After my poor swim sessions from last week, I tried altering some stuff during my workout Monday morning. I'm fairly sure I did things even more wrong, and the entire workout was a struggle. And, it was a workout I had done before, and it felt easier the first time! Frustrated, I spent some time when I was babysitting an experiment at work researching swimming techniques, and found something that has entirely changed my attitude: http://www.swimsmooth.com/ . The front page has an animation of the proper way to swim, and I read about tons of problems and fixes for swimming stroke! I was anxious to put these into action, but I was also nervous about swimming in front of the coach again. In fact, I had dreaded Tuesday night's swim for basically the entire day.
Eventually Tuesday night came, and I was relieved. Due to a "maintenance issue" (which I will spare the gory details that I know, but someone did something gross in the pool and it needed over 24 hours of chlorine shock and closure) the pool was closed. So, instead, my fears of swimming in front of the coach were postponed, and I was granted the opportunity to do... a speed workout!!
After a long arduous couple months of pool running and only slow easy running, being allowed to do a speed workout was like a dream. Oh, how I have missed the exhiliration of speeding around the track! We had 4 half mile repeats, and she told me to aim for 4-4:15, because we weren't sure how my speed has suffered over the course of the last few months. My comrades were doing 3:40s, I think, so I just figured I'd stay some distance behind them and see how I felt. Well, I didn't actually stay that far behind them, and finished my four half mile repeats in 3:48, 3:50, 3:46 and 3:45! So exciting! I was less than 5 sec on average behind them (and very consistent!), after not having done any speed work in the past 3 months! Not only did it feel great to be running fast, but perhaps the pool intervals helped me maintain some of the speed I had worked so hard to develop over the summer and fall. So happy!
After the run workout, we hit the (open) warm pool (mostly for kids) and did a little drill work to work on form. I still am terrible at doing a one armed drill, but I got to practice more of my stroke, learn what I did completely wrong Monday, and now have even more stuff to improve on. I went home happy, and couldn't fall asleep because I was so energized from the fast run!!
Biking today brought up some more questions in my mind, however. Our main section of the workout today was 20 min hold at ftp, cadence of 85-100. I tried so hard to stay within the cadence range, and my power was slightly above the ftp for the entire time. I also stayed fairly close to the pack- I wasn't one of the last bikers as I often am. However, my wattage is still too low, which I guess makes sense because my ftp is so much lower than everyone else's. I still don't really understand why two cyclers can be going at the same rpm and the same gear, but have different speeds and power. I am still having trouble figuring out when an easier gear, at which I can maintain a high rpm, is desirable as opposed to trudging along in a high gear at a lower cadence. I have been reading up on some cycling information, which all says you find the 'optimal' cadence in an 'optimal' gear for you- which comes with practice... hopefully some of this becomes more clear when we actually go out to the road...
For now, the pool is thankfully cleaned and back open, though I am still a little nervous about heading in for an early morning pool run...then I will worry more about the bike on Friday.
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