Techniques

I met with coach Hottie for running and swimming so he can have a look at my technique.

By the way, it is unbelievable how fast a guy descends on "hot scale" when you learn that he has a girlfriend:)

So running: we did 5k. On a road. Very slow. Stupid stupid stupid. Which confirms one of these things: 1, either noone but me and PPC can coach me in next few months because the others have no idea how to deal with my ITB, 2, or I am way too cautious regarding my ITB and I can in fact do more than I think.
ITB did not hurt at all, we shall see how it feel tomorrow.

Now about technique. He said that it is very rare, that he in fact never saw it but I am running way too much on my toes. I do not even touch the ground with my heel!!! I even extend my lower leg/feet forward to touch with my toes. He said that it very bad for calves. That's probably why my calves are killing me often when I run.
I think that I am so much on my toes because I am trying to decrease the impact on my knee.
Also I touch the ground little before my center of gravity. So he showed me when to touch the ground because it is more economical/efficient for long distances. Once I master that I should work on my step frequency because mine is too slow. I am not very effient runner, I am using raw muscle power to propel me forward. It is common among middle-distance runners.

Swimming. I basically spend 1.5h doing one arm drills. But since I have mostly learnt from youtube videos, it is not too bad.
I turn hips way to early. He told me to turn later in the stroke, when my hand is closer to my hips. And I hold head too low. I used to hold it too high, now I am too low. Plus I did quite a lot of finger tips drill, he said that I am recovering with my forearm leading whereas I should go more with my elbow. This way my recovery is little too wide. But he said that it probably caused by my rotation and once I correct that also my arm recovery would be better.
He said to come one more time to this technique session where he has more time to address issues and then I can join his "advanced" team because I do not need a lot od technique work.
He also told me that I have bigger tights muscles than he does. Must be all that biking.

So that's it. I like the guy. He seems to know what he is talking about. He has ben doing tris for 20 years. And he has a huge poster in his bedroom showing times he needs for 1500m, 10k bike, 10k run to get to Rio. I like that.
We also talked about Rio. Apparently it is not that bad for women as it is for men.
I think that I will start working with him. I think that he would be the best coach choice for me for Oly dist tris.
But I need to start earning money first.


We talked about IMs and training and such and it is all quite interesting. There is such a difference between training philosophy/approach between Europe and US. I will write another short post about it later.
Let me just start with this: guess what we ate after our run? Candy bars. Ok, our run was really slow so we have not cause a lot of muscle damage but still. He is a professional triathlete and he eats candy bar as a post-workout meal...