do another triathlon.

Cycled on stationary bike, level 6-10, one hour, 21.38 miles

Swam, moderate pace, 40 minutes – had a breakthrough. Was able to reduce my head-turns for breath to every four strokes instead of every two. This made my technique much more efficient and I had much greater stamina.

Will do swim-specific weight training tonight, working shoulders and back

Recovery Day…

Swam 40 minutes – 1000 yards

My swimming sucks. I can run miles and miles now non-stop and without much fatigue, but I can barely swim 150 yards without stopping at the end of the lane to catch my breath. And the triathlon in May will be 500-600 yards. They haven’t yet announced the total. I’ve been thinking about it and have come up with two reasons why my swimming is not improving:

1) lack of upper body muscle development – my preferred recreation (hiking, cycling and running) all develop my lower body where my natural strength lies anyway. I do little that involves the upper body.

2) biomechanical inefficiency is causing undue fatigue – I taught myself to swim and I’m sure my stroke needs to be tweaked to achieve greater efficiency with less effort-cost

Going to be doing some research and reading as to the best ways to overcome these problems. Obvious answer seems to be event-specific weight training and hiring a swim coach for a few lessons to tweak my stroke.

Charity

Ran seven miles on treadmill.

10 sit-ups x 3 sets (30)

10 modified push-ups x 2 sets (20)

100 squats

12 reps x 3 sets of bicep curls, 10# weights (36)

20 reps x 3 sets, alternating front arm lifts, 10 # weights (30 per arm)

12 reps x 3 sets, side flies, 5# weights (36)

12 reps x 3 sets, bench butterflies, 10# weights (36)

12 reps x 3 sets dumbbell rows (per side), 10# weights (36 per side)

12 reps x 4 sets seated nautilus back pulls, 40# (48)

Charity

7 miles HIIT paces

30 sit-ups

20 push-ups

100 squats

Charity

But have been following my training schedule fairly closely.

Yesterday – 90 minute run
Today – one hour incline walk, 8 mile run, upper body weights

Charity

Three miles per my marathonrookie.com training schedule. I plan to go swimming after my Law/Govt. class and staff meeting. Haven’t been in the pool for awhile so don’t think I’ll set a yardage goal. Just get in and get reacquainted with my rather primitive crawl stroke.

Cycled for an hour, outdoor, hilled course, 25 degrees out. Gonna have to figure out some gear issues. Even the Underarmor cold weather base layer wasn’t sufficient and I couldn’t feel toes, fingers, nose or ears by the time I got back.

Nine trail miles. Gimpy foot was really bothering me and I was having a hard time with heart rate as well. Had to walk a bit to keep it under 170. 118 minutes. Made a total of 27 miles for the week.

4 mile run per my marathonrookie.com training schedule

This afternoon, I will be doing some squats, lunges and ab work.

I’ve been running and biking, but haven’t been tracking it as I should. I ran 30 miles two weeks ago, 25 miles last week and have logged 11 miles so far this week. Getting chilly for biking and haven’t biked for about two weeks. Prior to that I was averaging about 60 miles a week.