Maybe One Day I'll Like Running...

Oof, I’m beat. I really don’t know how you guys train for these super long races that take hours to complete, I really don’t. My aquathlon should, in theory, take me no longer than 45 minutes to complete, and my training is still taking over my life. Is this normal? I’m told it is, but still, yeesh. And this is coming from someone who spent her formidable years waking up at 3:45am to jump into an icy cold hole in the ground and swim back and forth in it for two hours, and THEN spend 7 hours at school. Trust me, I’m no stranger to working out, but for some reason this training is really taking it out of me.

All of our SwimBox clients keep telling me to spread my workouts out throughout the day, but to be honest that sounds like the exact opposite of how I want to spend my time. I enjoy waking up early (sometimes too early, sorry Dominic), getting my workouts in and out of the way, then starting the rest of my day. I hate the feeling of having a training session loom over my head when it’s not the first thing I do when I get out of bed in the morning. If I have to workout after lunch, you better believe I’m going to be complaining about it. After dinner? Forget it, it’s not going to happen. Well, okay no, that’s not true. Back when our gym wasn’t flooded and out of commission (don’t get me started) it never bothered me to walk out of my door, take three steps and go to the gym. But when I have to drive somewhere, it somehow becomes the bane of my existence when the workout isn’t at o’dark thirty in the morning.

RUN WORKOUTS

Anyshways, my run workouts. Not a swimming specific post, I know, but what can you do about it. I’ve been trying my best to run at least 3-4 times a week, but more often than not lately it’s been three runs per week. The heat was my initial enemy, but lately it’s been the rain, and I’m sorry but I’m just not going to run in the rain if it’s more than a mist. Klutz is my middle name and I just know I’d slip on a leaf and break 578493 bones in the process. So, I stay inside. My long runs, which I try to do twice a week, are sitting pretty at about 40 minutes right now. Eventually I’d like to get up to 45 minutes, but for some reason these mentally kill me. It’s not that they’re incredibly taxing in a physical sense - probably on the upper-side of moderate pace - but the words “40 minute run” bury down into the depths of my brain and weasel around in there scaring the donuts out of me. I don’t know why, since my swim practices were always at a minimum 90 minutes long, but those came with built in breaks. I’m having to work very hard to keep my thoughts positive during these runs and not chicken out.

The other runs I do every week are a mix of fartlek style and walk-sprint combos. The hardest workout I’ve had yet was a 40 minute swim workout (made up of the interval training I wrote about in my first aquathlon post) immediately followed by a 30 minute walk-sprint. The sprint was one minute and the walk was two minutes, repeated over again until the 30 minute mark. My legs were DEAD after that. Completely dead. Thankfully I was treated to a cinnamon roll the size of my head after this, but still, that was a tough one.

I know this post has been a bit complainy, I’m sorry about that, but I’m always going to be honest about these things. And since this has been hard on me, that’s what you’re going to get to read about. And hey, just think, no food jokes this time! Well okay, not no food jokes, but one per post is probably the least you’ll ever get from me.

Come back in a few weeks to read about the progression of my swim workouts and what I’m doing for strength training!

SwimBox and Vasa Trainer Project: More Work w/Katie!

Before you read any more of today's blog, I want to let you know I'm 100% aware of how repetitive my posts about Katie's and Flaca's lessons are. And that's exactly how working on swimming should be, repetitive. As I've said before, swimming is a sport of centimeters, and every 100th of a second counts. So working on the minute details of your stroke and constantly reinforcing proper technique is exactly how you're going to make positive progress and help yourself to swim more efficiently. Yes, it can be boring at times, but you're always working at moving forwards. Especially with people who have been swimming for years and are set in their ways, changes take time. 

But anywayyyy, I wanted to start off my post about Katie's latest lesson with that little bit of background information so you don't think I'm just writing the same thing over and over again with different pictures. One thing Dan noticed during her recent lessons was that Katie's elbow was moving upwards as a result of her arm exiting the water too early. You want your elbow to stay on the same plane as your torso, not move higher or lower than that.

In case you missed last week's post, Katie's lesson focused on connecting the movement of the finish of her stroke into the recovery. You want to keep your palm facing backwards and make a "J" shaped movement from the finish of your stroke into your recovery in order to fully benefit from the propulsion you get from your catch and pull. 

After working on this movement again Dan had Katie focus on the paddle you want to make from your fingertips to your elbow during the catch and pull of your stroke. In order to gain the maximum amount of propulsion from this paddle you want to make sure you're bending at your elbow, not your wrist. To ensure this Dan fashioned together a splint of sorts to prevent Katie from bending at her wrist and losing out on the majority of her paddle.

The splint forces Katie to keep her arm straight from her fingertips to her elbow, which creates the largest paddle possible to propel her through the water. The larger the paddle, the more efficient your stroke will become, and the easier it will be to move forward faster. Using the splint gives Katie better body awareness as to what she's looking for when she removes it and swims on her own. Understanding the feeling you're looking for when making a change to your stroke is key to making the change properly and progressing more quickly. 

In between her lessons here Katie's doing workouts on her Vasa Trainer SwimErg that she has at home to work on strengthening the main muscles we use for swimming as well as up her endurance. An example of one of her workouts is listed below.

Repeat each three times:

• two minutes of good catch movement (do butterfly or freestyle catch; no watts needed, just focus on proper movement)

• two minutes freestyle catch at 20-40 watts (make sure you focus on keeping a good catch movement - keeping proper movement is key, especially when picking up the pace)

• :15 seconds of freestyle catch at 100+ watts x 6; :30 seconds rest in between each round

Being able to focus on strengthening these movements outside of the pool is such an important piece to training and progressing in your times. The more endurance you gain on the SwimErg the more efficiently you'll be able to move through the water when you hop back in the pool. It's also a great tool to use when you're trying to find proper body awareness.

Stay tuned to see how Flaca's lesson goes this week!

SwimBox and Vasa Trainer Project: Katie's Third Lesson

In case it's not clear at this point, these ladies are really dedicated to improving their swimming! We've been seeing them as close to once a week as all of our schedules will allow, and both Katie and Flaca are making huge improvements to their stroke technique with our swim lessons and work on the Vasa Trainer SwimErg. If you haven't already make sure to check out the breakdown of Flaca's lesson from last week here to read about her work on elbow position and timing of her catch.

The main focus of Katie's lesson this week was on her finish and recovery. With so much emphasis on having and maintaining a proper catch position, the finish of your stroke into your recovery is often an overlooked aspect of freestyle. In order to fully benefit from the propulsion you get from your catch and pull, you need to keep your palm facing backwards and make a "J" shaped movement from the finish of your stroke into your recovery. For clarification, the recovery is the portion of your stroke from when your hand exits the water after you finish your pull to when you place your hand back in the water to start your next catch. Essentially, the entire time your arm is out of the water is your recovery.

To practice and gain better understanding of the "J" shape we're looking for, Dan had Katie work on just the finish of her stroke without actually making any full stroke movements. Lying face down in the water with her hands at her sides, Katie made an egg beater motion with each arm, only pushing backwards and slightly out using her forearm and hand. Dan has his hand in the water to give Katie something to aim for in order to give her direction as to where we want her to finish her stroke.

It's commonly thought that you want to pull back and finish your stroke in a straight line. And in a perfect world, that would make sense. BUT, because your hips are rotating during the entirety of your stroke, it pulls your arm and hand inward towards your body. This movement prevents you from pulling back in a straight line, and will even result in recoveries starting behind you or stacked directly on top of your torso. We use the "J" shape movement to keep your paddle in a straight line and to keep your palm facing back - not up towards the surface - in order to connect the fluid motion into your recovery. The finish of your stroke, the "J" shape, is the beginning of your recovery.

New Year New...Failures?

I feel like January can be a very hostile time of year, even if it doesn't appear to be from the surface. Everyone's starting New Year’s resolutions and promising themselves to work harder, eat healthier, and most of all (I'm sure you guessed it), go to the gym. That being said, it's always come across to me as the perfect time to fail. There's even more societal pressure than normal, which can lead to a big let down if you make even the smallest of slip ups.

Well, I just wanted to take a second and tell you how I really feel about it when my friends tell me they're beside themselves because not even a month into the new year they're already back to their same old bad habits: so what? Just taking the time to think of ways you want to better yourself is a step in the right direction. So many people think they're done growing up by the time they get out of college, but you're here working every year at learning something new to make yourself grow and become just that much of a better person. That's huge! So dust yourself (and try again, any early 2000's R&B lovers out there giggling with me?), pick yourself up, and try again. Fun fact? It took me 3 years to figure out how to change one small piece of my freestyle catch. Yup, you read that right. Three. Years. It was discouraging and enraging at times, and I thought I was a lost cause more than once (changing something minute in your stroke after swimming for 23 years is no easy feat you guys), but I never gave up. I tried different things and kept coming back to trying to make that one little thing better. And that eureka moment when I finally got it? It was just incredible. Almost as good as that first bite of a freshly baked cookie (...almost).

You're going to have goals. You're going to come up with lists of things you want to change to help keep yourself growing and learning and bettering yourself. And you're also going to have setbacks. And failures. So what? Take what you've learned from those failures (even if it's nothing, because let's be real, we all have setbacks where we don't think we've gained anything) and keep moving forward. It's almost come to seem like failure is a taboo word nowadays. But who hasn't had their fair share of failures? It's okay to fail, it's okay to get upset (and console yourself with a donut or 4), just keep your goal in mind. It's that simple.

It might seem hard and silly to think that way just because some virtual stranger online is saying this, but you know I'm right. Deep down that nagging voice we all have (that we love to hate so much) knows I'm right too.

Don't beat yourself up over the mistakes, the failures, and the setbacks. Acknowledge them, let yourself pout for a bit, and keep moving forward. You'll reach your goals and have your eureka moments. It might not be overnight, but you will.

California FBM Clinic Trip Recap

Who's ever flown to and from California (from the east coast) in less than 38 hours, worked the entire time you were there, and lived to tell the tale? At this day and age I'm assuming there are at least some of you answering in the positive to this question, but still, it's not a normal thing you do on a weekend. But alas, that's what Dominic and I set out to do last weekend in order to hold our first ever Foundational Breathing Method Clinic, and it was great! That is until a giant fog fell over us this past Thursday that caused me to live off of Oreos, donuts, and Papa Johns for a 13 hour period (it was great, don't act like you're not jealous) and change our bedtime to 7pm...

We landed in CA at 9:45pm EST, which is already well past when we normally get to sleep, and headed to dinner with our hosts for the weekend. The restaurant we ate at claimed to be Cuban, and no offense to CA but it definitely wasn't. Cuban inspired is more what I would call it. If I hadn't fallen in love with all of the authentic Cuban food we had in Miami maybe I wouldn't sound like such a snob right now, but I did, so I'm going to hold my nose up a bit too high for this one.  

Dinner put us back at the house at 12:45am EST, but the clinic wasn't until 10am PST the next day, so there was plenty of sleep to be had. That being said, I've only travelled to a different time zone once, so I'm not used to my internal clock not matching up with the external clock, and I was wide awake and ready to go at 3am. Oops.

All of my complaining about food and sleep aside, the clinic was great. We spent an hour in the classroom, two hours in the pool, and finished off with an hour of dryland. It might seem a bit weird to start off a swim clinic outside of the water, but this really allowed Dominic to teach everyone about the anatomy we'd be utilizing during FBM and how these subtle changes would improve multiple parts of their swimming. Not to mention our participants gained a greater knowledge of how it's possible to manipulate your breathing to aid in day to day aspects of life as well.

Putting everything together in the water is where everyone really started to understand how helpful FBM is. One of my favorite parts of clinics is being there to see the moment someone learns something new. Seeing that spark of understanding in someone's eyes really is a great feeling, and having the chance to be a part of that feeling is something I'm truly grateful for. We had one participant say that she'd never been able to swim across the length of the pool without gasping for a breath before, and now she feels like she can actually swim. Hearing that made the whole trip worth it.

After two hours in the water we headed into a ballet studio to work on some dryland moves. And if your first thought when you read the words "ballet studio" is of those rooms lined in mirrors, you'd be right. If you know me well enough you're laughing right now, because I can't walk past a mirror without looking at myself...I just can't. There's always a hair out of place or my bangs need fixing, so a room full of mirrors is my dream (and Dominic's nightmare). 

Our dryland session was the perfect way to end the clinic. Dominic went over certain PRI moves that help you better understand the strength of your breath and explore how to better gain your FBM when you're in the water. All of the movements are body weight only and can be done in the comfort of your own home. And by that I mean in your living room, dressed in sweats, with the TV on in the background.

Even though the weekend was jam-packed and we spent two full days traveling it was well worth it. We got to meet a great new group of swimmers and triathletes and spend the day learning with them. But the real moral of the story? If you're about to spend an entire Sunday flying from California, to Denver, to DC, make sure you have plenty of snacks with you, otherwise you might find yourself buying a $15 six ounce bag of popcorn while your husband stares at you with his jaw dropped...Was the popcorn good you ask? Sigh, it was okay...just okay. Does this mean it'll be my last extremely overpriced junk-food purchase? No way.