Benchmark setting

I have finally forced myself to time myself in the pool to see where I am at and set some kind of a benchmark to work with. I figured 20x100m @ 2min sound around right.

I did it (hardly) but I took 30sec break after each 5 because I honestly do not think that I could have done that without that extra break.

I went the first ones in around 1:50 but then slipped down to 1:54s and then had to fight hard for last three in around 1:57. Phew.  My arms were totally trashed and it was hard at the end but I LOVED IT! I love swimming, when I can swim. When I am in a pool where it is not possible to swim then I hate the whole experience. So that’s my pathetic swimming (although I did swim 5k yesterday if I can use that as a little excuse for my slow times).

But at least now I have a benchmark. I know where I am at and I can pace/time myself at workouts and see how I improve :)

I have figured out why I am such a lousy swimmer. Well, partly. I am too weak to push through the whole stroke. Basically I start lifting my arm somewhere around my waist. Of course, when I am fresh I can do the whole stroke when I concentrate on it (hearing Michelle’s voice in my head, accelerate at the end of the stroke, accelerate at the end) but as I tire it gets worse and worse. I need to work on that!!!

I also hear CH’s voice: Glide more! Lead recovery with your elbow, not your finger tips! Lift your feet! You rotate back to early! Lift your elbow! Don’t go like a snake!

Yes, I am having good time in the pool:)

I figured out how to get some decent swims in. I go to the pool when it opens at 5:50am (it opens at 6am but they let us in little earlier and there are always at least 12 grandpas and grandmas already waiting) and “claim” a lane. And then scare the hell out of people who come anywhere close near me or decide to cross my path. If they do I do not move one inch, I hold my line, I swim close to them, kick hard and slash around as much as possible. I used this strategy yesterday when one grandpa swimming breaststroke decided to swim in MY claimed lane. I swam inches from him and he actually kicked me. He felt probably pretty bad about kicking me and I scared him so he moved to the other side of a pool. So I think that if I go there often I can teach people that they better stay away from me.

PS 1: I made an ultimate sacrifice today. We have a dinner at work tonight but I have to go swimming because if I did not I would not reach my target because I am going to “Tropical Islands” on Th and Fr. Giving up free food! So unlike me!

PS2: I just went to put my jacket on and I was like holy shit! I.can.not.move.my.arms! That’s good, means that muscles are building:)

Week in review

Another attempt to keep a training log….

For me it is much easier to keep a log if I do it on paper and not in excel or TP or something similar since I do not use my computer every day. But keeping a paper journal would not work at all because it would be one of the first things to go when I move once again. So unless someone keeps one for me it is a lost cause.

I am pretty amazed how some people keep track of all their training miles, hours, yards etc. When I see how some post on FB how they have biked 457.6 miles, ran 69.08 miles and swam 17.48 miles in the last month I always wonder how the hell do they keep track of that, to the hundreds of a mile? I suppose that they even sleep with Garmins on their wrists. I am all about dedication, but that is little too much, isn’t it? 

So back to my training log:

Run: 3x cca 50min easy (W, F, Sun) – nothing spectacular. Just getting legs used to running again:)

Swim: cca 15k in 6 sessions (2xTue, W, Th, Fr, Sat) – I was able to get in some good swims because of bad (cold and rainy) weather so the pool was not crowded. I wished it rained the whole summer!

Bike: 2x cca 2h50min (Sat, Sun) – putting bike on hold in an attempt to rump up my swimming volume.

One of those rides/runs was a brick, today.

Not the best training week ever but it is hard to get swims in. You see, pool is too crowded even with bad weather in the mornings and therefore I have to swim in the evening. And that does not give me time to bike during the week. My commute to work is 1h, which also makes the things complicated. But whatever, as long as I am able to get swimming in. That is priority!

Let’s cheer up, shall we?

I promise, I am not going to bitch about pool situation any more. I am sure that you know my feelings regarding that by now:) But I just cannot help it, I love to complain.

I officially started running yesterday. Yes, I have been running since the beginning of March (wow, two months of non-stop running. Unbelievable)  already before but it was all whatever. But now I have a training plan, so I call it official. 

I am pretty excited, although I am little scared because now when (maybe I should use IF…) my ITB flares up it would be somehow worse than if it had flared up when I was only running whatever. Physiologically there is no difference, but it would be a huge blow from the psychological perspective.

I have no races really planned because as usual, I have no idea where I will be in next few months. I have just learnt that my work visa petition was approved but I still have to get actual visa and go through visa interview and even if that goes well I cannot go to the US using that visa until late Sept. And I do not know how my “interim” visa situation will work out. The only certain thing is that I stay here until the end of June and then who knows.  Unfortunately because of all this uncertainty I cannot go to Michelle’s training camp (which I was looking forward to because I knew she would want to kick my butt and I would like that) nor do a running race in Montreal with my running coach:( 

There is a Frauenlauf on June 29 that I could do to see where I stand. 5k or 10k. Probably 5k, I would die if I did 10k. 10k is sooo long. And then there is Hannover triathlon on Sept 2 that I could do.  We shall see.

My parents are coming in two weeks to visit and they are bringing my beloved bike:)

And the tri club swim coach told me that he would arrange with club president that I can be a month-to-month member, so I do not have to pay annual fee all at once, which would not make any sense if I have to leave in few weeks. I like this group much better than the other one although the men in the other one are considerably hotter but I cannot let such superficialities to dictate which group I join, can I?

I swam 5k on Tue, 3k yesterday and want to continue the trend. But at first I need to figure out what the proper way to increase my swimming mileage (how do you say this with kilometers? Because I am not swimming miles but ks?) is. Because I almost went from 0k to 25k in 4 weeks, which is probably not the best idea. 

I have decided to be a good athlete and fuel. Michelle would be so proud of me! I was doing pretty well while under her wings but since then not so much. 4+ hour bricks on a bottle of caramel tea with lemon and honey and 1 slice of cheese….Did you know that a box of 24 Powergels costs 42Eur? 42Eur! But I was able to find a sale and ordered a box for 15Eur. Phew. I should have ordered two boxes but I am expecting them to have expiration date two months ago so I did not.

I give up after today

 I am officially giving up on my resolution to train like a swimmer. That's right. After 4 days. 

I swam on Sat and Sun but then Monday 5:30am came and I stayed in bed instead of going swimming. But you see, it was not all my fault, it was 5C degree and raining. Brrrr.

Then this morning I woke up at 5:15am and had a fight with myself whether to get out or now. Thankfully my good self won and I told myself that if I stick my arm out from the window and it does not freezes then I will go. It was not too bad so I went. Outside temp 7C and water 20C. Not the most pleasant combination but the athlete got to do what she got to do.

And that’s the real blow to my resolution came. This pool is as crowded as every other pool. With senior citizens. Of course it is not as bad as indoor 25m pool but still pretty bad because people are idiots! Get this. There are no lane dividers so people zig-zag left and right even when they are breaststroking (and everyone is breastroking). I was swimming my straight line right above the line on the bottom (without that I would be going left and right like the others) and there were these two guys swimming next to me on my right side. And then suddenly I am between then. And then suddenly both of them are on my left. And then right in my way. And after one more turn they are on my right again. WTF? Can’t you swim straight especially since you see that I am swimming freestyle and can’t really see you, and I am holding my line and it is you who is zig-zagging? And it went like this for around 30min. And after those two left new idiots came and it was always the same.

I think that I have strained my neck because I had to sign every few stroked to see where people are. I wanted to do fast 100s but well, I did them but they were not fast.

500m w/up, 20x100m, 100m c/d.

So that’s the end of my swimming career. I have officially nowhere to swim. Unless I ask whether it is possible to reserve a lane, but I am not that rich to be able to do that. Or unless it rains every single weekend, because these seniors citizens do not go to swim on weekends and because it rains no kids are playing there.

I am going to join a group of triathletes to swim with but they swim only 1h 3x/week (and possibly only 2x/week in summer) and their swims are not as fast as I would want to. Because they cramp everything (drills, some sprints, some easy) into one session. You cannot get fast doing this. However, it costs 120Eur/year and I might leave Hannover in July (most probably Sept) and I am not sure I can pay that much money for just 6 weeks…. I will try to negotiate with them.

I will still go swimming in the mornings but I am setting my expectations very very very low. If I set my expectations for the swim high than I will lose my marbles. You cannot even imagine how anxious this pool situation makes me. And probably cannot even imagine how bad it is unless you experience it for yourself.
We shall see whether I can substitute quality with quantity.

Maybe it is about the bike after all

I have had my ass kicked on bike rides this week. I rode three times with that guy  met last weekend and everytime I have to work pretty hard to keep up while he keeps saying that we are going pedestrian pace.

I do realize that my bike fitness is not as it used to be last year but there is no way I am that slow/out of shape. And there is no way that he is that fast. So the only plausible explanation to my suffering must be my bike. Yes it is about the bike!

Basically to not expect to be super fast (or just fast) on a 6 years old Walmart bike. It is not going to happen. And be ready to have your bottom handed to you if you ride with someone who is riding a full carbon bike.

On training front. I did 3h40min ride followed by 1h run. I am not sure whether it was the best idea to do two 60min (or 55min, somewhere in that range) on two consecutive days (because I did 60min also yesterday). So far so good, we shall see how my knee feels tomorrow. But I need to give it a try, I cannot run 2h/week max forever…Although this week I have run 3h20 in 4 runs. I have not realized it only after the run, otherwise I probably would not have done it.

I cannot say that the brick was easy peasy but it was not too bad. I have spent 20 quality minutes with the foam roller afterwards.

Then I ate 2 yogurts and an apple and it was time to go swimming. Although it was the last thing I wanted to do. It was cold and it was starting to drizzle and I was quite tired. Blah. But I am standing by my decision to become a faster swimmer. When I saw the lifeguard walking under the umbrella I was not sure whether I feel more sorry for myself or him. But there were 3-4 other crazies in the pool.

I did paddle and bands work and I must say that I am weak as a (what is weak?). I am sure that I would have dragged my feet on the pool bottom if it was shallower:)

I did a total of 1900m in 50min, not too much but of course I am slower with bands and I was starting to shiver pretty badly so I got out and took a hot shower.

I also made a friend. Ok, not really a friend. But one guy asked me whether he could borrow my huge paddles because he wanted to see how it is with such a big paddles. He was pretty cute, as far as one can tell when someone is wearing swimming cap and goggles:)

I will be back in the pool tomorrow morning to see whether I can actually swim in that pool in the mornings or whether it is crowded.

My swimming plan

I was finally able to do a swimming workout today after 2 months. I had done “workouts” before but they were either with a group or I was not able to swim fast. Today I was finally able to swim as fast (or rather slow) as I wanted to and do what I wanted to.

I was able to swim not because I have finally found a pool where one can swim (I have been to 6 pools already and no luck), it was because it has been raining on and off the whole day and it was 10 C degrees (which I believe is 50F). So quite cold for an outdoor pool swim and thus not many people were there. Water was 21C (around 70) so not too bad until you got out into that cold air. 

I did 400m w/up, 3x200 fastish, 100 easy, 2x200, 100 easy, 200, 100 easy, 100 c/d. All 200s at 4min.

I do not know how 3min for 200 yards in scy pool transfer into lcm pool but I think that my 3:43ish 200m is pathetic. I tried to sprint the last 200 but I only managed 3:44 or so. Truly pathetic.

But it is no surprise to me since my swimming in last 2 months was almost non-existant and there was only very little of fast swimming. 

There are other reasons for my slow times:

My flip turns are horrible .I have not done them in quite a long time and I need to get used to 50m pool because I think that the distance between wall and the end of the line at the bottom is different for lcm and scy, isn’t it?

I go like a snake. CH told me that as well. He told me to glide on one side longer and when I do it then I go to the side. Horrible, horrible. I need to work on it.

Since my swimming is this pathetic and I really do not see a point in doing triathlon if I continue swimming 29min in Oly dist tris I have decided to try to train like a swimmer for several months. But at first I need to find a pool to train. I said that I cannot really go to this outdoor pool in the mornings because I will freeze but it cannot be worse than today. I think that maybe it won’t be too crowded in the mornings (although I also thought that it won’t be crowded in the evenings and it is). And if I get there exactly at 6am when it opens I can try to claim a lane and then fight to keep it to myself. We shall see on Monday morning. Although it is supposed to be cold and rainy so maybe Monday won’t be representative of nice mornings. 

Anyway, that is my plan. Swim a lot and fast as if I was training for swimming races for several months (I am thinking a year maybe) and we shall see where it leads. I am thinking long-term so hopefully this strategy will work out well in 3-5 years context.

Weekend smashfest continues

Although it is not a real smashfest since I am not smashed but I guess that when you do more training in one day than you have done it last 30 days than it can be called a smashfest.

Surprisingly I was not sore after the rides/runs I did on Sat and Sun. Must be all the resting I have done prior:)

My shoulders and lats felt however little heavy this morning. Seems that resting strategy does not work for swimming.

I met with that guy I had met on Sun to go biking today. I was hoping we would do a completely new route today but he somehow forgot that he had promised that so we did something very similar to Sunday’s ride. I am however not complaining because I still do not know where we went. I should have taken Garmin with me so I can map it afterwards.

3h40min ride total, followed by ~40min run. I felt great! Legs felt good, as if I did not do anything before. It seems that I am a naturally decent off the bike runner:)

I also think that being sunny and hot does me good. I thrive in warm temperatures! I hate rain, and overcast or snow. Sun and hot, that’s more like it.  

OK, that was my awesome weekend. I wish I could do it all day every day. How much fun would that be?!?