60 Minute Swim, 60 Minute Bike

Note fromThe Geek:  Yikes!  I've been gone a while.  Me and the family were out of town for a few days and then I had a monster few days at work in order to catch up and I just haven't had time for blogging.  That's not to say I didn't work out, I did some modified workouts while out of town, mostly CrossFit stuff, but probably not as much as I should have.  The good news is, I didn't gain any weight, the bad news is, I feel like a slacker...


I was back to my old schedule today, up at 4:30am and to the pool.  I spent about an hour swimming doing some ladders for warm up and 500's for my main set and then a cool down.  I swam the 500's on the 7:15, which is an average right around 1:27/500, which I am happy with given my lack of hard swimming practice lately.

My story from the gym today is a similar one that I've told before, but my after talking to my father in law earlier today, he reminded me of a Seinfeld episode that was especially relevant.  Everybody's seen the Yada-yada episode.  In it there is talk of the "Jewish workout" (Seinfeld's term, not mine) where a guy goes to the gym sits in the sauna for 30 minutes and leaves.  The allure is that if you sit in the sauna for a half hour you sweat a bunch and lose 3-5 pounds.

One of those guys was at the gym this morning.  Of course it's all water weight and you could get the same effect by just not drinking anything for a few hours.  Whatever.  There was a guy who got there at 5am and say in the sauna for thrirty minutes and then left.  He literally got up early to sweat out water and then go back to whatever he was going to do this morning.  Weird.  I wonder what would happen if I asked him to jump in the pool with me and do a few laps.

If finished my swim and headed home for a bike ride.  It was hot and humid again, even though it was just a little after 6am.  I rode the course I would be on for my next triathlon which is around Shawnee Mission Park Lake.  The sun was coming up as I was circling the lake, it was beautiful.  It would have been better had I not been sweating like a prostitute in church.

30 Minute Swim & 60 Minute Bike

Ooooh, wood grain laminte lockers...so luxurious.

I haven't been swimming much in the last few weeks, not because I didn't want to (who am I kidding, I've been slacking), but because my health club was renovating and the pool was unavailable.  It's opened back up now and I went in for an early morning (or late night, depending on what time you get up) swim.

I got to the newly renovated club a few minutes before 5am and noticed that everything seemed to have a fresh coat of paint and a few new pictures on the wall, it looks better than it did, but nothing too special.  They re-did the locker room with some wood-grain laminte lockers and refinished the pool deck.  Overall, a nice little renovation.

I hopped in the pool and started doing a little 500 yard ladder warm up.  Almost instantly I noticed that in the renovation process they also must have renovated the chemicals in the pool because the chlorine content was so high it practically made me choke.  Ugh. 

When they renovated the pool deck they either had some chemicals seep into the water or they jumped up the chlorine right after the renovation to make sure the water was clean.  Whatever the reason, it made breathing a bit challenging.  It was kind of like breathing really humid air that burned your lungs a bit.  Wonderful.

At any rate, I got through the workout and did about 1500 yards.  Man, it was hard swimming after not having been in the pool for a while.  I'm sure I'll get my groove back, but today felt like a struggle on every level. 

It was very manatee like, but with less grace.

I finished in the pool, hopped in my car and drove home.  I quickly changed into my cycling clothes and hit the biking trail right as the sun was coming up.  It was pretty cloudy, so I didn't get the full effect of the sunrise ride (which I normally really like) but it was still nice.  A little breeze but probably 60%-70% humidity so i was sweating like crazy.  Otherwise, the ride was pretty uneventful other than I felt pretty slow today.

I got home right at 7am and got to have breakfast with my girls.  Overall, not a bad workout for a Saturday morning.

40 Minute Open Water Swim

At the Kansas City Triathlon I had a terrible open water experience.  I decided that if I was going to do more triathlons I would need as much open water practice as I could get.  Luckily there's a lake about 10 minutes from our house that does open water swims Tuesday and Thursday evenings (after Memorial Day so today was the first one).

It was pretty cool because there were probably 50-100 triathletes that showed up for practice and they had bouys set up a few hundred yards apart and you could just swim.  There were enough people there that you had to do a little swimming in traffic, but not so many that you had to worry about really getting smacked in the face too much, which was great. 

Long story short, today was a great open water experience.  I worked really hard on sighting, swimming straight and keeping an even ryhthm.  I think with a few more practice sessions I'll be in good shape for my next race in July.

Reader Question

I got a reader question from midlife_swimmer the other day and I'd been meaning to answer it because I love reader questions!

midlife_swimmer asks:
"What length tri's are you looking at and what is your previous time on the swims and your goal time. When you swim in a tri does it feel like a warm up or part of the workout to you."

My current "A" race is the Kansas City Triathlon on May 23, which is Olympic distance.  That is, a 1500 meter swim (~.9 miles), a 40km bike (~24.9 miles) and 10km run (~6.2 miles).  I also have another race coming up as kind of a "warm up" for that race.  This weekend I'll be doing the Heritage Park Triathlon which is a 587 yd swim, 11.5 mile bike and 3 mile run. 

Both swims are open water and my guess is...cold.  Our morning temperatures have been in the high 40's low 50's for the past few weeks, so at least I have that to look forward to. At the Heritage Park Triathlon last year the water temperature was 58 degrees for the swim... it was actually warmer than the ambient temperature for the bike and run, which is kind of scary.  Yeah, I feel a little stupid for doing races this early in the season in Kansas, but hey, what could go wrong? (besides hypothermia, drowning, frostbite...aghhh!)

As for my times, when I do distance work at "race pace" I average around a 1:25-1:30/100 yards.  My last time trial was 15 minutes and I did 1050 yards - right at 1:25/100.  If I'm doing repeat 100's for practice, I usually slow that down to 1:40/100 interval work or go about 75%-80% and take 15-20 seconds in between sets depending on the workout I'm doing.

I'd love to get my time down to 1:15/100 (or so) which would put me on pace to finish an Olympic tri swim in under 20 minutes.

So...does the swim feel like a warm-up or part of the workout?  When I'm training it defintely feels like part of the workout.  I'm a decent swimmer so improvement comes in small increments these days.  I can shave one second per 100 off by increasing my kick cadence or upping my stroke count from 17-18 per 25 yards...stupid little stuff.  The real improvements for me come from doing lots of laps and trying to keep myself breathless during practice.  So definitely a workout.

During races, the swim is my best discipline so it's not so much part of the workout as the place I want to "try" to shine a bit.  I know I'll get schooled on the bike and the run, but I can at least keep up during the swim.  So is it a warm-up...nope...it's my favorite part of the race!

Thanks for the question midlife_swimmer!  If you haven't checked out her amazing story, you should check out her blog!

60 Minute Swim

Got up early.  Went to the gym.  Swam a bunch of laps.  Came home to ride my bike before anyone else wakes up.

Pretty standard Saturday.

60 Minute Swim

I had a session with my swim coach today.  It was a good session, she really didn't have any critiques of my technique that were negative, which is pretty cool.  Since my technique and form are going pretty well, we worked on two modifications to my stroke to try to gain more speed.

The first change is to increase the cadence on my kick from my current 4 beat kick to more like a 6-8 beat kick.  Second change was to try a new breathing technique called three-two breathing.  Yeah, I got bored just writing those sentences, sorry. (If you really want to know more about either of these things, leave a comment and I'll let you know...what nobody?  That's a surprise...)

I guess the main point here is that I have used all the coaching sessions that I've paid for and I'm not sure I need anymore.  I got three so that I could have my stroke broken down, fixed and I could get faster.  Now that my stroke seems to be in good shape and my speed is pretty good (although you can always go faster) I think I just need to keep working.  I'll reassess after a few races and see what I really need to work on (newsflash - it's the bike and running).

45 Minute Swim

I had a great swim workout today.  I mentioned in the last few posts how I was looking for some variety, some motivation and a plan to make sure I was getting in quality workouts.  Well, I finally went to a website that I had heard about on some triathlon message boards, http://www.swimplan.com/.  Swimplan.com is a website where you put in your skill level and then tell it what kind of workout you want and it will give you a detailed workout with a warmup, drills, core workout and cool down.  It's set up specifically with times for your level of swimming and for a duration that you choose. 

I finally signed up today and printed out a workout for this evening.  It was awesome.  Really it wasn't much different that what I usually do; however, I always work out better with a plan.  This is exactly what I needed.  I got quality yards in and it helped pass the time.  I'm definitely using it again.  For all of you swimmers out there, I highly recommend it.

TriKC Indoor Triathlon (April)

I did another indoor triathlon today.  I previously did one other indoor triathlon last month with good results.  Today I was back for more.  The full race report should be up tomorrow.

Right now I'll just say that I improved in all three disciplines.  And I wore a wetsuit.  Oh yeah, a wetsuit.

60 Minute Swim - 60 Minute Bike

Cold. Unmotivated.

Those two words pretty clearly describe today's workouts. 

I started at the pool this morning at about 5am.  I was supposed to do about 77 minutes, which should translate into somewhere around 4000 yards or so for me.  Yeah, I ended up doing something like 1500 yards.  The water was colder than usual, I was tired and just couldn't bring myself to push myself during the workout.  I took long breaks, didn't get in full sets, basically just a lazy, unmotivated workout.

I finished my swim, drove home and got on my bike.  I got about a mile from home, and realized I couldn't feel my hands, so I turned around, went back and got some winter gloves.  The temperature has been in the 70's the last few days and was supposed to be beautiful again today.  That was absolutely the case...this afternoon.  This morning it was 44 degrees.  I was freaking cold.  I started the ride really wanting to do a long 30-40 mile ride.  I did about 15.  Ugh.  Again, I was tired, cold and totally unmotivated.

I need something to light a fire under me right now, to refocus on my workouts and to make some progress in my training.  I have another indoor triathlon tomorrow and I think it may be just the motivation I need to refocus the last 45 days or so before my first race.  Let's hope so...race report tomorrow.

77 Minute Swim

Yeah, that's our oven clock when I left last night this morning.

Today, I had a nice long swim without any noticable injuries, no cramps, no interruptions, it was great.  I hit the pool about 4:30am and just swam.  I did ladders, stroke drills, 50's, 100's, all kinds of different stuff. 

You see, the thing about swimming by yourself is that when you stop, all you hear is the sound of yourself breathing; when you swim, all you hear is yourself splashing.  You basically stare at the black line on the bottom of the pool and have nothing to occupy yourself except for the fatigue in your shoulders, the burning in your lungs and whatever you choose to think about. 

That being said, just mindlessly swimming 100 yard intervals for an hour and fifteen minutes is basically like torture by sensory depravation.  The way you break that up is to switch up what you're doing with drills, strokes and games.  Yeah, "stroke count golf" sounds boring, but it helps to pass the time. 

Today, I used all my tricks and I need to find something new for next week...Suggestions?

46 Minute Swim

Although this is a busy week, I was able to get to the pool this evening after work for a quick workout.  I did ladders again and swam about 2000 yards; it started a little slow, but I ended up having a great workout.  A few observations from today:

• I met a new guy, Dan, who is also doing the KC Triathlon in May.  We may end up doing some training together, which could be good.
• I hate when the pool is full of inexperienced swimmers.  Don't get me wrong, if someone wants to swim, I'm the first person to offer to split my lane.  If you're trying to swim to get in shape or train for something, I respect that, I've been there, I am there.  But if you don't ask to join a lane the right way, or don't stay to your own side...it's just impolite.  Seriously, learn a little protocol.
• I hate the fat bastard guy that uses the pool like a cool down bath out of the whirlpool.  C'mon man, there's already enough crap in the pool without you using it to rinse off, use the shower.
• Dark blue goggles are a little dim for indoor swims and I should probably get some clear goggles because for whatever reason I was having a hard time seeing tonight.  Weird.

70 Minute Swim

I had a good bike session yesterday, so I decided to just put in a long swim today.  That being said, I got to be really wild and I slept in until 4:50am! Ha!  I know, you're wondering how I get anything done sleeping so late, but it was a nice change of pace to arrive at the gym after 5am.

I got there and a few people were wandering about.  I dropped my stuff in my usual locker - 117 (by the way, if someone can identify the geeky reason I use 117, you win a prize) and jumped in the pool. 

I decided to do a monster set of ladders today, doing 2x25, 2x50, 2x75, 2x100, 2x125, 2x150, 2x175, 2x200 - and then back down again.  Three things of note during the swim today:

1. I got a monster cramp in my left calf and upper right thigh, like to the point that I almost couldn't pull myself out of the pool to stretch them out.  It was bizzare.  The pain from the cramp is still lingering as I sit here 9 hours later.  Worst cramp ever.

2. I usually have the pool to myself, but today at about 5:45 another guy came in to do some laps.  It wasn't any big deal, it's just the first time that I haven't had the pool to myself during an early morning session.

3.  Here's the weird stuff.  At 10 'till 6am a girl, aged 25 to 30, walked into the wet area (I've described this before - pool, whirlpool, wet sauna, dry sauna - all coed) and into the dry sauna.  In a black bikini.  And sat there for at least a half hour. 

Now normally, if this is just a busy Tuesday evening at the gym, I would probably just think this was some vapid girl that wanted attention so she threw on a bikini and tried to strut around the gym to have people notice her.  Of course, the problem with this explanation for this morning is that it was freaking 5:50am!  Seriously, what the hell is she doing there with the other 8 people in the place?  Did she set her alarm to get up, drive to the gym, put on a bikini and sit in the dry sauna for a half hour?  Was this in her day planner?  Had she not gone to bed yet and was trying to recover from Friday night?  I'm totally confused. 

There may be less than 10 people in the gym at 5am, but the percentage of weirdness is through the roof.

42 Minute Swim - 65 Minute Bike

All these weights with no one to lift them...kinda creepy.

Zero.

That's the number of people that were at the gym when I walked in this morning at 4:20am.  Usually there's a few people on a treadmill or elliptical, maybe one guy on a weight machine.  And there's usually a guy behind the desk (or within shouting distance of the desk).  Today, there was no one.  Not even the guy that works there (he must've been in the back somewhere).  It was a little creepy.

I got into the locker room, threw my stuff in locker 117 and hit the pool.  I had kind of a weird week because I didn't get in a short swim or short bike this week because I was staying too late at work.  It was OK because it's recovery week and I kept up on my other training, so I wasn't going to lose sleep over missing a 20 minute swim.  Anyway, I thought maybe to push myself a bit today I would try a little race against myself and do an indoor tri, 20 or 25 minutes of swimming, 40 minutes of biking and 20 minutes on the treadmill.  It would be a nice tight little workout and get me home by 7am, when Mrs. Gias requested that I be available so she could go shopping with her mother today (yeah, shopping at 7am, I don't know, I just do what I'm told). 

Ever seen a locker room at 4:30am?  Now you have.

Once I got in the pool I decided that I would do some ladders today because I had been struggling with finding a swim routine other than just 100 yard intervals or 1500's (which get monotonous).  Once I got into it I noticed that I was having a really good swim session so I extended my yardage a bit and went ahead and did a full 42 minutes in the pool and decided I would just do my usual Saturday swim/bike brick workout.

Today's ladder was 2x25, 2x50, 2x100, 2x200, 2x200, 2x100, 2x50, 2x25 for a total of 1800 yards.  I really liked the workout this way and I think I'll do it again next time.  It makes it easiser to not look at the clock, just go hard, 10 seconds rest and do the next set.

I finished in the pool and went out to do an hour or so on the spin bike before I needed to get home.  By this time there were about 6 people in the gym.  Frizzy McBlonde Hair and Old Navy were back, along with Brownie vonCrop Pants - the whole crew (plus a few people I hadn't seen before).  I think we should start a club and make shirts.

Anyway, I rode with a mid 90's cadence and finished with an average speed just over 21 mph.  Pretty solid ride and my knee started acting up a bit, but not enough to make me stop.  Tomorrow's run outside (hopefully) will be the real test of how my knee holds up.

70 Minute Swim/141 Minute Bike

Yeah, that's 6 inches of snow.  It was sixty degrees 12 hours ago...WTF?

I woke up before my alarm this morning at about 3:50am.  (Note: In college I used to get home on Saturday mornings at 3:50am after a night of debauchery...how life changes...)  I quietly slipped around our bed to the alarm clock by Mrs. Gias's head (she likes it on her side) and clicked it off to make sure that she could sleep until a reasonable hour.  I then pulled on my Speedo and made my way downstairs for a quick bowl of oatmeal before my three and a half hour marathon session at the gym. 

As I was choking down my oatmeal I looked out the front door at the winter wonderalnd outside.  It's March 20th and we got like six inches of snow.  It was 60 degrees yesterday.  I've lived in Kansas my whole life, but I still cannot believe the swings in weather that we get.

I drove slowly on the snow covered roads to the gym.  I probably should have taken Mrs. Gias's 4x4 rather than my little two wheel drive sedan, but since there was no one else on the road, it wasn't too bad.

I got to the gym and there were all of two people there.  I jumped in the pool and started my workout.  I'm still trying to get over this chest congestion so my breathing wasn't ideal today, but it was a good workout overall.  I basically warmed up and then did 100 yard intervals for the remainder of the time on a 1:40 to 2:00 interval (slower as I did more intervals).  Near the end I got a pretty good leg cramp in my left leg so rather than cooling down, I jumped into the whirlpool to workout the cramp before hitting the bike.

I got out to the bike about 5:45am and there were now four people in the gym.  (Our numbers had increased by 100% since 4:30am.)  I started pedaling and watched Knocked Up on my Zune (it's almost exactly two hours and twenty minutes, so it worked perfect for the time I needed to ride).  I noticed after a few minutes that my knee was giving me a little trouble and I really didn't want to injure it any further, so I backed the resistance down to about half of what I ususally do and tried to keep my cadence in the low 80's rather than the mid 90's.  I could definitely still feel some discomfort, but I wanted to push through on the easier setting to see how I would feel at the end of the ride. 

I finished my ride about 8:00am and there were about 10 people in the gym, very light crowd.  The only person I recognized was Frizzy McBlonde hair, who is not frizzy anymore.  She got a haircut, the easiest way to describe it is the "Ellen Degeneres cut".  I was going to say something when she went to get a drink of water by the spin bikes, but I thought she would think it's creepy that I noticed and have never spoken to her before.  Of course, she'd probably think it was more creepy to know that I just dedicated a paragraph on my blog describing her hair for everyone.  Yeah, I'm creepy either way I guess.

The knee bothered me a bit this morning, but it's feeling better now.  I'm starting recovery week tomorrow in both P90X and in my TriTraining schedule, so my run should be short tomorrow.  We'll see how I get through it on my knee.

38 Minute Swim

I bugged out of work a little early today to get a few afternoon workouts in.  I hit the pool first and tried to get in a good swim.  However, I had a hard time today because of my stupid neck.  If you remember, I tweaked my neck this morning during a set of pullups.  It is excruciating to turn my head to the left.  Normally I bi-lateral breathe when I swim (one breath on the left, take two strokes and on the third, breathe to the right) however, when I do distance work, I tend to breathe on every two strokes, so I favor one side.  I'll give you two guesses which side I favor when I breathe...yeah, it's my left side.  Basically, that means that I wasn't terribly comfortable in the water today.  However, a nice byproduct of having a strained neck was that it kept my head down and forced me to focus on my rotation and breathing on the right side.  All in all, a good workout, even if it did look a little gimpy.

38 Minute Swim

I went for a 38 minute swim after work today and it was difficult.  I thought I could push through a swim workout with my knee, and surprisingly my knee wasn't a problem at all (even on flip turns).  The big issue tonight was my endurace and breathing.  I've got this head cold and cough and I couldn't hold my breath worth a crap.  I ended up doing short intervals and stroke work the whole time, which was good, because I got something done even though I couldn't really do any distance.  Hopefully I can shake this thing by the weekend so I can get a good endurance workout in.

117 Minute Bike/58 Minute Swim

117 Minute Bike (Stationary)
~20 mph
~40 miles

58 Minute Swim
Coaching Session

I got to the gym at about 5:30am this morning and hit the bike first.  I cruised pretty well the entire time, although I have to say, two hours on a spin bike is pretty monotonous.  I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which helped pass the time (that movie is hilarious, by the by).  Senora Gray Boots and Old Navy were both there; nothing too exciting to note during the session though.

Then I went to the pool and warmed up a bit before my session with my coach at 8:00am.  I was definietly fatigued and probably couldn't have done a 1500 straight, I was just so tired.  It is good that I got to do a trainer session today, it's harder mentally, but easier on your body because there aren't as many yards.  We also ended up talking quite a bit about general triathlon information, which was increadibly healpful.  A few things from today:

• Long sleeve wetsuit over short sleeve wetsuit for bouancy and speed.
• Tri-shorts and shirt over tri-suit unless the tri-suit is tight.
• Never wear a tri-suit in a long distace race, it's impossible to go to the bathroom without taking the whole thing off.
• Black or dark gray are the only acceptable colors for shorts, there are just too many things that can be exposed with other colors (see picture for explanation-Yikes).

35 Minute Swim and 70 Minute Bike

35 Minute Swim
Stroke Drills, 100 intervals

70 Minute Bike
60 Minute Actual
21.25 miles

Short post tonight because I'm tired!

I got to the gym today for my short swim and short bike for the week and went in without a great "plan" as to what I wanted to swim.  This is NOT the best way to go into a workout, I should have had a plan so I could benchmark what I was doing.  Instead I ended up doing stroke drills and 100 yd repeats.  It was a good workout, just not enough planning to make it a great workout.

I finished the swim and jumped on a spin bike (still under 40 degrees today, no outside ride yet!) and actually had a GREAT bike session. I went for 60 minutes and my cadence was in the 100s for the entire hour.  I pushed hard and got through it a sweaty, dripping mess.

Ugh, I'm so tired I can't even think of anything pithy to say.

35 Minute Swim & 60 Minute Bike (Stationary)

Not my girls, they were terrified of skating.

So it's my last Tri workouts for this recovery week, thus, I kept them pretty easy (considering it was a Saturday double workout).  Nothing too interesting to note at the gym, unfortunately (none of the regulars were there except for Old Navy - it was actually slower than usual).

I hit the pool about 4:30am, did some stroke work and then hit the bike for an hour.  I took it easy  and averaged about 19 mph for right about 20 miles.  Again, nothing special, just an easy workout thinking about recovering and hitting it really hard next week.

As I was driving home, however, it hit me kind of strangely.  I just finished a 2000 yard swim and a 20 mile bike ride before 7am on a Saturday morning and I was thinking about how "easy" I was taking it today.  WTF?  Never in a million years would I ever have thought I would be the guy thinking to himself that an hour and a half of cardio before the sun comes up was taking it "easy".  My oh my, how perspective can change in a year.

As an aside, I actually did a "winter triathlon" of sorts today.  After my swim and bike I picked up my girls and took them to see Clifford (the big red dog from the cartoon) at the Crown Center Ice Terrace (outdoor skating rink).  I hadn't put on ice skates in over a decade, but I did pretty well.  B was terrified of skating, G wanted nothing more than to run away and live at the Ice Terrace forvever (she's much more daring, obviously) and they both loved meeting Clifford (some dude in a suit on ice skates - how do I get that job, by the way?).  And me, well I considered my "Swim Bike Skate" to be a nice little winter triathlon. 

Nothing quite like going from a swimming pool to an ice skating rink in the matter of a couple hours.

21 Minute Swim & 40 Minute Bike

I went to the gym and had a short swim and bike session today.  I basically just worked on stroke drills in the pool since 20 minutes really isn't enough time to do any distance work.  The swim felt good and i think I'm improving, although some of my drills need work.  It's just about practice, practice, practice.

On the bike I decided to do three minute intervals, 2 minutes 30 seconds at a steady 90-95 cadence and then 30 seconds all out at about a 120-130 cadence.  It was nice becuase I think this kind of speed work will make me faster and it was a nice way to break up the monotony of a spin bike.