It is always amazing to me how busy life can get sometimes. Since the last post in October things have been flat out with work, home, and everything in between. My workouts have been on again off again over the last 6 weeks, i have had a major work trip to Las Vegas, XRing ( a pretty big deal in these parts); a couple of major projects at work, plus all the activities that my wee ones are involved in and a major shift with my wife working 45 minutes out of town, so the DATXI ( Dad Taxi) is in full effect now.
But now that the holiday concerts are at an end, my christmas lighting is up, the end of the semester ebbs away into the break, I can take some time, get my wellness back on track, and begin training for this years adventures.
I came back last week with the following:
Monday: off
Tuesday: 12 mile ride + 1500m swim
Wednesday: 12 mile ride
Thursday: 12 mile ride + 2000m swim
Friday: Swimming Tutorial*
Saturday: 5km run
Sunday: Christmas Light Decorating
I was pretty tired last week and if you include the 3 christmas concerts and all the other things going on i was pretty happy to get back to 4 days of working out including 2 multi sport days.
The coolest thing about last week was finding out the one of the students i work with has an incredible background in competative swimming. I asked him if he would mind coming to the pool sometime to pick apart my stroke and he gleefully said yes, he loved to tell people what they were doing wrong haha.
So friend of the show, Mike 'Da Chair' Massery and I headed to the pool on Friday and pick apart he did.
Now, I have always thought of myself as a smooth swimmer, but this dude is like a warm knife through butter in the pool, right away I knew I was going to get some helpful advice.
Mike targeted 3 things that I needed to look at. One was my head placement. It seems I have gotten lazy ( shocker I know) and developed some bad habits. I tend to look at the bottom of the pool which allows the water to hit the top of my head, by just tilting my eye line up to look forward so the water is cresting on my forehead it felt like there was already less effort in my movement.
Second was my butt placement. Yup go ahead, get your zingers in. I have been giving myself a pretty hard line of crap in that I dont tend to kick much because i have been wanting to "save my legs" for the other aspects of the triathlon. Mike called crap on that pretty quick as different muscle groups are used for the bike and the run, and showed me a more efficient way to kick so it lifted my hips higher in the water so there wasnt as much drag anymore.
Lastly, my arm pulls. I wasnt doing full extensions as I was pulling back. Mike showed me a couple of different options in terms of the way my hands should move through the water and how they should finish the pulling cycle.
I am still working on these things so I will report back after next week to update the progress, as it stands now, trying to think all of these things through while I am swimming, I am no longer the smooth swimmer I thought i was, I am more like a brain damaged eel with underwater tourettes syndrome. They may not hear you scream in space, but hopefully they cant make out what Im saying underwater either haha.
We also worked on flip turns as I am a baby and do not like them. But funny enough, when you are shown the correct way to do them, they are not that bad. See you can teach an old dog new tricks.
It was a great session in the pool, and Mike if you are reading this you can now come up for a #cigarSunday with those other two guys.
Looking forward to having another good week this week, as the lack of #cigarSundays of late has been very depressing.
I am working a new food system too right now, so I am more cranky then usual, which is fun for everyone, but more on that next week, ill see if i can stick to it for more then a week before i blog about it.
Just Keep Swimming...
Sean "BigBoyRunning" Ryan
But now that the holiday concerts are at an end, my christmas lighting is up, the end of the semester ebbs away into the break, I can take some time, get my wellness back on track, and begin training for this years adventures.
I came back last week with the following:
Monday: off
Tuesday: 12 mile ride + 1500m swim
Wednesday: 12 mile ride
Thursday: 12 mile ride + 2000m swim
Friday: Swimming Tutorial*
Saturday: 5km run
Sunday: Christmas Light Decorating
I was pretty tired last week and if you include the 3 christmas concerts and all the other things going on i was pretty happy to get back to 4 days of working out including 2 multi sport days.
The coolest thing about last week was finding out the one of the students i work with has an incredible background in competative swimming. I asked him if he would mind coming to the pool sometime to pick apart my stroke and he gleefully said yes, he loved to tell people what they were doing wrong haha.
So friend of the show, Mike 'Da Chair' Massery and I headed to the pool on Friday and pick apart he did.
Now, I have always thought of myself as a smooth swimmer, but this dude is like a warm knife through butter in the pool, right away I knew I was going to get some helpful advice.
Mike targeted 3 things that I needed to look at. One was my head placement. It seems I have gotten lazy ( shocker I know) and developed some bad habits. I tend to look at the bottom of the pool which allows the water to hit the top of my head, by just tilting my eye line up to look forward so the water is cresting on my forehead it felt like there was already less effort in my movement.
Second was my butt placement. Yup go ahead, get your zingers in. I have been giving myself a pretty hard line of crap in that I dont tend to kick much because i have been wanting to "save my legs" for the other aspects of the triathlon. Mike called crap on that pretty quick as different muscle groups are used for the bike and the run, and showed me a more efficient way to kick so it lifted my hips higher in the water so there wasnt as much drag anymore.
Lastly, my arm pulls. I wasnt doing full extensions as I was pulling back. Mike showed me a couple of different options in terms of the way my hands should move through the water and how they should finish the pulling cycle.
I am still working on these things so I will report back after next week to update the progress, as it stands now, trying to think all of these things through while I am swimming, I am no longer the smooth swimmer I thought i was, I am more like a brain damaged eel with underwater tourettes syndrome. They may not hear you scream in space, but hopefully they cant make out what Im saying underwater either haha.
We also worked on flip turns as I am a baby and do not like them. But funny enough, when you are shown the correct way to do them, they are not that bad. See you can teach an old dog new tricks.
It was a great session in the pool, and Mike if you are reading this you can now come up for a #cigarSunday with those other two guys.
Looking forward to having another good week this week, as the lack of #cigarSundays of late has been very depressing.
I am working a new food system too right now, so I am more cranky then usual, which is fun for everyone, but more on that next week, ill see if i can stick to it for more then a week before i blog about it.
Just Keep Swimming...
Sean "BigBoyRunning" Ryan
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