be better, so I'm a bit puzzled by it. I'm swimming against the tide here and going backwards. I plan to do another tt on my own on a day I feel fresh and see how that goes, and other than that put more sprints in my sessions.
Being a bit hard on yourself here. You had a tough race two days ago which can't have helped, as you say at the end do it again when you feel fresh and it'll probably be a different story.
I was thinking the same about my swimming, think I was chatting to you about it. Couple of tt's last week showed me to be an idiot, always feels like you're making no progress. Swimming is probably the hardest to measure your own progress in? You triheads would know better than me, but it's harder to gauge pace and effort in the pool, for me anyway, especially given theres so many other messy things to concentrate on.0 -
Swim session. Coach surprised me by announcing that myself and another girl had to do a 1500 tt tonight as we missed one ages ago. He always seems to have the knack of making me do these on weeks when I've just done some crazy race. After a short warmup we ploughed into the trial. I'm pretty evenly matched with this other girl and we were on each others toes all the time just swapping every now and again. I felt I swam better when I didn't trail her, my stroke was better. But couldn't shake her off all the same. We finished two seconds apart. My time was the same as the last 1500 I did about a year ago. I'm not sure what to make of that. Clearly I'm not improving. Whether thats down to the extra training load or a lack of effort or speed work I just don't know. My technique has to be better, so I'm a bit puzzled by it. I'm swimming against the tide here and going backwards. I plan to do another tt on my own on a day I feel fresh and see how that goes, and other than that put more sprints in my sessions.
A 1500 tt?? Really?? Ugh!
I agree with RQ, you're way too hard on yourself. In my opinion, of the three disciplines swimming will suffer the most if you are fatigued....and the longer the distance of the tt, the more the cumulative effect of that fatigue. You had a race this weekend and you've upped your curent training....I wonder what the circumstances were around your last tt a year ago? Is it possible you were fresher then? I'm betting so.
What CW posted is good....and I agree, a coach and several consistent swim sessions a week are recommended. But what I also take from that dialog is that "conventional" swim sessions may not be what's best for triathletes. Perhaps the distances and some of the focus is not benefitting triathletes like they should. When I was in training (eons ago!) we certainly did not train for open water endurance events. Yes, the distance swimmers did slightly different workouts than we sprinters, but my gut tells me even those distance swimmers would not have been best prepared for a triathlon. Question: is your coach training you for open water endurance swimming? What are most of the other swimmers training for? Does everyone do the same workout? Do you focus on upper body/stroke strength? Do you practice lifting your head periodically to breathe?
Bottom line, don't get frustrated. You're doing great. And sometimes improvement is like losing weight - you plateau for a while then BOOM! Huge improvements all of a sudden. Keep at it and they will come.:)0 -
Thanks all for the advice. I'm getting so much conflicting information right now its blowing my mind. Its all good stuff but seems to 'swim this way for tri' or 'swim this way to improve'. I'm confused! Anyway. I pulled out my training diary and this time last year the same tt was 40 seconds slower. And I hadn't turboed that morning. I still don't feel like I'm making as much progress as I should, but I will wait for that POW moment to come where it clicks and I suddenly speed up. 0
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Ran this evening. The first twenty minutes I did with someone new to running so it was quite slow. Once on my own I picked up the pace and the run went grand. 10.85k. Total time is irrelevant but I was running low 5min Kms on my own. Very cold out, but I love running in the cold. No scenery to speak of, just badly lit streets and smoky chimneys but I did have to run the gauntlet of a pack of wild hoodys and some crazy dogs on lethal extending leashes on my way. 0
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Yesterday, with only one session so early in the morning, was practically a rest day. I even had a can of cider in the evening, I was so relaxed..
This morning, though, my legs felt like lead. Could one tinny do that?? Did my 11k run in the usual plodding time, through fog and drizzly rain. What I would describe to Dory as a soft Irish day, but I just call sh!te weather. It was warm though, and I went out overdressed, which caused a quick strip to remove a base layer at the side of the road. Good job noone else gets up at stupid o clock on the roads where I live. The last few kms of the run felt better than the start, the legs had loosened up a lot.
Thats it for today, another half day. Just over an hour to do to hit this weeks target so hopefully a good long turbo will sort that out tomorrow. Yet again I cant get out on my bike. November was my last proper ride, at this rate I will need stabilizers.0 -
Yesterday, with only one session so early in the morning, was practically a rest day. I even had a can of cider in the evening, I was so relaxed..
This morning, though, my legs felt like lead. Could one tinny do that?? Did my 11k run in the usual plodding time, through fog and drizzly rain. What I would describe to Dory as a soft Irish day, but I just call sh!te weather. It was warm though, and I went out overdressed, which caused a quick strip to remove a base layer at the side of the road. Good job noone else gets up at stupid o clock on the roads where I live. The last few kms of the run felt better than the start, the legs had loosened up a lot.
Thats it for today, another half day. Just over an hour to do to hit this weeks target so hopefully a good long turbo will sort that out tomorrow. Yet again I cant get out on my bike. November was my last proper ride, at this rate I will need stabilizers.
This is like the bat sign for all Wexford lurkers...You'll have plenty of company next time out:)0 -
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