I'm sure you are sick and tired of hearing about my swimming trials and tribulations, but I had one more epiphany today that I want to share. There is a well renowned swim coach who has made millions of dollars teaching people something he calls total immersion swimming. It has apparently worked for many people but I am not included in that group. I just couldn't get into his techniques. One thing that he is not an advocate of is the myriad of swim aids that are available to help you learn. Things like hand paddles, flippers and pull buoys. He calls them them aquatic "crack". While I think these things do indeed have a place in a well structured, coached environment, I think he hit the nail on the head with his addiction analogy. Certainly you can quickly come dependant on them, and clearly that has happened to me.
While using pull buoys regularly, or swimming in my wetsuit has allowed me to build my endurance and my fitness it has done the opposite for my technique. Swimming just 200 metres without a cheater leaves me winded and hanging on the edge of the pool. Today I did my entire workout without any devices and it really drove the message home to me. Thank freakin god that Sunday is my short swim today!
While you may think this would discourage me, I can tell you it has done the exact opposite. Like I mentioned the other day, I am very comfortable in doing the distance now and so I'm gonna use my remaining time to focus on stroke improvement. I'm not exactly sure of my specific strategy yet but I'm gonna figure something out. Maybe the tri guy will be able to help. I'll keep you posted.
And on living dangerously, the second half of my Sunday training is trails, and today they were extremely slick. I didn't mind the mud, and I didn't even mind all the wet branches that hang down from the moisture, making contact with them unavoidable. I don't even mind falling because that's good for the soul as well, but I do mind getting hurt. I took it really easy and still almost went down 5 or 6 times. But I didn't want to skip because trail running has such a relaxing effect on the body and the mind. I survived!
You could probably tell that I felt pretty optimistic after my long workout yesterday and the timing could not be better. Only twelve weeks to go!! My workouts actually peak in 8 weeks at which time my taper begins. I have thought long and hard about telling you my goal time but I'm afraid to do so. I may still come out with it at some point. Hopefully my Half Ironman in Welland in 3 weeks will give me the courage. Meanwhile I have taken old Johns advice and am targeting to be in the top 10% of my age group. Last time around I was in the 13th percentile.
(swim 1000 metres, trails 6 kms)
"The world is getting to be such a dangerous place, a man is lucky to get out of it alive."---W C Fields
It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing, but the habits he has accumulated during the first half."---Fyodor Dostoevsky
While using pull buoys regularly, or swimming in my wetsuit has allowed me to build my endurance and my fitness it has done the opposite for my technique. Swimming just 200 metres without a cheater leaves me winded and hanging on the edge of the pool. Today I did my entire workout without any devices and it really drove the message home to me. Thank freakin god that Sunday is my short swim today!
While you may think this would discourage me, I can tell you it has done the exact opposite. Like I mentioned the other day, I am very comfortable in doing the distance now and so I'm gonna use my remaining time to focus on stroke improvement. I'm not exactly sure of my specific strategy yet but I'm gonna figure something out. Maybe the tri guy will be able to help. I'll keep you posted.
And on living dangerously, the second half of my Sunday training is trails, and today they were extremely slick. I didn't mind the mud, and I didn't even mind all the wet branches that hang down from the moisture, making contact with them unavoidable. I don't even mind falling because that's good for the soul as well, but I do mind getting hurt. I took it really easy and still almost went down 5 or 6 times. But I didn't want to skip because trail running has such a relaxing effect on the body and the mind. I survived!
You could probably tell that I felt pretty optimistic after my long workout yesterday and the timing could not be better. Only twelve weeks to go!! My workouts actually peak in 8 weeks at which time my taper begins. I have thought long and hard about telling you my goal time but I'm afraid to do so. I may still come out with it at some point. Hopefully my Half Ironman in Welland in 3 weeks will give me the courage. Meanwhile I have taken old Johns advice and am targeting to be in the top 10% of my age group. Last time around I was in the 13th percentile.
(swim 1000 metres, trails 6 kms)
"The world is getting to be such a dangerous place, a man is lucky to get out of it alive."---W C Fields
Love
Peter
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