I went to the pool last night to swim some laps. This was the first time I went swimming since I finished my swimming lessons last week. I managed to swim a little over 1/3 of a mile (13 times down and back in a 25 yard pool). I could have swam more, but crappy swimming form, was getting crappier, so I decided to stop. I am able to swim down and back now before having to stop and cacth my breath. I was concentrating on keeping my head down in the water to keep my feet up, and stay more balanced. I worked on reaching and extending my stroke. I worked on slowing my stroke down and relaxing. I worked on breathing. I am slowly getting better at breathing ever third stroke. I really need to work on keeping my head down in the the water more. When I don’t think about it, it comes up, and my feet go down.
I definatly need to work on my swimming endurance. I need to be able to swim more laps continuously. Right now I am lucky to make it across the 25 yard pool twice without having to stop and catch my breath. I am doing better though. Soon I might be able to make it across three times, then four. I just need to relax more, and be more comfortable in the water. I am slowly getting there.
The ear plugs seem to be working. I didn’t get dizzy or nauseous last night at all.
I still suck at swimming, but I am sucking just a little but less than before.
With the Damn Wakely Dam Ultra coming up next month, I decided to check out my trail running shoes. I was pretty sure one pair was worn out, but I thought the other ones might still be good. I dug out the shoes. I wasn’t sure which pair was older. I had to check my blog. I found the first pair of trail running shoes I bought were Nike Air Max Assail’s in October of 2006. But I long ago retired those. I think I donated them to Goodwill. Then I bought some Nike Air Max Conceal’s in May of 2007. Then I bought another pair of Nike trail running shoes as, but not sure when.
Anyway, I did a training run the other night, and decided to try out the shoes to see how they felt. The first pair seemed to have cushioning still left, but I noticed it seemed to be hitting me in the outside ankle bone on my left foot. It was very uncomforable.
So I tried the other pair. These shoes were definately worn out. They felt like they had very little cushioning. Time to buy some new trail running shoes.
I stopped in at the local sporting goods store (Dick’s). I scanned the shelves looking for trail running shoes that were on sale, but didn’t see any. It can be hard sometimes to tell what is a trail running shoe as opposed to a regular running shoe. So I left. But later I checked their weekly flyer, and found they actually had some New Balance 474 Trail Running shoes on sale for $39.98. That’s a good price if they were reasonably comfortable.
So yesterday at lunch time, I headed back to Dicks to try on the shoes. Thy didn’t even have them hidden in back. I found a pair of size 12s in medium width and tried them on. They felt okay. I ran round the footwear area a little bit, and they seemed to be reasonably comfortable. So I bought them.
Tonight I am meeting some guys for a 6.5 mile trail run. So I am planning on wearing the new shoes to see how they do. If they do okay, I will maybe do another short training run in them again. But if all goes well, I plan on wearing these next month for the ultramarathon. I will probably put them aside, and reserve them for trail running type races.
I had the last of my swim lessons last night. I have basically had private swim lessons almost all the way through. There was one lady who showed up the first week for a bit, and then left. After that it was just me.
I am definately feeling mroe comfortable in the water, but I still have a long way to go. I work exclusively on the front crawl last night. I learned a few things. Alot of what I learned, I actually figured out myself. I have found it easier to breathe on my left side than my right side. I figured out why last night. I breathe on the left side as my left arm is back and just about ready to come out of the water. I have been breathing on the right side after the arm is already out of the water. So I focused on taking a breath on the right side slightly earlier, and that helped. I also noticed I am turning my head slightly differently on the right side, and I still need to work on that.
I worked on breathing every three strokes. I start off relaxed, and towards the end of two laps, I am starting to breathe harder, and my strokes start getting a little more frantic to reach the end of the pool. And as my strokes become more frantic, I start breathing faster… It is a downward spiral. I think this will improve as my swimming endurance improves, and I get the timing of breathing down better. Then I can relax more.
I didn’t experience any dizziness last night. I used some ear plugs made by Nike. They are these little sticky balls. I rolled them in my hands, and shoved them in my ears. The left one worked great. I kept taking the right one out to listen to the instructions of the teacher. After a while, it wasn’t sticking as well as my ear was wet. But they seemed to work.
I plan to try to get to the pool a couple times a week to swim laps and hopefully become more relaxed and comfortable doing it. They have lap swims from 6-8am. So I might be able to get in there before work.
Last night I had my 3rd swimming lesson. I am slowly getting better. I have been taking coaching tips and combining them with stuff from Terry Laughlin’s books & videos (the Total Immersion stuff). I found that when I had my head all the way down in the water, my legs came up. I was more balanced, and I seemed to move faster through the water with less effort. Very cool.
But I also found myself last night, getting dizzy and nauseous at points. At one point I got out of the pool and felt like I might throw up. The room seemed to be moving, and I got a headache for a while.
When I got home, I was scheduled to run for an hour. But my stomach was upset. Not enough to keep me from eating, but enough that I didn’t want to be bouncing up and down on a treadmill. I skipped my run and will do it tonight.
I have a history of getting sea sick on boats in rough water. So maybe that is what is going on. But I didn’t seem to have the same problems when swimming before. Well except when I tried swimming on my back, such as a back float, or backstroke. I ate dinner before I went to swim lessons. Maybe that had something to do with it. What I think is the most likely cause is water getting into my ears. I think when I did the back float stuff, and when I swim doing the front crawl with my head deeper in the water, I am getting water in my ears. And I think that is messing with my equalibrium. I bought ear plugs, so I will try those. I am planning on going swimming tomorrow night, or maybe this weekend. My wife suggested that she would come with me to swim laps.
My goal is to do an Ironman triathlon next year. I haven’t registered for one yet. I am going to try to get into the Lake Placid Ironman. But I still have a ton of training to do. I am just starting to learn to swim decently. I want to improve my cycling fitness as well. I have ridden a single century ride and that was relatively flat. I have run 5 marathons with the fastest being 3:30, so I am not too worried about the running part.
So while I am waiting to get into some Ironman triathlon or other, I am working on building my fitness. I bought multiple book of training for an Ironman. The one that intrigues me the most is BeIronFit or Be Iron Fit by Don Fink. It has some interesting schedules, including Just Finish, Intermediate and Competitive. My next schedule marathon isn’t until November (the New York City Marathon). I may do a half marathon in September with a friend at a relatively slow 10:00 pace. I may also do a full marathon in October. My next running race is next month and that is an extreme trail ultramarathon. But I am planning on taking that one kinda easy. I may try to do a century ride or two this summer as well.
So in the meantime, I am going to play with some training schedules. I have decided to use the Be IronFit intermediate schedule to train for the Ultramarathon. I have already been doing running and biking, and am now going to add some swimming. I probably wont do the schedule verbatum, but will soften it a little especially the swimming. Since I am just learning to swim, I am not up to all the drills. So I will just try to make my way back and forth across the pool, working on basic technique at this point. Also, I might shorten some of the longer bike rides.
All the running and biking stuff is heart rate monitor based. It’s been a while since I have done heart rate monitor training. I am faster now, but my resting heart rate is higher too. Maybe I will improve my aerobic fitness some. I have already qualified for Boston, so now I can relax some. I will need aerobic fitness for an Ironman since my goal is simply to finish at this point.