Thursday, June 08, 2006

Breaking 1500

Wow, yesterday was a brutal day for Blogger. It seems they have been hard at work and have everything resolved. It's good to see everything back up and running properly. They picked a good day to have random technical difficulties, as yesterday's training note would have been short and to the point. Twenty three miles on the bike at 18 mph pace. And I DEFINITELY would have left out the part about getting home, pulling my foot off the pedal, and accidently snapping it back in as I tried to get one last pedal up the driveway. I also would have left out the part about then being stuck in the pedal with no forward momentum and the resulting fall. Because it probably didn't look ridiculous. So there was nothing to tell.

This morning was another scheduled 1000 yard swim. Runner's World had an article on triathlons, and the swim section discussed a drill that I used during my 100 yard sets. The drill is to do a normal forward crawl stroke, but to pause for one second with the leading hand forward on each stroke. The goal is to force attention to body rotation. I completed 800 yards worth of that drill, and find it to be very helpful. First, it does indeed focus attention on rotation. Second, just slowing things down in the stroke and making it more effective helped improve my pace. Most 100 yard sets were near the 2:30 mark, which is pretty speedy for this guppy.

After completing 800 yards, I did one 200 yard set to complete the 1000 yards. After a 60 second rest interval, I decided to add a little bit extra, as 1000 yards is the most I'd ever done. That "little bit extra" turned into 500 yards without a rest interval (not counting pauses in sweet spot). That's huge for two reasons. It got me to the 1500 yard mark. It also marks the first time I've completed more than 1/4 mile without stopping. It's one small step, er stroke, for triathlete kind, but one huge jump, er bigger stroke, for Iron Pol.

Just for the record, according to the YMCA, what I swam was actually 1466.667 yards, as they claim 72 laps equal 1 mile. That makes the pool 24.72 yards, which I personally deemed idiotic. But to be fair, I theoretically had to swim another length and a third to reach 1500 yards.

Another training note. I need to reevaluate how tough I am being on myself. I thought I had been actively drilling and swimming for six months. A quick review of some training logs just revealed that it was February when Total Immersion was recommended to me. That is when I began drills and honest swim training. How is it that we can be so positive and "cheerleaderish" for others, than be so tough on ourselves?

Apparently my "kudos" regarding blogger being back up and running need to be tempered with the fact that it's running sort of oddly. It's interesting that I can access just about everything, except profiles from the comments left on entries. "Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice.

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