Wednesday : A Good Training Day

Wednesday was a good day for training, 2 hrs of quality training in the bank. And even a little extra sleep in the am. Felt pretty wrecked when the alarm went off, so I skipped the morning Master's swim at LAC. Ended up sleeping in till 7, 2 extra hrs of sleep. Made it to the gym for the lunch swim though. About 15 swimmers. 2450 meters total for the hour. The main set was 4 times through 200m then 4x25 m. Hit 3:10 - 3:15 for the 200s. I am really happy with this pace. I managed to keep my stroke count down in 17/18 range. On the 25s in between, I was hitting relaxed 22s. the focus was to "pop" the catch early and to accelerate the over taking hand. While I really like "setting" the catch and "catch-up" timing, the danger is that my stroke rate slows. In the vid I posted yesterday, of Terry Laughlin swimming, you can see the catch and front quad/catch up timing, but you can also see the slow stroke rate. Its a trade off for sure, as I increase my stroke rate, I start slipping my hand through the water rather than keeping traction with a solid catch. That's what keeping my eye on the stroke is for. There's a point, around 19/20 strokes per length right now, where I moving my arms faster, pulling harder doesn't result in more speed.

After work I got myself on the bike for an hour. Could definitely feel the work I've done this week. 30 min ez, 5x30sec on/30sec off. 5 ez. Then 3 times 4:30 in bottom z3 w/ 30sec rest. So nothing really hard, just focused on turning smooth circles, pedaling from the hips and glutes and keeping the ankles 'light'.

Been fighting the feeling of 'not getting enough training in' this week. It's just nerves and perception. The totals for Mon, Tues, and Wed:
Swim 1.5 hrs; Bike 2.5 hrs; and 45 min of running. That's 4:45 for three days. It's really not that bad. Reading all of these other blogs though has me feeling like I'm not doing enough. There are so many talented (and obsessed :) ) people out there that it can be hard to maintain a healthy perception.

To help calm myself down, I went back and read an article that talked about Jack Daniel's VDOT training ideas. The short version is that "if you want to train more, race faster". The idea goes that your training needs to be based on your current fitness. That the volume and intensities you hit need to be based off what you can ACTUALLY do right now, not what you THINK you can do. Or what you WANT to do. Daniel's says that if you train beyond your current fitness and speed you will become over trained and eventually hurt. That all makes perfect sense to me. I get it. But it can be hard to feel good about a training day when everyone you read about or talk to has done more, faster.

Today's lesson...discipline and success are about doing what you need to do to get faster, not about doing what you feel you need to do. Today was a success.

Kia Kaha