Noa writes amazing swim workouts and I got a couple of strong lessons from them. One is the ability to do constant variation in speed. She has a lot of main sets that will throw in some "fast" work in the middle of long tempo or steady sets. I figured out the point of that during my swim in the Leadman 125... whenever I was falling off the feet I was drafting off, it wasn't a big deal to sprint back up to catch them again.
The other lesson was if you swim hard in training, it's not that hard to race. I know, you're thinking: "DUH!" But... with every tri I did this year, I'd finish the swim and my heart rate would recover almost immediately, allowing me to push the pace early on during the bike. It used to take me awhile to settle into riding; I'd totally be red-lining starting the bike, gasping for breath with my heart rate sky rocketing. This year with the increased swim volume and (probably more importantly) the increased intensity, when I exited T1 I was ready to push the pedals without needing to recover from the swim.
I am hungry to improve in 2014, so look for me at the pool even more and working even harder!
Outdoor pool pics....ahhh I remember those days. I am only just realizing the value of changing up the pace in the pool. It's funny I do it with bike and run workouts all the time so doing it in the pool makes sense. Hope you have a great Christmas. Look forward to reading about all your athletic exploits in 2014
ReplyDeleteHow do you track your training times? Excel?
ReplyDeleteI use an online program called Training Peaks - they have both a free and paid version. If all you're doing is logging workouts and want some basic analysis, the free version is all you need. I'll be upgrading to the paid version to try it out soon. TP also has a mobile app, so I can log my workouts on my phone, which is great when traveling.
DeleteI used to use Excel. Training Peaks is FAR superior... and I do love creating spreadsheets, so I wouldn't recommend it unless I meant it! :)