The 9 Steps I Took to a Faster IM Swim
In the weeks after Ironman Texas 2014, I set out to improve my swimming. Why? Two reasons. First, if I’m going to spend 3-5 hours per week in the pool training for an Ironman, why not put those valuable hours to their most effective use? I am an adult-onset swimmer who learned stroke technique in the late 1990s via Total Immersion. I became a pretty good swimmer for a triathlete (usually top 10-20%), but wanted to make sure I was getting the best ROI from my pool time. In my six IM builds to date, I pretty much just followed the workouts with the single goal of building enough endurance to cover 2.4 miles. I had never focused on speed or – more importantly – increasing speed during training so that I could cover those 2.4 miles faster than before. EN had taught me so much about finding bike and run thresholds, building up those numbers through targeted work, then lumping volume on top of that new speed. Why not try a similar approach with my swim?
Second, I hate the washing machine. I’ve been in it several times. Not my cup of tea. And in my way of thinking, going from a 1:05 to a 1:00 swim in an IM actually translates to 10 minutes of savings, because less energy is wasted in the water battling people, wetsuit removal is quicker because you have strippers to choose from and not fight for, the trek to and from the T1 tent is quicker, time in the tent is faster because it’s mostly empty and volunteers are available to help, the bike mount line doesn’t resemble a rugby scrum, and fewer watts are wasted early on the bike doing a lot of passing. My “proof”? I’ve done IMFL 2x. When I went 1:07, the swim, T1 and the first 40 of the bike were full-contact, crowded chaos. When I went 1:02, it was peaceful bliss. Seriously, night-and-day difference. Of course, if WTC continues its trend and phases out mass starts altogether, then much of this second rationale falls apart.
This venture was not coach-approved, I’m not a swimmer and I’m certainly not a swim coach. This was just a fun experiment in self-coaching. That said, I’m selfishly hoping that someone far brighter than me reads this and can spot some ways to improve what I did and help me go faster in the future on less work. Of course, if someone takes away something positive from this that helps them in the first leg, that’s even better.
Step 1: Research
My first step was to peruse some of the material on triathlon swimming. This included Sheila Taormina’s book Swim Speed Secrets, Coach R’s swim e-book and his video critiques of other swimmers, Paul Newsome’s free stuff online at Swim Smooth, Gerry Rodriguez (Tower 26)’s video presentation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fi...2C8EAC3FE4), Joe Filliol’s Top 20 Rules for Faster Triathlon Swimming (http://joelfilliol.blogspot.ca/2012...s.html?m=1) and a visit with my brother-in-law (college swim coach and former Olympian/WR holder in the mile). Lots of common themes running through this material, some of which kinda surprised me.
Step 2: Gauging my Technique and Body Position
Video is the truth-maker for me. Simply no better way to gauge what you’re really doing underwater than with video. I’m surprised more folks don’t post swim videos in the forums and ask for feedback. A water-proof case on an iPhone and you’re good to go. I spotted a few things last summer on video and tried to address them. Coach P also spotted a few things on video at the January Volume Camp, which was very helpful too (I listened to him because he was right, not because of his swim time in Kona last fall 
). Surprisingly, my in-law said he typically only focuses on a handful of technique/positional items, and I was only “really awful” at two of them:
1. High elbows, straight wrist. Most of the resources I reviewed had some focus on this, especially Toarmina. According to her, although body position is important, 80% of getting faster in the water is developing a strong, high-elbow catch and pull at the proper stroke rate. Catching water with the hand and forearm without breaking the wrist and then pulling horizontally (never vertically) engages the big chest and lat muscles, not the weaker shoulders and biceps. I already had a decent high-elbow catch and pull, but doing the simple cord exercises she describes in her book and on YouTube, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr570KZvyBQ) made this relatively easy to work on and develop.
2. Steady head position. Fortunately, my head position is pretty good, and I breathe pretty well by rotating on the axis, always trying to get only one eye out of the water. But this is a huge issue for many triathletes. Using a snorkel really helps with this, but I hate swimming with the snorkel (water in my nose, even with a plug). Instead, I did a lot of 7, 5 and 3 breathing during my warm-ups, especially on Monday (see below). That just means that I breathe every 7 strokes to warm up, with focus on keeping a steady head, body rotating around it, during those 7 non-breathing strokes. When 7 strokes create an oxygen issue, move to 5, then to 3. BTW, when doing main sets and racing, I follow the Gary Hall Sr. rule of breathing as much as possible, which for me means every other stroke on the L (usually) or R (sometimes). I no longer use bi-lateral breathing for any main set or race.
3. Toes. My toe position is also pretty good, so I really didn’t have to address this. But if you are swimming with foot brakes like many inflexible tri-geeks, you’re giving away a ton of time.
4. Core. Apparently mine was terrible. My in-law had told me this many times before, but it still made no sense – what does core have to do with swimming? He explained: your arms are just oars moving your body through the water. In boat terms, applying equal force, the rigid fiberglass kayak will move much faster through the water than the under-inflated fabric kayak. In animal terms, you can move through the water like a semi-rigid dolphin or a soft, meandering eel. To emphasize the point, I swam 50yds with a buoy and ankle band without engaging my stomach muscles – as usual. I could definitely feel the legs flapping behind like a flag in the wind. He said, now swim 50 but pretend you’re trying to hold a quarter in the crack of your Speedo. Wow. Instantly noticed the difference. So, I started using an ankle band, a buoy and a pretend quarter during warm-up, again usually on Monday. Taormina, Newsome and Rodriguez also consider this a key element to speed.
5. Over-gliding. I had a big dead spot in my stroke where no propulsion was occurring, which caused me to slow, then start again, with each stroke cycle. Inefficient and choppy. And slow. I was swimming about 48 strokes per minute. Simple solution: increase stroke rate. Toarmina, Newsome, Filliol and Rodriguez all strongly emphasize getting the right stroke rate, which for most of us, means faster than what we’re currently doing.
Step 3: Increase my Stroke Rate
I used Swim Smooth’s Ramp Test to try and identify a better stroke rate for me (http://www.swimsmooth.com/ramptest.html). Yes, I had to spend another $20 or $30 on a wetronome, but it’s been invaluable to me. The test is easy, and it really just involves swimming 50s at several different paces (you set the wetronome to 60 strokes per minute, for example, and it’ll beep once every second, and you just stroke every beep). After several such ad hoc tests, I learned that 62spm was far better (and faster) than 48 or 49. Wow, I really had been over-gliding. But I still wasn’t cranking the arms at the 85-100spm many pros do. Maybe next year.
Step 4: Determine Threshold Pace
I used both Coach R’s T-pace test (1,000 straight) and Swim Smooth’s Critical Swim Speed test (400, followed by 200 http://www.swimsmooth.com/training.html). Got the same result last summer – 1:33/100yds. I treated this number like the inverse of my FTP on the bike: the lower I can get this number, the faster I will swim. If I could get that bloated 1:33 down to a leaner 1:28 or even lower, that could theoretically translate to 5 minutes in an IM swim.
Step 5: Swim better through fall ‘14
Throughout last summer and fall, I just focused on form (mostly catch and pull), learning to swim with a higher stroke rate (it’s not an overnight change), swimming near TP and – most importantly – making sure I was consistently getting to the pool 2-3 times per week. By December, I had lowered my TP to 1:27, most of which I attribute to over-glide elimination. I was feeling pretty good about my swim and even started to get some “fast swim!” comments on Strava.
Step 6: Create an IM Plan
Finally, the details for the last three months leading to Ironman New Zealand. We agreed on doing a form day, a threshold day and an endurance day. Nothing really new or different there. Yes, body position is still important, but at some point I had to accept the vehicle that I would be driving on race day and do everything I could to make that particular vehicle faster, regardless of its dents and engine problems. I re-tested my TP a few times along the way, but I also chose to simply increase the TP every two weeks by a tiny amount and just see if I could keep up. Here’s how I broke things down:
Day 1 (Monday for me): Form day. Swim Smooth has a drill day, but I went with the advice to skip most drills because my body position was pretty good. I did, however, do quite a bit of fist drills, 7/5/3 breathing and band/buoy/quarter work during warm-up, then a bunch of shorter, repeatable intervals with rest periods that always allowed me to maintain good form. Lots of Coach R workouts meet the criteria for this day, so I did a lot of those. But I sometimes defaulted to simple main sets of: 10x200 + 20x100 or 30x100 or 20x200. These were mostly done at or very near TP, but the workout was all about form. I focused on 2-3 things at a time grouped by body proximity, such that I might do a set of intervals thinking only about the following grouped items: 1) steady head, one eye out of the water, exhale w/o holding breath, 2) fingers (not thumb) entering at 10 and 2, reach/rotate, high elbow catch, 3) pull straight back, through hip, narrow/relaxed recovery, 4) small 2-beat kick, knees straight, toes straight.
Day 2 (sometimes Tuesday, usually Wednesday): Threshold. This was the money day, with lots of work right below threshold, just like the 2x20’s we do on the bike. I chose the Red Mist swim, a Swim Smooth workout, as my weapon of choice because several pro triathletes swear by it, it’s measurable and it’s repeatable. http://www.feelforthewater.com/2012...t-set.html It’s just 4x400@TP+6 seconds, 3x400@TP+5, 2x400@TP+4 and 1x400@TP+3. This was close to being too complex for me, but the wetronome (an absolute must for this WKO) made it relatively simple. With my starting 1:27 TP, I simply set the wetronome to beep every 23.25 seconds (1:27 + 6 seconds = 1:33 divided by the 4 wall touches per 100 in my 25yrd pool = 23.25), and then tried to touch the wall at every beep. After a few lengths, you just fall into the proper pace or within a fraction or two of a second, and you only have to be in the ballpark. When I moved to the 3x400 portion, I just reduced the beep time by ¼ second to 23, to 22.75 for the 2x400s and to 22.5 for the 1x400. One beep’s worth of rest between each one, although I frequently took 2 beeps early on when I was focusing on not puking. It’s not difficult in the early 400s, but make no mistake about it: a 4k main set near TP is serious work. The first week, I couldn’t even come close to holding pace the last couple of 400s. But I got it done the second week. Kinda. I rewarded my accomplishment by increasing the pace the following week and every two weeks thereafter by 1 second/100. It took less than 5 minutes to plan it all out on my iPhone calendar, such that Wednesday in Weeks 3 and 4 included an entry that read: “Red Mist, start at 23.” The Week 5 and 6 entries: “Red Mist, 22.75.” I really never noticed the increase in pace, because it’s really just a ¼ second drop per wall touch every two weeks. I looked forward to this WKO because of the challenge and sense of accomplishment. A few months later, I was starting at 21.5 seconds. https://www.strava.com/activities/253692736/laps. Although the difference between my first start time of 23.25 and last start time of 21.5 doesn’t look like much, that’s 7 seconds per 100 faster. In my mind, that translated to 7 seconds x 42 (the # of 100s in an IM) = 294 seconds or 5 minutes. Bingo.
Day 3: Endurance. Another low-thinking day, usually on Friday. I typically defaulted to Coach R’s endurance WKO or just went with 400s or 500s for the main set (i.e., 4x500, building to 8x500 as I got closer to race day). I used a wetronome early in my build during these sets to drill my 62spm rhythm into muscle memory. By the end of my build, I pretty much knew what mid-60s spm felt like.
Step 7: Volume
I didn’t need to do research on this one because literally every good swim coach will advise that you gotta swim a lot to get faster, with frequency and consistency being keys. In Week 13 of 20 of my build, I attended Coach P’s killer JVC in Clermont. Those additional swim WKOs gave me 20k yards for the week. I don’t think I had ever crossed 13k in a week before that. So, after some rest in Week 14, I added a 4th weekly swim beginning in Week 15, which was usually just an easier pull set (i.e., 3 or 4x500 pull + WU and CD). I believe RnP have now added a 4th swim in the latter weeks of all of the EN IM plans. Because I knew IMNZ would be wetsuit legal, I did most of these 4th swim WKOs with my Lava Pants or in my wetsuit (in place of the buoy, not in addition to) to practice swimming with buoyant, non-kicking legs. I added a 5th swim during Week 18, again clocking around 20k yards for the week, just to top off the tanks. During my run that weekend, I swear I smelled chlorine in my sweat.
Step 8: Lab Testing
The big question remaining in my mind was, would any of this make a difference over 4,200 yards? I knew my times for my 100s & 200s on Monday and 500s on Friday were faster and I was now receiving the occasional “holy crap!” on Strava. I figured my new pace could theoretically take me right under an hour without a wetsuit, maybe :55 or :56 with a wetsuit. Which seemed ludicrous to me after going 1:03 in a wetsuit at IMTX just last spring. But the Race Rehearsal proved that it was indeed doable. At least in a pool. 55:13. https://www.strava.com/activities/254468311
Step 9: Field Testing
IMNZ would be the real-world test, though, the only one that really matters. And just as the race rehearsal suggested, I came out of the water leading a group of three at :55:50, with no one behind us for quite a ways (I watched the video coverage of the swim finish after the race when jet lag kept me awake). That was good enough for 6 in my AG and 61 OA. In the end, I was pleased to see that a few relatively easy tweaks to my mechanics, a few modifications to my build-phase plan, and the addition of six easy swims to bring late-game weekly volume to 15-20k paid real dividends. And, yes, the swim, T1 and the early miles of the bike were quiet and enjoyable (video showed that things got crowded at the swim finish around 1:02 and stayed that way for a long time). Now I just need to figure out how to close the 11-minute gap between me and the first pro out of the water. Oh, and add 40 points to my FTP.
Comments
Hey Mike,
EXCELLENT POST, one of the best we've seen in a long time! This is definitely going up in the wiki and I'd like to hook up a podcast with you soon. A few notes, in no particular order:
Getting faster, swimming faster, etc: I'm experiencing this big time, in real time, as today was maybe my 10th or 12th swim since IMWI'11. I'm starting from a big fat ZERO with my swimming fitness. Things I've noticed:
- As you mentioned, stroke rate for non-swimmers is usually much, much to slow. I noticing this a lot as a stand at the end of the pool picking a lane to jump in and make civilian circle-swim vs taking sides
. A metronome could be a good tool to give you a cue to stroke faster.
- But the ability to sustain this higher stroke rate, and pull harder, and go faster, is a fitness/strength issue. Quite simply, if you want to swim fast, you gotta swim fast, and for many sets it's exactly like training with power: find a distance, pace, and rest interval that allows you to swim very fast (relatively) for many, many repeats. This might only be 25's, or 50's, or 100's. Whatever. This is exactly like choosing to do intervals on the bike as 8 x 4' @300w vs 2 x 16' @ 275w. The critical difference, however, is that until you develop better swim fitness, those longer swim intervals (ie, choosing to do 400s vs 100s or 200s) will probably be accompanied by not-so-good technique. So it's much, much better to rack up 1500yd, as 15 x 100 of hard, fast swimming with excellent technique, at a pace much faster, and with better technique, than you'd otherwise do by slogging away at 400s
- ^This^ brings me to that "Red Mist" set that I've seen other ENers on Strava doing. A requirement for stuff like this is "more gears." That is, when your swim sucks, as a function of form and/or technique, you really only have one gear, or speed, so pace changes aren't that realistic. But as you get faster and work on swimming as a fitness/strength/power activity you'll develop more gears and be able to mix up paces for longer and longer distances. Today I did 5 x (3 x 100m Descending). If I had done that set two weeks ago, or as recently as early last week, there woulda not been so much descending at all. I would have been stuck at about 1:34s, with my arms going to failure in about the last 15m of each 100. But today for each set of 3 I was able to do 1:31, 1:29, 1:26. But if the set has been 200s vs 100s, my form and fitness would have started to fall apart in the last 50. And so 100's and 50's are my go-to's right now, I'm not yet ready for longer stuff as I know it would just be a slog.
- So the net is that good swimmers probably have a 5spd transmission that they build through hard work in the pool, as you did. Most IM swimmers, however, develop 2, maybe 3 gears.
Again, great stuff and thanks for sharing!I have been following my own "Get Faster" for swimming since the start of my season in May 2014.
In a similar manner to Mike, it is based on the EN flavour towards getting faster at the bike and run — in other words, swim hard and swim often.
I wont be hijacking Mike's thread, but just wanted to point out my own experiences have been similar to Mike.
First, stroke correction is important and I worked one on one with a well credentialed coach.
Second, I have swam all year round.
Third, I am always working on swimming with good form.
Lastly, almost all swimming is around my T pace or better.
I am 6 weeks out from my A race and expect a pretty big swim PB at IM Australia — 4 weeks ago in a HIM (well, the swim was 2 km) I swam 34 mins and change, whereas in the previous 6 races there I was always swam in the 41 to 43 mins range.
I will write a more detailed post after IM Australia.
BTW, year to date, I have swam over 200 kms, whereas in previous years I used to start swimming after the OS was over.
Question: At what point of swim to do you video? I'm betting my form is a bit better on first few 100s then it is on the last few...
Thanks again.
Mike, great post and I think something many of us can relate to. We spend so many hours in the pool, however , and myself included, interval times do not seem to change much and defenitely not seeing the progression as I do with biking and running.
So I went swimming this morning, did everything I could to 'not lose the quarter' and focused on the horizontal pulling. Result was that I swam my 500's and 300's faster than I have before ( 10-15 sec faster) however after doing 2 sets of each I was exhausted. Clearly I do not have to muscular endurance to swim that way and need to work on that from now on in every swim session.
Mike, awesome post. The proof is in the pudding with your great swim at IMNZ. Your post and Rich's followup provides us all with nuts and bolts info to achieve solid improvement like you did. Now it just takes personal motivation and diligence. Thanks.
It is now printed sitting on my desk...........
Great post. Thank you,
SS
Wow. Wasn't really expecting any response, then woke up to a full inbox. Thanks for all the kind words. Very glad that it at least sparked a conversation, perhaps even encouraged some to actively search for some more speed in the water.
Coach R's response puts a lot of what I said in great perspective, which is awesome. A couple of points of clarification/explanation:
1) I should have mentioned that, going into this, any changes to my WKO regime had to be easy (I have enough complexity in my life) and could not come at the expense of even a single bike or run WKO. On the contrary, I found I actually spent less time in the pool because I was warming up, then getting after it, then cooling down. Got to where 4k took no more than 65-70 minutes, door-to-door.
2) The reason I was able to pull off 70-minute 4k swims and easily add the 4th (and a two 5th) swims is because I walk to a lap pool that is open year-round and rarely used (i.e., I have never once shared a lane and have forgotten how to circle swim). For many, swimming involves a 5am alarm and a drive, such that 4-5x per week is logistically impossible or would come at the expense of more important WKOs (not to mention family and work).
3) Coach is so right about 15x100 often being better than 3x500, and I have always followed the advice that form always trumps an interval. Which means, if the schedule calls for 5x500, but my conditioning has me swinging meat hooks before I can complete 500, then I stop. And rest. Then go again. The net result may look like: 450, 400, 350, 375, 300, and 225 (although I should have known what my conditioning was before and do 25x100 instead). Either way, I wasn't reinforcing bad form. By the time I started the Red Mist 10x400s and those Friday 500s, I had built a very considerable base over several months and had more than a few gears at my disposal. Jumping right into those WKOs out of a non-swimming OS would be a mistake.
I am a MOP swimmer (36' HIM, 117' IM) and lots of room for improvement. I'll be the first to admit that my focus has been aimed more at my bike and run and what you mentioned regarding just focusing on having the swim fitness to get through the 2.4 miles hits home for me...that's me all the way! That being said, I'm in awe at the pool when these men and women zoom past me in the next lane when I'm swimming as hard as I can. Most of my problem is definitely in my form!
A couple of questions about your post:
1 - You mention arm turnover as a major factor. By swimming next to those fast people at my pool, it is easy to see that my arms are not turning over at any speed compared to what I see in the next lane. But in trying to increase turnover AND get a strong pull, I'm cooked by the end of 50-100 meters. Would you apply the same principle of doing very short intervals to build this up?
2 - You also mentioned that kicking was another key factor, but towards the end of your build wearing Lava pants or wetsuit to work on not kicking. I am a horrible kicker, so I've mostly worked on keeping my feet "stable" rather than have a sloppy kick. If your intention during a wetsuit legal race is to NOT kick (I've assumed it is from your post), then why put so much work into kicking in wkos?
Thanks again for the post - I learned a TON from what your and Coach R put up there!!!
Turnover -- generally two things happen/can happen/turnover is achieved by doing one of two things:
#1 is what you want. #2 is what most people do.
When you do #1 correctly, what you experience...in my experience...is what can be described as muscle vs aerobic failure: that feeling of your arms and upper body being much more at the limit / at a point of failure (think the last few reps of a lifting set) vs your aerobic system being taxed at the same amount. However, this assumes that you're not also kicking like crazy (burns lots of O2 without a commensurate payback in speed), your breathing is relaxed and efficient, etc. Pull sets are great at this because they (1) take your legs out of the equation = (2) frees up O2 to be used by the arms = you can pull harder = you'll experience this muscle failure jazz above.
So rather than thinking just "turnover", I recommend you pick an interval distance and recovery interval that puts you right at this muscle failure point. Then just swim repeats at _this_ distance, pace, and rest, considering this to be a very sport-specific strength session. If you want you can get in additional volume around this flavor of swimming via your warmup, cool down, active recovery between swims, etc. In other words, there's plenty of volume to be had if you limit yourself to a max of 10-15" on the wall, ever. Just keep swimming and the volume will come.
Kicking:
First, triathlon swimming is fundamentally different from pool/competitive swimming because (1) the distances are much longer and (2) we have to bike and run after we swim. So the kick in triathlon swimming should (1) simply be and aid in achieving/maintaining body position and balance and (2) is NOT a means of propulsion.
Then on race day you toss on a wetsuit, which lifts up your legs, aiding body position, and, at least to me, it feels very awkward to kick aggressively with a wetsuit on. It just feels funky.
Therefore the desired endstate on race day is:
The problem, however, is that for most people the kick is very much tied to the movement of your arms and it's very difficult to change your kicking rate. It's like asking people to pat their head and rub their stomach at the same time
. So it's better to think of this as controlling how much power you apply to a fixed kicking rate, rather than to trying to kick less, if that makes sense. So if you're one of these people who has a hard time turning their kick off/down when you swim, then you probably should do some kicking sets so you've got the fitness to sustain it on race day.
That said, just understand that kicking as a means of propulsion, when swimming, burns up a ton of O2 with much less return than that same amount of O2 used by your arms. The money is in the stroke, not the kick.
thanks for the thoughts Mike.
I have been a semi fish since childhood. I can do a 62-65 minute wetsuit Ironman without huge swim mileage. my best wetsuit swim, pre EN, was 59 minutes, when I spent more time swimming. now hopefully I more than make up for that in the bike and run. though just a couple minutes does keep one ahead of the mess, like you mention.
I have now been using a Vasa Ergometer for the days that I can't get to the pool. will see how that works for the next race. I do notice less upper body fatigue converting to the pool.
for New Zealand, do you think you had downstream problems in the bike or run that may be partially related to higher energy output in the swim?
MR....thank you for taking the time to document your plan in detail and share this. Very helpful. JL
You did something that so many of us strive for. You made no excuses. You worked smart and hard. And, there are results to prove that.
I enjoyed the read. Very motivated. Unfortunately, the details of this journey are way above my pay grade. I'm at a grass roots level. Working with a reputable local coach and sticking to her feedback.
I've been over self teaching myself bad habits for years. I was shocked at what she told me. I thought SHE was wrong! But, I've been doing what she says and I'm seeing improvements. Now, my swim fitness/endurance has gone to the crapper but I'm giving her 2 years before I even think about questioning anything.
Maybe 2 years from now I'll get to follow your bubbles. I'll be a couple of lanes to the left, though.
Thanks, again!
@Mark, I take away the most from video after the warm-up, during the main set, when I dont know I'm being recorded. If someone will commit to 15 minutes and takes 10 separate 30-second clips, from the side and maybe 15 degrees off of straight on, youll have plenty of data.
@Brad, although I mentioned 2-beat kick as something I think of when focusing on form, kicking is not a focus. I don't use my kick as a source of propulsion. Instead, it's a light flick of the feet that keeps them up and in sync with my rotating hips (R foot flicks down as my L hip rotates down and L hand reaches forward). If you do a hard 6-beat kick, the oxygen sap is pretty huge, and the propulsion benefit is minimal. So, for me, kicking in a tri is about flotation (in a non-wetsuit swim) and being a small part of a rhythmic, rotating stroke.
@Robin, great question. I was more worried about the race-day effects of extra pool training time, but I wasn't tired going into the race, so don't think it was an issue. As for the race, may sound silly, but I didn't push the pace at all during the swim. It was a smooth, easy swim. The first 75-80% I just followed bubbles. The bubbles up front are straight and non-stop. No wandering, no breast stroke breaks. I had to take the lead the last several hundred meters when the bubbles in front started to waver, but I never went anaerobic. Felt fine in T1 and no troubles early on the bike. I'd like to think that I simply went the same 85% of a higher threshold level than before. But if the coaches devise a swim-light plan where semi-fishes can go 1:07 on the swim and spend the leftover time chopping 20 minutes off the bike, I'd jump on board. But I suspect that plan doesn't exist.
Thanks for the terrific breakdown. Your post offers hope to the many swim MOP/BOPers looking for tangible case based success stories. Your strategy, committment, and disciple to execute is impressive and noteworthy. It was fun to follow your Red Mist beat downs!
Congrats on your success and thank you for sharing. I second Tim's suggestion and highly recommend a WSM crown.
Ian
" ... pretend you’re trying to hold a quarter in the crack of your Speedo."
I don't understand this - what is the crack of my speedo? aka butt crack?
@Dave, bingo. Here's the actual drill that Swim Smooth suggests to develop this:
"Our second exercise is another visualisation. This time we're focused on the lower-rear core muscles, the glutes (your bum/butt). As you swim, imagine you have a large coin between your butt cheeks and you've got to keep it there! To do that you've got to lightly squeeze your butt cheeks together - a crude thought but very effective none the less! Don't over do it, a very light clench is enough to engage your glutes, straighten your lower body and connect your legs better to your torso. This exercise also helps you develop better kicking technique. Think about this regularly when you swim and you will gradually develop neural pathways to your glute muscles, recruiting them for permanent use."
Good to know!
SNAP!