Beginner Triathlete Training Program!

BEGINNER TRIATHLETE TRAINING PROGRAM

Tri Smart Coaching's 12 week Beginner Triathlete Training Program will teach you all the basic skills of triathlon and how to put them all together on race day. Program will run from Monday, March 21, 2011 through Friday, June 10, 2011. Participants will meet 3 times per week for group training and will be given a daily schedule detailing suggested workouts to achieve your race day goals.

The Tri Smart Beginner Triathlete Program includes:

• Swim, bike, run technique clinics, core-strength and flexibility workshops


• Informational discussions on training, race day nutrition, injury prevention and brick training


• Demonstrations on transitions and open water swimming technique


• Technical training shirt, Tri Smart water bottle, nutrition samples and 15% off all purchases at Runner's Soul for the duration of the program

Program Details:

MONDAY Run - 6:00pm @ Runner's Soul in LaGrange

WEDNESDAY Ride - 6:00pm @ Runner's Soul in LaGrange (Lectures on Wed evenings until warm enough to ride outdoors (Approx May 4), then rides will meet @ 6:00pm @ Urban Tri Gear in Burr Ridge

FRIDAY Swim - 5:30am @ The CORE in Lemont

COST - $249 for the entire triathlon training program. Price DOES NOT include entry fee for triathlon. To register, visit Runner's Soul in LaGrange or email info@trismartcoaching.com.

Long Swim

Today was a 4800 yard swim workout. Most of this was a set of 3 x 1000. Now, I really like swimming. I look forward to getting into the pool, lake or wherever I'm going to get in some yards. But 3 x 1000? Ugh, how boring. This is a workout I wouldn't even try to convince someone to come do with me. I didn't even want to do it. However, the Ironman swim is a long, continuous effort, so I understand the benefits of getting in a set of this distance.

Here is a list of random thoughts I had during my swim this morning:

• The water is nice and clear, why do I keep cutting these turns short?


• Why do so many old people walk "laps" in the pool?


• What the hell is that floating in my lane?


• I wonder how cold it's going to be outside for my long ride this weekend.


• I miss summer already.


• What time is it?


• Keep your head lower in the water.


• Try to remember to KICK!


• Oops, missed another turn.


• Hope this guy doesn't try hopping in my lane.


• Do those Swimp3 players work? I could use some music.


• Shoot - was that 650 or 700?


• Concentrate on the bilateral breathing - evens out the stroke.


• KICK!


• How many jellyfish are there going to be at IMFL?


• I think Sheila was stung in the face by a jellyfish...


• Damn, this is a long-ass set.


• Maybe I should cut it short.


• No, I can't. Keep going. Smooth.


• This is so boring. Ironman swimming isn't this boring.


• At least I'm not getting the crap beat out of me during this swim.


• I think my fingers are getting pruny.


• My goggles are too tight.


• What goggles am I going to use for the race?


• Am I done yet?


• That dude needs to stop looking at me.

And that was just the first 1000. I finished the whole thing, times staying consistent. The thing I need to think about is how much different swimming in salt water is going to be. I'd like to think it's not going to be that much different, but I don't know for sure. It's not like I've done any amount of "real" swimming in salt water. My experiences with salt water usually involve a mask, snorkel and fins along with nice, cold alcoholic beverages afterwards! Not much I can do at this point, so I'm not spending any time worrying about it. After all, the swim is just the warm up....the "introduction" to the day!

Big Shoulders

Big Shoulders is an open water swim that takes place every year in September at Ohio Street Beach in Chicago. They have a few options to meet your needs: 5K without a wetsuit, 2.5K without a wetsuit, 5K with a wetsuit and 2.5K with a wetsuit. I swam this race back in 2003 and it was terribly short. And I remember being terribly smacked around during the first quarter of the race. In fact, it was the only race ever where I actually punched a swimmer back. I mean, this guy was swimming right over the back of me and hit me....about FOUR TIMES...not on the side, but in the middle of my back. That was enough for me to stop, crank up and let him have it right back. I mean, dude, Lake Michigan is HUGE! Why the hell are you swimming right on top of me??!?! Never since then, in all my triathlon experiences, have I ever been hit so deliberately by another swimmer.

Anyway, I haven't done this race for the last several years. Not because I don't think it's cool, it's actually one of the best swim events (particularly for triathletes) in the area. However, I've always had long runs to do on Saturday mornings. Well, I guess having an injury that prevents you from running is good for something! I signed up for the 5K, no wetsuit. As my friend Elaine says, "Wetsuits are for weenies!" I convinced Elaine to sign up with me. Even though she changed her entry last-minute to the 2.5K, I'm still proud of her for doing the event.

Traffic on I55 and LSD is a wonderful thing early on a Saturday morning. It's pretty much non-existent. We made it down in record time and went over to pick up our packets. The lines were small and I got my chip, got body marked and picked up my goody bag (or promotional bag) and stood around waiting for Elaine. I went back to her line, where she was standing in the front describing to me that there was a problem. Apparently, the yahoos working the check-in line gave someone else her timing chip! It took a few minutes for them to assign her another chip so we could get her through the check-in process.

I was calling BC to tell him where we were when I spotted him walking towards us. We set down our things and just talked a little bit while we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes! It was horrible. You couldn't stand still for 3 seconds without getting bitten. We went over to just put our feet in the water - a comfortable 72 degrees - and went back to prepare for the event.

There were a few familiar faces, but the event has grown so much since the last time I did this. It was really a great sight to see. And even better for me, this wasn't a mass start, we were staggered into waves based on age group, distance, and whether or not you were wearing a wetsuit. I figured this would be a much easier start than I had just a few years ago.

The water was pretty calm. The air temperature was between 75-80 degrees. The sun was shining. It was absoluely beautiful conditions for this swim. The countdown was a bit rushed - 5-4-3-2-1 and we were off. I thought I had positioned myself on the far outside as to avoid being hit. No such luck. Almost immediately, I was being pushed to the left by a crowd of swimmers on my right. I kept wondering why they were trying so hard to push left. I couldn't even stick to my line unless I wanted to be bludgeoned. So I followed the line with everyone else and tried not to let the swimmers on my right bug me so much as they kept running into me. I wasn't sure if they were going off course or it was me, so I just let them pass and tried to fight for my own line.

Once we turned the first buoy, it opened up a lot. In fact, if I didn't pick up my head to sight, I would've thought I was in the lake alone. I was quite comfortable. I swam breathing every 3 strokes and couldn't believe how smooth everything felt. I was having fun. It couldn't have been a better day. As we neared the second buoy that would head us back to shore, the waves kicked up. The crashed strongly against the back of my head every time I took a breath to the left. I was happy to be a left-side breather! This was a really long stretch that felt like it would never come to an end.

As I turned the 3rd buoy, which was also exactly where we started I thought about how I'd be almost finished if I had entered the 2.5K race. That would've been great! Ah well, I continued swimming along, all alone, and decided I really wasn't pushing hard enough. I tried to kick up the tempo of my strokes and planned to hold it for the entire second loop. I got passed by a bunch of very, very fast guys. They were too quick to even think about trying to catch a draft.

I tried to focus on my own race and my own rhythym. This is all just practice for the upcoming Ironman. And in that race, I'll most likely be wearing a wetsuit, which will make a swim of this distance all that much easier! I just hammered. The water was clear and I could see my arms in the pull of the stroke. I tried to focus on form with long, strong pulls. The water definitely was choppier on the second loop and it seemed to take FOREVER to get to the final buoy!

I was on the final stretch and I saw a woman with the same color cap ahead of me. My competitive spirit will not let go as I push as hard as I can to catch her. I trail behind for just a few short strokes and then decide to blow by her. It wasn't as easy as I had hoped. She picked up her pace and tried to draft just off my hip...wise move. But uh huh, I ain't havin' any of that, so I pushed harder and started breathing very heavily. I just wanted to get away from her. At that point, I wished I drafted off her just a little to get some rest before deciding to try and overtake her.

COME ON, where is the FINISH!!! I've been going at full-speed for much too long. I have this thing, I never look back when I pass someone. I figure, if you have the time to look back, you're not pushing hard enough. So I swam like she was on my heels for the final leg. I swam until there was no more water left to swim in. I got up and ran, hearing Elaine cheer for me as I ran to the timing mat, and still feeling pretty great.

Much better experience this year. Not that much thrilled with my time, but hey, it was such a blast. And now I know I need to work on my swimming a little bit more. Guess I can't just swing by with a swim workout every 2-3 weeks! A great event. Happy I did it.

Back to the Pool!

Today was my first day back in the pool for approximately two months. Some of you know, but probably most of you don’t know that I’ve been having some rotator cuff issues that have been keeping me from my regular chlorination routine. What did I do? Not sure, but I think it happened some time around the Boston Marathon that I was in the front seat of my car and went to reach into the back seat to lift up a gym bag to get something out of it. Said gym bag was much too heavy for me to try and lift given the position of my arm, so I ended up injuring myself.

This has happened to me before and my old coach, Brett Petersen, had given me some exercises to strengthen my rotator cuff. Well, I haven’t done those exercises in just about a year, but after this little incident, I had to break out the stretchy bands. I tried swimming a couple of times since then, but just lifting my arm out of the water proved to be painful. It was a tolerable pain, but this is the beginning of the season, so I decided to “rest” the arm a bit. Each swim morning, I’d wake up at the alarm, set for 4:11am, sit up in bed and try to move my arm in swim stroke fashion. If I felt any pain at all, I turned the alarm off and went back to bed. Finally last week, the pain seemed to be non-existent. Unfortunately, I had to be at a client that day, which wouldn’t give me enough time to swim in the morning, so I promised myself I’d get back to the pool this week.

I forced myself to get to bed at 9:30pm last night. But, just as the little kid who’s not tired when you try to make them sleep, I tossed, turned, got up to check and make sure I had a cap and goggles for this morning, had to go to the bathroom, went downstairs to make sure I could find my YMCA membership card, while I was down there I went to check email, crawled back in bed, went back downstairs to get a drink of water, and finally, I think it was after 11:00pm when I was finally able to fall asleep. I was up several times during the night because of the storm. I love to sleep with the windows open and listen to the rain.

It’s no surprise that when the alarm blared at 4:11am this morning, I was in a deep sleep. I slammed my hand on the snooze button and cursed myself for not going to bed earlier. I rolled over and went back to sleep. BEEP BEEP BEEP! Nine minutes went by in the wink of an eye, and I slammed my hand back on the snooze button. Why is getting up so hard? Come on, just one more alarm, I thought. This time, I rolled, tossed, looked at the clock a couple of times, all before the next 9 minutes elapsed. And now I could hear the dog walking around downstairs, just waiting for someone to come down and let him out. Yep, it was now time to get up.

Once I’m up and about, I’m fine. It’s just those first few minutes of being woken by the rude interruption of the obnoxious alarm that are difficult for me. I had already packed everything in my bag the night before, so it didn’t take me but 10 minutes to be ready to go. I flew down the stairs and shooed the dog out the door. He doesn’t move quite as quickly as he used to. I quickly scanned my email – why I feel the need to do this before I leave the house in the morning, I don’t know, but it has become quite the habit. Sort of like brushing your teeth, can’t leave the house without doing it. The dog was waiting for me when I went to the back door and I left the house a little early.

Early is good when it comes to my Masters team. You must be in the pool right on time if you swim in my lane. If you’re even just a couple minutes late, they will whip right through the warm up and you just need to jump in wherever they are – they don’t wait for the late comers. This is the only lane of this team that operates this way. Swimmers in other lanes kind of stroll in at their leisure and are welcomed with open arms. But if you show up late to Lane 4, you should expect to be taunted when you arrive.

I walked in with Elaine and, as has become the norm in the past year, we are among the first swimmers in the pool. My coach, Vlatko, has a surprised look on his face and welcomed me back. I was both excited and nervous to be back in the pool. I jumped in behind Elaine for the warm up and Greg joined us after just the first 50 yards. The water was a little cool, but I’d say the temperature was near perfect for our workout. My stroke felt good and strong and I was feeling no pain in my rotator cuff.

The pool began to fill as the other Masters swimmers arrived. We needed to move Shawn over to our lane and now we were ready to go. The set of 12 x 75 IM order seemed like it took FOREVER, but I was a bit happy to be swimming IM because it’s less repetitive, therefore putting less strain on my arm. I managed to get through that with ease and I began to wonder how fast I would’ve been able to swim those had I not been out of the pool for so long.

It was the next set, all free, that I started to feel a twinge in my arm. Nothing serious, but just enough to let me know that I have not fully recovered. I backed down on the pace. We were near the end of the workout now, so I knew I’d be able to finish. Even after we’d completed the workout Vlatko had listed for us, we had to do another 50 yards. See, I can’t end the work out on a “50.” In other words, if the total workout reads 3350 yards, I need to do 3400 yards. Vlatko KNOWS this, but said I haven’t been there in so long, he didn’t think it would matter. It did. Our whole lane did an extra 50 yards just to round it out. Why do coaches have you end on a 50? That’s crazy, I tell you!

Workout is done and I feel pretty good. I’ve missed the team!! It was a great workout and I’m happy to finally be back in the pool. I figure it’s going to take me several weeks to build back up to the place I was before my arm started to hurt. The key is to not overdo it and re-injure myself before I even get recovered. Easier said than done.

Swim Analysis

About two weeks ago, I had a swim analysis done by Brett Petersen of Petersen Performance Lab. www.petersenperformancelab.net. I've been swimming for quite a number of years, but I've never seen myself on video and I've never had any type of analysis done.

I was filmed both under water, where I swam directly toward the camera and above water, while he walked alongside the pool as I swam. All in all, the taping part couldn't have been more than 2 minutes. I didn't know what to expect as I anxiously awaited the DVD to come back to me.

As soon as I picked up the DVD and came home, I popped it into the computer. This software automatically downloaded and on my screen there is a large window where the video can be played. To the right of that, there is a comment section. Below those two windows are smaller still frame shots of various points in time during my stroke where Brett felt it was important to point out some key element. Included on the still frames are yellow markings to indicate what to look at in each particular view. If you double click on the still frame, it will pop into the large window on the left and the corresponding comments to that particular position during your stroke show up.

You can view the video all at once or in small sections. There is a drop down menu to select which video you want to see (above surface, below, first swim, second swim, etc.). Now some of the things that were pointed out are not news to me. However, by looking closely at some of the elements of my stroke, I see things that I do in the water that I never realized. You can think you're doing something perfectly correct, that is until you see it on camera!

Since I've reviewed the DVD, I've been focusing on correcting some of the flaws in my stroke. The unfortunate part of working so intensely on technique is that you cannot maintain your speed. I find myself trying to think of about 5-6 different things all at once that I'm trying to imrpove. Next thing you know, I'm being lapped by the other people in my lane!

But this is just the first session of a two-part clinic. The idea is to be taped, review the analysis and work on making improvements, and then I will be taped again in a few weeks. At that time, I will be taped again and then the two videos will be compared to see if I've been able to make any improvements.

I've realized how difficult it is to try to change something that you do on autopilot. You must concentrate on the improvements on every length until it then becomes habit. But when you've done something the same way for so long that you don't even think about it anymore, well, it's easy to be distracted (remember those hairballs I talked about during my 100x100x100 swim??). And then to keep those new and improved skills in tact while you pick up speed and/or try to sprint is even more of a challenge.

So I'm working very hard at trying to improve my stroke and I've even asked my lane mates to point out when they see I'm making some of my habitual mistakes (and they're MORE than happy to help me out with that!). The next taping is at the end of February and it will be interesting to see how much of an improvement, if any I can make. Even more interesting will be to see if I can drop my normal interval times.

Swimming workouts

Just a week from tomorrow, I will be trying to complete 100x100x100. In "normal people terms", this means 100 times 100 yards every 100 seconds (1:40). A few years ago, when I first got started in masters swimming, I did this workout with a few of my former masters swim teammates. These people are no longer on my team, yet I continue to do this workout every year. The first time I did this, I was so nervous about how my body was going to respond to swimming 10,000 without a break. And 100 yards every 100 seconds isn't exactly an "easy" pace for me.

The thing about this workout is that it sounds so crazy. It will take over 3 hours to get this done. And why do we do it? Because we can, I guess. I mean, what better way to spend the day after Thanksgiving? I could go shopping...or I could go swim over 5 miles.

I do actually have a strategy when I do this. The first 60-70 100s need to be easy. Just smooth, steady pace. If you're feeling good arounfd 70-75 and want to try and kick up your pace a bit, go ahead. It's something like when you're running a marathon. The first 20 miles are just a warm-up to what they call the "real" race, the last 6.2 miles.

Every year, I do the first 5-10 and wonder why the heck I'm doing it. I try to find someone just a little quicker than me and draft off them for as long as I can. Hey, it's not cheating! Then when I get to about 30-35 it feels like I'm in a groove. You don't really have enough time to have full conversations in between these 100s. It's more like half-sentences or just a couple words before the buzzer goes off and you're off to complete another 4 lengths of the pool. Sometimes, if your lane mate tells you something funny just as the buzzer goes off, you push off the wall and get a mouth full of water as you're laughing and end up choking for the first 25 yards.

At 50, we take a bathroom break, try to get in a little nutrition and psych ourselves up to get back in that pool and finish up the last half of this obnoxious workout. Long before this point, our fingers became pruny, but we don't have time to think about this. If the break in the middle ends up being too long, your muscles start to tighten up, so the break ends up being maybe 10 minutes or less.

I always think I'll be able to kick it up a little at 70-75, but then I second guess myself and wonder just how many more 100s I can do on the interval. As we continue to pound out the yardage, people tend to get a little silly as we realize we're on the brink of finishing THE longest workout we'll do all year in the pool. As we finish up the last 100, there are lots of smiles and everyone feels a strong sense of accomplishment. There are high 5s across all lanes and we share our thoughts of the confidence each of us lacked at some point during the workout. Many people will quickly shower, get dressed and head out to lunch to share stories from the day.

And now we get one full year to recover until we get to do this fabulous workout again!