Back in business!
I hope you all had some awesome days off and were able to celebrate the beginning of a new year with the people you love - I for sure did!
Since I haven't done much during these two weeks this one is kind of a comeback week where I took things a little slower (or at least I tried) but there were still some good workouts.
I was focusing on my swim weaknesses which are mostly kick related so the last week was all on doing some specific drills which will help me get faster in the water.
Usually my swim workouts follow a simple scheme:
- Warm up
- Main drills
- Cool down
The warm up is usually a 500 meter easy swim which take around 10 minutes, just like the cool down. Main drills can be everything from performing a specific rotation of swim techniques to swimming continuously for 2+ kilometers. The last week drills were:
Day 1
Kick - you swim only using your feet while keeping your hands stretched out in front of you. This way I improve on my biggest weakness - slow and weak kick which don't give me a lot of forward momentum
- Breathing every 3 strokes - when I started out I was only breathing on my right side since I was out of breath rather quickly. This can cause many different problems like pain in the shoulders (my left shoulder to be exact since I only breath on the right side) and getting off course since I am not balancing enough. But there is one more problem I am addressing with breathing on both sides and that's the case that I probably won't be able to always breath on one side since the swim start is usually the busiest part of the race and thousands of legs will be all around me. Being able to swim while breathing on both sides will give me the peace of mind that I will stay calm (as much as possible) during this time.
Day 2
- Breaststroke - the main purpose of this technique is to practice on my catch (aka how I pull my hands from front to back)
- Backstroke - again to work more on the legs but from a different angle
- Breathing every 3 strokes
Both drill trainings follow the pattern (Drill 1, Drill 2, ..., Repeat).
This week I'll probably have one long session and one drill session just to get a feel again for swimming longer distances. I am also going to compete in a small running league in a city nearby (Samobor). It's a nice 7 km race which I hope to get through in around 30 minutes (I did a "practice" run last week where I made some mistakes and ended up taking 32 minutes but things are about to change :).
Since some nice weather is predicted for the coming days I hope to get some great bike sessions as well. All in all things are looking great and I can't wait for the 28th of June to arrive and get my own taste of "Oh my God, why am I doing this?".
I'll wrap it all up now with the usual number crunching:
| Distance | Time | Pace | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swim | 4.5 km | 1:55:00 h | 25:33 min / km |
| Bike | 62.47 km | 2:43:33 h | 2:37 min / km |
| Run | 17.44 km | 1:28:51 h | 5:05 min / km |
Overall I am now at:
| Distance | Time | |
|---|---|---|
| Swim | 58.05 km | 21:49:00 h |
| Bike | 770.61 km | 36:10:15 h |
| Run | 217.54 km | 18:29:08 h |
This is getting very close to 1000 km :)
Until next week keep in mind that only you can prevent forest fires ;)