Last week, I said I had intended to make a post outlining some training, but changed my mind because of a friend's status on Facebook.
This week, I'm talking about training.
Right now, my training consists of working towards two goals:
1. The Dopey Challenge. 48.6 miles over 4 days at Disneyworld culminating in the Walt Disney World Marathon. Plus an extra mile in the Mickey Mile with my daughter.
and..
2. Build my swimming to a point where I can realistically start training for the Half-Ironman in New Orleans next April.
Tertiary non-goal: Get a better base of cycling fitness as well.
What I'm doing is following a training plan laid out by another blogger, but changing some things up on the non-running days for cross training and for working towards goal #2. This past week, my schedule was as follows:
Monday: Bike 30 minutes
Tuesday: Run 2 miles
Wednesday: Run 3 miles
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Bike 30 minutes
Saturday: Run 6 miles
Sunday: Core
What actually was done:
Monday: Swim Smooth's Stroke Correction Workout (roughly 1200M of swimming and drills)
Tuesday: 2 mile treadmill run (followed by a St. Peter's Dad's Club meeting at the Abita Brewery to sample some Abita Strawator)
Wednesday: 3 mile treadmill run
Thursday: Rest (in the form of cutting grass)
Friday: Swim Smooth workout
Saturday: 6 mile run
Sunday (Today): 20 mile bike
The good: Ran well all three days. The runner compulsion to make training runs into race distances creeped in and my 3 mile run became 3.1, and my 6 mile became 6.2 (5K and 10K respectively). I've got a touch of ITBS in my right knee and if I stretch a bit before I run and wear the knee band for ITBS it's not an issue (but wasn't the case last week since I neglected the band on a 5 mile run).
The bad: It was still over 90 degrees when I started cutting grass on Thursday evening. I probably burned more calories and did more work than if I had run 5 miles. But my yard looked AWESOME!
The ugly: The two swim workouts. The swimming would be fine if it weren't for the need to breathe, but I can't ever find a comfortable rhythm to my breathing that would allow for me to swim continuously for more than about 100 meters. I'm guessing at some point it'll get better, but as of now, it's not. It's a humbling experience too, especially since I feel like I'm a decent runner and can run for hours. I'm not as fast as I want to be on a bike, but I can ride for hours as well. But swimming is a completely different animal.
I remember when I was doing martial arts, and would meet people who were interested in trying out a class. One of their primary objections would always be "I'm not in shape for kickboxing/ju jitsu/tae kwon do/hapkido/Brazilian jiu jitsu/judo, so I want to get in shape first before I try a class so I don't get embarrassed." My reply was always "the only way to get into fight shape is to fight". The logic was that sport specific fitness would be more of a factor than general fitness. I had seen a ton of guys come in who were in "good" shape and would be on the verge of puking halfway through a ju jitsu workout. Or in the case of my much younger than me cousin, actually puking in a Chik-Fil-A drive through after a ju jitsu workout. He was in good shape, but not in ju jitsu shape.
Of course, knowing how to do whatever it was we were doing in a martial arts class made it easier as well, so it was easier to get by on skill rather than fitness. I'm beginning to feel like swimming is a lot like that. The first time I sparred in a kickboxing class I gassed a couple minutes into the first round because I didn't have the skills. But as my skills developed, sparring became easier and it was less of an effort. I'm just waiting for my swimming (especially the breathing part) to get to that point. I think that once that happens, I'll be able to drastically increase my swim volume and get much better fairly quickly.
Next week looks to be a fairly low volume running week, so I'll get an extra pool workout in. The week after also looks to be low volume. However, the week of July 14th is the first "Dopey Drill Week" in my plan. 6 consecutive days of running, with an 8 mile run on Sunday the 21st.
CAN'T WAIT!
- "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard...is what makes it great!"
-Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own
Russ - what's your breathing issue when swimming? Are you just tired after a certain point? Or do you feel that you need to breathe during every stroke?
ReplyDeleteIt's been a long time since I swam competitively, but I still remember a lot. I'm not familiar with the program you're doing, but a quick Google search indicates that it seems like a good program to help you learn the proper technique. If I can help in any way, just drop me a note and I'll let you know what I did.
But, I must caution that I was a sprint swimmer (50 - 100 yd/meter distances), and you're going for the long haul. My breathing was vastly different during a race than what you're looking to do. But, at the end of the day, I swam miles and miles in practice, so I had to regulate my breathing for that. Like I said, if I can help, I'll be happy to offer advice.
When I started swimming I was breathing unilaterally and on every stroke. It wasn't bad, but my stroke was so bad and I was so not in swim shape it didn't matter. After a couple months of that I started researching how to swim better, and one overwhelming thing that stuck out was I needed to learn to breathe bilaterally, especially if I wanted to swim open water. I just can't ever get comfortable, no matter how I change up my pattern, whether I do every 3 strokes, or 2-2-3, or 3-5-3, or whatever. Inevitably I reach a point where I feel like I need to take a breath where I can't and I have to stop. Or I'll feel like I'm not getting enough air when I do breathe.
ReplyDeleteOne drill I'm doing is a 6-1-6 with fins going up the pool, and freestyle back and doing that for 100 yards. By about the last quarter of the first set up the pool my breathing is way off rhythm. Freestyle back is fine, but then the second 6-1-6 lap up is a mess, and the last freestyle back is a challenge as well.
I've considered a snorkel, but that seems counterintuitive if the worst part of my swimming is the breathing. I feel like if I could fix that, I'd be able to make some decent progress in fairly short order.
No, don't go with a snorkel. Once you fix your breathing, you'll be fine.
ReplyDeleteMy observation: you're still relatively new to this, and your body has to get used to the breathing patterns used in swimming. If you're breathing (or want to breathe) that much, then I suggest that you dial it back a bit and go a little easier. You certainly don't want to breathe on every stroke. And during your drills, work on the breathing and go as slow or fast as it takes to breathe for the drill. Your body will get used to it, and you'll get faster.
You absolutely have to breathe bilaterally. It took me a LONG time to learn how to breathe bilaterally, and when I did, it made all the difference in the world. How long did it take? From 8 years old to 15 years old, I only breathed on the left side. I learned at Rummel how to breathe on both sides and my times got so much quicker and my strokes took less effort. Specifically because I could breathe when I needed to and not have to wait one more stroke for my breath. But learning it was tough and took time. It was worth it, though.