Swimming and Cycling

After seeing how my bad swim at the Magnolia Tri is what kept me from winning my age group, I figured it was time to maybe get serious about swimming again.

From late October until early March, I had only concentrated on my running in preparation for Dopey, La. Half, and RnR Half.  Then I managed to get in a couple swims in advance of the two Triathlons I did on successive weekends, but they were more along the line of "re-acquaint myself with the water" than anything.  Each session was longish by my standards (over 1600M), but mainly I focused on just completing the distance more than anything.  Then the week following the Magnolia Tri I ended up not training at all because work got to be bonkers and there were 11ty billion things I needed to do outside of work.  Finally this week I managed to get myself back to the pool a couple times, once for a long workout (1900M) and again for a short swim (700M of 100M intervals).

I found a couple interesting things...

One:  If I breathe bilaterally, I'm roughly 20 seconds per 100M faster, but my stamina goes out the window.

Two:  A pull buoy makes that number 25 seconds.

Apparently breathing to one side on every stroke slows me down.  A lot.  And the pull buoy having that much of an effect means my legs are probably 18" to 20" below the surface of the water.

In a nutshell, my body position in the water is downright awful.

I think it's time I break down and get a swim coach for a few sessions to help me fix my stroke.  Or I need to add some air bladders under my skin over my hamstrings and see if that'll give me some added buoyancy on that end.  Coaching starts on Saturday morning.

Now, the bike...

I've been doing 2-3 workouts a week on the bike, mostly indoors on the trainer with TrainerRoad and Netflix.  If weather permitted I'd get out on the road but not as often as I'd like.  Last Saturday though, I got nice weather and a free afternoon, so I took full advantage and went out for a little ride.

I initially intended to ride from my house to the Tammany Trace, then to the Mandeville trailhead and back for a short 18 mile ride.  But when I got to the trailhead I felt good so I thought I'd push a little further to make for a 25 mile ride by turning around at Fountainbleu Park.  There I decided to go to the Lacombe bridge, which is about 3-4 miles from the end of the Trace.  So I figured I had to go to the end before heading home.

I hit the end of the Trace and started back, now with a nice tailwind.  I made a quick stop at the Mandeville Trailhead to refill water bottles and push onward home.  When I hit the gate to my subdivision, I was at 48.2 miles which would leave me roughly a mile and a half short of 50, so I made a pretty big loop of the neighborhood and hit the 50 mile mark at the center of the cul de sac I live on.

So my intended short ride turned into a half-century.  Good times!

Ironman New Orleans 70.3

The day after that, I headed over the lake to City Park to watch the finish of the Ironman 70.3.  I got there around the 5:45 mark on the official clock, so I was able to see the AG guys coming in.  It was great seeing athletes from around the country finish up their races.  Emotions were a mix of "I can't believe I did this" to "OMG IT'S SO HOT OUT HERE" to the analytical types looking at their Garmins and pondering where they could have picked up an extra 3-4 minutes.

The coolest thing though was seeing the Men's winner and all around cool guy Andy Potts at the finish line handing out medals.  People would finish, do the "I'm about to die" thing where they stop and bend over at the waist and put their hands on their knees, then look up at Potts smiling at them and it would take a couple seconds for them to figure out who he was.  When they did their faces would light up as he put the medal around their necks.  It was fun to watch.  I hope he's at Augusta and I get to experience that.

Speaking of Augusta

I poked around TrainingPeaks, BeginnerTriathlete.com, various websites, and couldn't find a training plan that I thought I could work into my schedule for Augusta.  So I've decided to get a coach to write a plan for me that hopefully will fit my schedule, address my swim weakness, and take advantage of my running ability.  I hope to get cranked up with focused training in the next couple weeks.  I'm looking forward to the challenge of 70.3 miles in one day across three different sports.

I'm also looking forward to a reason to spend 3-4 hours on a Sunday morning on my bike.