Swim Bike Run Live

Three Things – Swimming Edition

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

1) I somehow failed to set my alarm last night to get up up and out the door to masters swimming on time. But I woke up on my own at 4:55 am, texted Julia that I’d be late and wouldn’t be able to shuttle her to practice, and still make it to practice just in the nick of time. Even after I realized there was a surprise snow dusting and I had to scrape off my car. I think I can officially say that I’m on a regular training schedule and my body has a nice eat-sleep-train rhythm going on.

2) Swimming HURTS. I’m about a month into a bit swimming block and I can say with complete confidence that I haven’t worked this hard in the pool EVER in my triathlon career. My back hurts, my shoulders hurt, my gluts hurt (from a tight lower back?), my triceps hurt. And I LOVE it. Swimming has always been my weakness, and for good reason. I never really pushed myself, either in volume, frequency or intensity, in the pool. Now I’m hitting it long, hard and often. Plus, rocking the mankini 4 times a week helps me stay out of the winter duldrums and stay in a good mood. Being covered in multiple layers or stuck inside training is not good for the brain.

3) I did a stroke analysis a while ago, and got a bunch of advice to be more efficient and help prevent overuse injuries. (especially important with all the extra volume and intensity.) The good thing is that I’ve got someone on the deck heckling me if I don’t put the advice to use.

Basically, my arms don’t catch evenly on both sides. My right arm crosses over towards the centerline whenever I breathe on the right. Simple fix, right?

Except that I do that because I rotate my shoulder along with my head when I breathe, flinging my arm further towards the middle than it should be. Apparently I’m supposed to drop my face back into the water before I rotate my top shoulder down, not at the same time like I’ve been doing. So that means I don’t just have to fix my right arm entry, but my shoulder rotation and my breathing.

Frustrating that one little tweak has uncovered a whole chain of other tweaks, but it is all a part of making progress and getting closer to the goal.

| Posted in Triathlon | 3 Comments »

When I’m 70

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

…I won’t care about how bald my head is, how many wrinkles are on my face or any thing else about my deteriorating appearance.

But if I can come back from the doctor’s office with body scans that look like this, I’ll be pretty happy. Check out that crazy comparison between fat, muscle and bone density!

Via Laura McIntyre, Physiotherapist

Tags: aging, athlete, bone density, muscle retention | Posted in Triathlon | 4 Comments »

Rev3 Staff Runs Across America For Cancer

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

One of the reasons I love being part of Team Rev3 is because they just do awesome stuff. And it makes it insanely easy to support them.

Apparently at HQ a few weeks ago, there was a conversation that went down something like this:

“With all the buzz that we’ve gotten over the last few years, I really think we need to up our game and look for new ways to give back.”

“How so? You mean like offering complimentary back waxing to help hairy male athletes swim faster at our races?”

“No. Like doing something big for the Ulman Cancer Fund. We’ve supported them in a lot of ways in the past, but I’m thinking about something BIG.”

“Like what?”

“What if we tried to raise $100,000 for them? That could do a lot of good for people with cancer, right?”

“Heck yeah, but how are we going to do that?”

“Let’s run across the country. And invite others to join us along the route or run with us ‘virtually’ and tally up their own miles.”

“Shiver me timbers! That idea it the cat’s pajamas. Let’s start planning.”

Okay, well I’m pretty sure that no one said the last part. But the rest of it was pretty accurate. Even the back waxing part.

Starting Monday, March 26, a bunch of Rev3 staff and a few members of the AG team will start off running from Oceanside, California and won’t stop for 21 days when they reach Washington D.C. And they will be working on raising $100,000 in donations to the Ulman Cancer Fund all along the way.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to join them in person, but especially since my family had to start battling cancer head on last year with my dad’s lung cancer diagnosis, their mission really hits home for me. Me and the rest of the Rev3 AG team will be tallying up our training miles with hopes of at least matching the Run Across America team’s +3,000 miles over the same 3 weeks.

There will be more details on how you can help support the crew on their journey physically, emotionally and financially over the next few weeks. So stay tuned. Until then, if you have it in your heart to donate anything to help the team, please do. See the link on my blog’s sidebar or go directly to http://rev3tri.com/america/donate/

I’m fortunate enough to be able to plan my triathlon schedule 9 months out from now. Others have doctors telling them that they won’t be around by in 9 months. This is for them.

Tags: rev3, run across america, ulman cancer fund | Posted in Life, Running, Triathlon | 2 Comments »

Chasing Bubbles

Saturday, December 31st, 2011

That has been my workout theme for the past few weeks. Bubbles.

At my usual swimming spot, I’m almost always the fastest person in the water, and I’m not even a speedy swimmer. Lots of aquasizers and aquajoggers. It is hard to push yourself when you are doing solo workouts and you don’t have a carrot (or bubbles) in front of you to chase. Because of that (and not giving an honest effort effort and addressing the swim as my biggest weakness) my swim times for the last few years have hit a major plateau. No more.

I officially joined Cambridge Masters for the winter and I’m FAR from the fastest person in the new pool. Outside of one year on HS swim team, I’ve never really been a swimmer. Going back to something after almost 10 years out is definitely a little scary, but going outside of your comfort zone is how you grow, right? And this time I’m not using it as an excuse to hang out with cute athletic high school girls in bathing suits all winter. It is all business.

Now I’m not even the fastest person in my slowpoke lane. I love it. Plenty of bubbles to chase to and keep me swimming till my arms fall off!

I’ve even convinced a new local Team Rev3 recruit, Julia, to join with me this winter. She is wicked fast and I have no business being in the same lane as her, but knowing she’ll be waiting for me to pick her up when my alarm goes off at 4:45 am is good motivation to get up and moving. We’ve even got some sweet custom Rev3 suits on order! Can’t wait to rock them this winter.

Today was an annual NYE 100×100 fundraiser. I was relegated to the “slow kids pool” way on the other end, but had a great session. With only a few weeks of serious swimming under my belt after a long break from Sept-December, I had no business doing all 100. I gracefully bowed out after 25, but was really happy that I kept to 1:45 intervals and managed a solid :10 rest between. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. And I do.

Onward and upward! There are more bubbles out there to chase!

Question- Anyone have any good swimming/shoulder stretches? With all the time pushing myself in the pool (more than I have in a really long time), I want to make sure to keep my shoulders happy. They are definitely feeling it the most.

| Posted in Swimming, Training Log, Triathlon | 4 Comments »