February swim challenge week 4 - rhythm and pacing

Each week in February we have been challenging you to swim a little more than the week before, try a new drill and complete an endurance challenge during one of your workouts. If you don't have time to do all three challenges each week, don't let that stop you from doing one of them, or perhaps two!

This week we bring all the pieces together with a terrific drill for nailing your breathing timing - UNCO. We also get you started on knowing how to pace yourself on long interval sets that have short  rest intervals by showing you how to determine and use your "critical swim speed". These sets should be your bread and butter as you train your swimming "diesel engine" (as the guys at Swim Smooth say) for long triathlon swims.

Whether you've been following the swim challenge from week 1, or you've just discovered us now, it's not too late to be entered in the drawing for a pair of Agility Paddles, a Tempo Trainer Pro, 50% off a swim video analysis session or $50 in nutrition. Four prizes will be awarded! All you have to do is share about what you've been doing in the pool on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #GTDCSwimChallenge.

 

Last week we encouraged you to try out the scull #1 drill to start to harness more propulsive power and pace yourself through a long swim of 500y or more. If you have the stamina  and pacing ability to finish a 500y swim, you are ready to step up to this week's challenges! This week we use the Unco drill to improve your breathing timing so you can get a great catch and pull on every stroke, not just the ones when you're not inhaling. And we also determine your critical swim speed, a very useful tool for programming tough aerobic interval sets of your own going forward and learning the pace you should be able to hold for a 1 mile open water swim. Here are your challenges for Week 4 (Feb 23-Mar 1):

1. Swim 3x for 45-60 minutes each.

2. Try the Unco drill. This is a one-arm drill that is performed with fins, and it isolates the stroke that most swimmers don't do well -- the one when you're inhaling. Even if you have successfully used sculling drills to get a solid catch and pull for most of your arm strokes, chances are that your forward arm slips down through the water while you inhale with engaging it like it should. If you breathe every third arm stroke, that means you're only 66% efficient. If you breathe every time on the same side, you're only 50% efficient!

Typically a swimmer will fail to catch the water properly on the inhale stroke because she turns her head too late. As you do the Unco drill, focus on rotating your body and your head as soon as your fingertips go into the water so that you inhale as your arm is still entending and then catching the water instead of after that.

Swim Smooth explain the Unco drill well on their website, and I highly encourage you to find all the details there. You can also see an excellent demonstration on YouTube. Briefly, while wearing fins, swim with one arm staying at your hip and one arm stroking. Each time the stroking arm goes into the water, take a breath to the OPPOSITE side so that you are inhaling as the arm extends forward and then catches the water. Then rotate your non-moving shoulder (and hip) down toward the bottom of the pool. This will help you recover your moving arm over the top of the water. Practice breathing on time on one side with the drill all the way up the pool, and then swim freestyle back the other way, still breathing only on that same side. Then repeat the sequence breathing on the other side. If it is difficult for you to breathe on one side or the other, it is likely because you don't rotate your body enough into that breath and/or it is happening quite late. The Unco drill can help you make that "off-side" breath happen more easily so you can become a more symmetrical, bilateral breathing swimmer!

3. Determine your critical swim speed. Whether you are a born sprinter or seem to go the same slow and steady speed regardless of the length of the interval, you will benefit from learning to swim near the top of your aerobic range for long intervals with short rest between them. This type of swimming trains your body to give you its best when you head down to the lake to start a triathlon with a 750m or 1 mile swim. The critical swim speed test will show you what pace per 100 you should be using for these sets as you get started with them. If you're a sprinter, it will give you what you feel is a quite slow pace goal, but I highly encourage you to stick with the recommendation so that you can swim much farther than you usually can! If you're a one-speed swimmer, your pace may feel tougher than you think you can do, but you may just surprise yourself by finding a gear you didn't think you had!

To start the test, pick a day when you are well rested and the pool is not crowded so you have your own side of a lane to work in. Warm up well with some easy swimming, some drill work that helps you swim your best (perhaps some sculling or unco?), and then a set or two of 3 x 50y descending (1st one easy, 2nd one moderate, 3rd one hard, 15 sec rest between each) to get your engine revved and ready to go hard.

The first part of the test is a 400y all-out swim. You will need to pace yourself! Go out at a "cruise" pace for the first 100, and then give a little more effort each 100 until the last 100 is taking more than you think you can give! Make sure to write down exactly how long it takes you to finish. Then fully recover with some rest and some very easy swimming for 5-10 minutes.

The second part of the test is a 200y all-out swim. Pace yourself like you did on the 400, but this time each 50 will feel tougher and tougher. Make sure you give it everything you have! Then take the two times from your two swims, and go to Swim Smooth's CSS calculator at http://www.swimsmooth.com/training.html to find your CSS pace. The same page will tell you more about how to use it in your future swim sets.

4. Bonus challenge! Complete a CSS set of 5-8 x 200y at your CSS pace with 20-25 sec rest between them. Make sure that you don't go too fast on the first one! It's always better to get quicker as you go through a set than to get slower and slower. Learning to even-pace or negative split a set (or long continuous swim like in a race) is a terrific skill for an endurance athlete to have at their disposal!

I hope this challenge has been an encouragement to you to get a solid start on your swimming fitness for the 2015. Now keep up the good work and encourage your triathlete friends to do the same! Happy swimming!

Thrive during the long tri season ahead – Sustainability, consistency, periodization

Here in Austin the triathlon race season stretches from early April to late October with many opportunities to race at sprint to Ironman distances in between. That's a long season of training and racing! How does a person with a family, a job, a life, manage to set PRs and not burn out? Sustainability, consistency, and periodization.

Sustainability – Be realistic about how much time you have to spend not just on actual workouts and races, but on the preparation, the commuting, the showering, the refueling, the visiting with teammates, the shopping online and in the real world for gear, interacting with your coach, etc. Then figure out how to use this time as effectively as possible by organizing your gear, finding ways to eliminate commute time, or doing more interval training to pack more punch into less time.

At one time I could ride directly from my home to routes on safe roads in nearly any direction. I kept my cycling gear in a heap in the garage. Now I have to drive to the start of most of my outdoor rides, so I purchased a 5 gallon bucket at Home Depot, and all my ride gear lives in it. When I take my gloves, head band and vest out of the wash, they go right back in the bucket with my shoes, helmet, chain lube, Road ID, sunglasses, sunscreen, etc. All I have to do is get dressed, pump up my tires, grab my fuel, phone and water bottles and pack my bike and bucket into the car.

If you’re a parent, you may need to train at odd hours (early mornings, late at night) to avoid disrupting your kids’ schedule. Just make sure that you are still able to get enough sleep, or your routine will not be sustainable. Making sure your workouts are focused and short will help – a bike trainer can be a life-saver in these cases since it keeps you close to home and allows you to get more quality work done in a short period of time using interval workouts. Keeping your sights set on shorter distance events that require much less training time is also helpful.

Consistency/habituation – It has been said that what defines you is not what you do every once in a while, but what you do every day (or frequently). You will not become a better swimmer or runner or cyclist if you only practice that discipline once a week or less! And you will not have a stronger core if you only work on it only now and then. 

As you reflect back on last season or forward to the one ahead, decide what part of your training you wish to change. What do you want to do better? Set your goals, and then work steadily toward them. You will become a better swimmer if you find out how to fix a stroke flaw or two and then practice swimming correctly 3-4 times a week, even if just for 20 minutes after finishing another workout at your gym. You will get stronger glutes for running and climbing on your bike if you learn several ways to strengthen them, and then work on these 3-4 times a week with a bit of rest in between when you feel you need it. You will become a better runner if you increase your mileage from 6-10 mi/week spread over 2 runs to 15 or 20 mi/week spread over 3-4 runs, assuming proper form and recovery. I like to use a check-list in Excel that has all the items I want to do every day like roll-out and stretching, as well as those I want to do frequently like core work, squats, lunges, etc. Every night I check in with this list and do what I can to check things off for that day. I also plan ahead for the next day before I head off to bed to make sure I know how I will structure my day to get those things done.

Knowing if you prefer to train with a group or on your own either with or without a coach can also help with consistency. If you attempt to train on your own but really prefer to train with a group, you may find your ability to get work done every day to be difficult, even with a coach to guide and motivate you. Your preference may be different for each sport. For instance, you may love to run alone but prefer to hit the road on your bike with a group to feel more safe. Try out both environments, and be realistic about which suits you best.

Periodization -- Because we all don’t have the time or energy to train everything well all the time, we have to pick and choose what to emphasize at different points in the season. You may decide that your pre-season will include much more strength training than your regular session. You may pick one or two core strength moves from your pre-season routine of 7 or 8 that you want to continue to do throughout the season without having to spend a lot of time on it. If you have an issue with open water swimming, you may want to focus heavily on that one month, keeping running and cycling at maintenance level, and then switch focus for the next month. You might not swim, bike or run at all for a while during the off-season to make room for other pursuits like hiking, cross-country skiing, rock-climbing, yoga, etc to keep your body and mind fresh. Decide how you will approach your build-up to your goal events, and choose what to emphasize at different points in your season so that you can build and maintain strength, speed and endurance in all three sports as needed.

So this season as you think about what events you want to do, be realistic about how much time you can spend on your training on a consistent basis while still getting enough sleep and time for the rest of your life, adjust your training schedule to optimize your consistency and motivation, and then figure out how shift your emphasis on the swim/bike/run/strength elements of triathlon throughout the season to keep your training moving you forward and also fitting into the rest of your life.

If you need help balancing your training and figuring out how to best use your training time, contact me for a consultation: casey at gothedistancecoaching.com.