No TLC (technique, but luckily cardio) swim

I swam at 10:00am again this morning (still have Fridays off). There were a lot more people in the pool this time and I think it distracted me a little because I felt that my technique wasn't quite on. I felt great cardiovascularly though, so overall it was a good swim. I did my regular workout again. I think I'll wait to bump up on things until Wendy coaches me again. I did do 4 laps of kicking though, I had been having a 'challenge' in getting past two laps. Its kind of like running though. In running, for me anyway, the first ten minutes feel great, the second 10-20 minutes is no fun at all, but by 45 minutes or so I feel like I can run forever. In kicking, the first lap feels great, the second - my legs rebel fervently, but halfway through the third lap I start feeling like I could kick until the salmon come home. Did the sauna afterwards again too. Nice.

Leaning rower to please her

Tonight I worked primarily on my shoulders being back in the saddle, Laura says I still ride too forward...sounds easy, but there were lots of variables that made the task at hand a little more interesting. I had to use Laura's dressage saddle because someone else had the jumping saddle. No big deal, but I'd gotten pretty used to the extra knee padding on the jumping saddle. Generally, the stirrups in the dressage saddle are set lower than they would be in a jumping saddle, but Laura had me taken them down another full notch to force me to use my calves while posting. So...a very different feel all around. Things went pretty well though. I was please with my balance, but the shoulders back thing was pretty challenging...then Laura asked me to lean even farther back. I had to visualize myself at the release point in rowing to force my body to stay back enough. Apparently it worked though as several people in the bard said that my post was looking very good. The canter seemed to be a breeze tonight, I think the lean back really helped it. The transitions went well too. Laura says more poles and even crossbars are not too far off.

Swim: plan B

I was all set to try out a couple new drill in my swimming this morning. But...since I had the day off I planned on having some breakfast and then going in for the lap swim around 11:00am. After about 4 laps in, I realized that the workout I had in mind just wasn't going to happen. My body was in breakfast digestion mode and wasn't willing to share too much energy with my arms and legs. So, I came up with a plan B. Nothing spectacular, just stuck with my usual workout. I did try to work on breathing and rotation tips that I picked up from some articles I read over the weekend. Also tried to push my strokes during the kneeboard-no-handpaddle section; got down to 16 strokes. For the legs portion I did try some new drills...I did kicking lengths on my right side, then back, then left side, then front to help encourage full rotation when I'm doing the full crawl. The side and back kick left me pretty tired but well worked.

File frenzy

Spent Saturday morning organizing my stacks of articles on sports and nutrition topics. I get Triathlete magazine and others occasionally on swimming, running, rowing, etc. Discovered I had some good stuff on workouts for swimming and running. I'll start putting these into practice on Monday. Spent the rest of the day outside, in the yard and at the Arboretum, celebrating Earth Day.

Nothin but crawl

As planned, did and endurance/long distance swim this morning. I swam 40 laps straight, just stopping to put my hand paddles on in the second set of 10 laps. I was swimming at about 70% speed and effort, so didn't have a problem maintaining a comfortable breathing rhythm through the whole swim. Afterward, spent some time in the sauna...very relaxing and it took me back to the time I spent in Estonia, doing saunas the real way...sauna, cold shower, beer...sauna, cold shower, beer and so on.

Morning weights, evening gates

Did my upper body weights workout this morning. I did go up in weight on several of the lifts, so was pretty happy. I'm going to look for some weight routines that will help with the pentathlon events, swimming in particular.

I picked up my orthotics this afternoon, so soon I'll be running. I also had some (...this is probably more than you ever wanted to know about an athletes real world issues but...) plantar warts medicated which means I won't be running for at least another couple weeks, BUT I'M GETTING THERE!

Had a great night riding tonight. The transitions from trot to canter are getting much better. Laura had me do a drill where I take my feet out of the stirrups and try to maintain my post...not as easy as one would think, you have to really work at holding the horse with our calves rather than your legs. But, the drill did improve my post. The other thing I worked on was going from canter to two-point and back, maintaining the canter through the whole drill. It wasn't perfect, but by the end I was doing pretty well. Pet still has his little quirks, but working through them will teach me a lot.

Pushing water

For this morning's swim I really concentrated a lot on the final part of my stroke, an area the Wendy said I need to work on. Its the last 3/4 of the stroke at the end of the "s" shape, including the final flick with the hand, that I tried to focus on...what I call the "push" I was pretty lax on the warm up but I started in on the "push" with my pyramid. Its pretty obvious that the push makes a lot of difference in my speed through the water as I was able to get the number of strokes it takes to get across the pool down to about 17 (down from 20-21 when I'm just warming up). During my hand paddle and knee board laps, I did a regular push down and then a strong push on the way back. I ended up with 2 few strokes on the hard push, around 17 again. I'm pretty pleased with this, but eventually I need to get my stroke count down by several more strokes. I'm still working on getting my hands to be in the right position when entering the water, Wendy should have some good tips next time we meet...probably in May.