My first week with the Racestrong triathlon club
Given I've signed up for the Guildford Triathlon this summer (what was I thinking) just for good measure I also signed up for my 2nd London event, the Swim the Serpentine 2 mile (SERIOUSLY DAVE! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING!?), it was suggested to me to join the Racestrong Triathlon Club.
They're Woking based and have been around for a few years now. On the park runs I've done before, I had noticed a few people wearing t-shirts with the club name on them but never realised at that point it was a club.
Now I'm not overly concerned about my cycling and running disciplines. In both of those I'm faster than some and slower than others but the cycling fitness has slipped over the last year so I do want to get that back (and be a regular fast-inters rider at WCC) and it would be awesome to do a sub-20 minute 5k (current PB is 22:23). What really needs a lot of work is my swimming.
The last week has been a real eye opener for me with regards to me and "swimming". Its made me realise that when we're little and having swimming lessons, we're not actually being taught to swim properly. I think we're being taught to "not drown" and . So some of us can swim and have fun in the swimming pool or at the water park or the beach etc. Now as I said I have signed up to two events this year that have a swimming aspect to them. The Guildford Triathlon and in September I'm doing the 2 mile Swim the Serpentine so I can get my 2nd London event medal and have just the one left to get the London Classics medal.
Last weekend on Saturday I went to the Woking Pool in the Park when they had a lane swimming session on. As I wanted to see what I could achieve at that point in time. So I put my contacts in, as I wanted to see the data on my Garmin screen and started swimming. I had never swam for an hour, ever. The majority of it was breaststroke though with the occasional break after 100m or so. At the end of the session I had managed approx 70 lengths and done just over 1 mile. As you can see from my Strava entry below though I had mixed feelings about it.
Sunday night I went back to Woking Pool for another session, this time I was going to make myself do freestyle (front crawl). Huge gains in speed BUT ingesting large amounts of pool water isn't the best. I definitely don't think anyone should get to the end of a single length, hold onto the wall and belch as frequently as I was.
First Racestrong coached swim session
I'd been in contact with various people at the club and they were all extremely supportive and encouraging me to go along. I think my apprehensiveness got a bit taxing for them, but I wanted to give it a go as I felt I would be able to learn so much from them. Mentally I'm starting at square 1 so the only way was up right?
I got to the Riverbourne health club in Chertsey for the session, got changed and into the pool I went. Including me there were 5 of us in the pool, and the coach (Lee) on the side. I'm absolutely terrible with names but do recall there were two ladies there called Ellie (maybe not the exact spelling of their names).
Did 50 metres (2 lengths) and then started working on some drills. Breathing was still a major issue for me. Lee mentioned that I didn't look too relaxed in the water and in some respects he's absolutely correct. When I'm cycling, running or snowboarding, I can breathe whenever I want to. But despite my best efforts, I'm always ingesting water when I come up to take a breath. This is a huge problem for me.
Then some different drills to teach balance. We were to swim on our sides, the side in the water having the arm outstretched in the direction being swam in. The arm on top just being on your thigh not doing anything, so it literally is all in the legs to propel yourself along. Of course the body position being crucial to maintain balance. The first 25m on my right side didn't go smoothly but the return on my left felt better.
One thing I was also told to do and take breathing out of the equation was to stand up in the pool when I needed to take a breath, do that and then continue on.
The effect that had was quite profound. My brain was no longer wondering "Wheres the next breath coming from?" and I was able to concentrate on the actual swimming technique. It was like when I had move onto skills development coaching at the snow centre. When I bought knee pads, I wasn't constantly worried about banging my knees onto packed ice and therefore was able to concentrate on the actual snowboard itself. As a result, I grew in confidence and relaxed a whole lot more and the form improved.
So I'm more relaxed than I've felt in a long time and starting to just work on the technique to the best of my ability and it just seems to start coming along, at least a whole lot more than it was previously. The average time still faster than Saturday's but I was starting to concentrate on my freestyle
The next morning I woke to find a Strava invite from a club member which I accepted and followed them back. While in there (and getting ready for work) I thought I would see how they fared with their swimming. Bloody hell, in the low 1 minute 20's for a 100m. Oh and their "recovery" which I view as "taking it easy to catch your breath" was STILL under a minute and a half per 100m.
Spinning with Racestrong
on Thursday 20th Feb I had a spinning class with them. Now my legs were not the freshest they could have been as the previous day I did a Zwift session at home AND then a 4 mile run where I went absolutely hell for leather at the end and managed to get my first ever Strava trophy on a segment 1/3 of a mile long (I was 2 seconds off the #1 spot). Anyway, I knew tonight was going to be tough, not just because of that but also after the spinning class I had another swim class.
Still terrible with names as meeting more people for the first time (aside from Lee) but of course everyone I've met so far has been really friendly and welcoming. The guy to the left of me was called Robin and to the far right was Adrian. The guy to the right of me was watching football on his phone and the girl at the very end was off to uni this year and had received her offers I believe (so a mixed range of ages too!).
I'm still not terribly au fait with spinning. I mean, when I'm on Zwift, it controls my Kickr based on my FTP and sets the resistance accordingly. With a spin bike you adjust the resistance yourself and without a power meter I have NO idea what wattage I'm doing. OK I can tell easy and hard but that is about it. So I put my Garmin onto cardio exercise and had it displaying my heart rate threshold which seemed to stay in zone 4 (out of 5) aka the threshold zone for the duration of the class. Zone 5 is the maximum zone. The general rule of thumb is your max heart rate is 220 - [your age]. So mine is approx 175 beats per minute (never mind that on the trophy earning run the other night I pushed it up to 183bpm during the sprint effort).
2nd swim session
After thinking I read on the Facebook page that the Thursday night swim session was for the more advanced members who normally get likened to be fishes I nearly sat this one out. But once told it was a mixed ability again I went back to the pool. This time I also had my prescription swimming goggles on as I didn't want to keep on using contacts whenever I went swimming as that would get real expensive real fast using daily disposables all the time.
They'd never been used in a pool so I was a bit apprehensive they'd not keep the water out, but I'm pleased to report they did a great job!
Into the pool I went, this time taking a drink bottle (no, not in case I didn't drink enough pool water!) as I'd suffered from cramp in my calves the time before so was told I needed to keep my electrolytes up. Into the "warm up" as apparently the 1 hour spin session I'd just left didn't count and it started off well enough, nice and slow, concentrating on my technique but again, breathing still an issue.
I have a habit of starting off well enough when I'm nice and refreshed, but soon build up oxygen debt and it all starts going to pieces. To the point where I went to take a breath (as I'd fully exhaled) so brought my mouth out of the water and my lungs just refused to do it! So I went back under with zero air in my lungs and of course couldn't continue on for a few more strokes. Stand up, start over again Dave! My brain was shouting at my lungs to take a breath but they just didn't want to do it, not even a little bit. So I'm still not relaxed in the water.
There were no drills of swimming on the side this time. Instead we did was was called "catch up". Imagine you have your arms outstretched in front of you as a starting point, do one stroke with an arm, and bring it back to the start, but literally just as you do that, you start the stroke with the other arm and when that comes back to the start, you bring it back to the other arm, repeat as necessary. I'd seen this drill done on a YouTube video but like anything its very different putting it into practice. But as I completely expected, it all felt alien to me because it wasn't what I was previously doing.
Then Lee showed me how to get my arm into a more correct position with the elbow up just before entering the water again and I was to try again. I'm still trying to breathe on every 4th stroke (so left, right, left, right while taking a breath) and while its OK at first, it quickly goes to pot. I'm not getting enough air into my lungs. I am going to need to be re-taught how to breath properly because my arms feel fine, its the lack of air in the lungs that gets me every time.
I'm also starting to incorporate rotating my body when doing freestyle and I've seen the effect its having in the efficiency of each stroke where the speed is starting to be increased. For the last couple of lengths I thought a shift to breathing every other stroke, so left, right (while taking a breathe), left, right (while taking a breathe). While it felt more comfortable as I wasn't struggling for breath Lee mentioned in terms of efficiency its not the best as it disrupts the swim stroke which is understandable.
Now while I feel I have gotten a bit faster in the water, I don't believe the pace below so something has gone a bit wrong with how Garmin calculates things I reckon. I do believe though that I have gotten faster.
I'm now hoping to incorporate some resistance training (aka weights) into the program as I would rationale a stronger muscle has less work for the same current output (well it makes sense in my head).
My thoughts
Its been a great first week being with this club. While I have now officially joined, they are still letting me use my 2 week free trial with them which ends when I go to Canada and my official start is the day I come back from Canada.
There are some really chatty people in the private groups which as some of you may know, the more comfortable I am in a situation / group then the more I open up. I'm really looking forwards to meeting more of the club members too. Without doubt I'll be able to learn loads from the sessions with Racestrong and its really motivating me to get back on with my regime.
If you're looking for a friendly, welcoming, group of people to work out with (swim, cycle, or run) and are in Woking or the surrounding areas then I would say to give this group a tri (see what I did there?). They're a very mixed ability group where for the swimmers there are some that'll do 100m in under 90 seconds or distance runners that are constantly doing 5k's, half marathons, marathons, Iron man events or various cycling events including (I think I saw on the FB page the Mallorca 312). Don't worry if you're not at Olympic standard, you'll find your place in the group.
Now I only have next week left on my free trial so will be making the most of it before heading off to snowier climbs in Whistler.
They're Woking based and have been around for a few years now. On the park runs I've done before, I had noticed a few people wearing t-shirts with the club name on them but never realised at that point it was a club.
Now I'm not overly concerned about my cycling and running disciplines. In both of those I'm faster than some and slower than others but the cycling fitness has slipped over the last year so I do want to get that back (and be a regular fast-inters rider at WCC) and it would be awesome to do a sub-20 minute 5k (current PB is 22:23). What really needs a lot of work is my swimming.
The last week has been a real eye opener for me with regards to me and "swimming". Its made me realise that when we're little and having swimming lessons, we're not actually being taught to swim properly. I think we're being taught to "not drown" and . So some of us can swim and have fun in the swimming pool or at the water park or the beach etc. Now as I said I have signed up to two events this year that have a swimming aspect to them. The Guildford Triathlon and in September I'm doing the 2 mile Swim the Serpentine so I can get my 2nd London event medal and have just the one left to get the London Classics medal.
Last weekend on Saturday I went to the Woking Pool in the Park when they had a lane swimming session on. As I wanted to see what I could achieve at that point in time. So I put my contacts in, as I wanted to see the data on my Garmin screen and started swimming. I had never swam for an hour, ever. The majority of it was breaststroke though with the occasional break after 100m or so. At the end of the session I had managed approx 70 lengths and done just over 1 mile. As you can see from my Strava entry below though I had mixed feelings about it.
Sunday night I went back to Woking Pool for another session, this time I was going to make myself do freestyle (front crawl). Huge gains in speed BUT ingesting large amounts of pool water isn't the best. I definitely don't think anyone should get to the end of a single length, hold onto the wall and belch as frequently as I was.
First Racestrong coached swim session
I'd been in contact with various people at the club and they were all extremely supportive and encouraging me to go along. I think my apprehensiveness got a bit taxing for them, but I wanted to give it a go as I felt I would be able to learn so much from them. Mentally I'm starting at square 1 so the only way was up right?
I got to the Riverbourne health club in Chertsey for the session, got changed and into the pool I went. Including me there were 5 of us in the pool, and the coach (Lee) on the side. I'm absolutely terrible with names but do recall there were two ladies there called Ellie (maybe not the exact spelling of their names).
Did 50 metres (2 lengths) and then started working on some drills. Breathing was still a major issue for me. Lee mentioned that I didn't look too relaxed in the water and in some respects he's absolutely correct. When I'm cycling, running or snowboarding, I can breathe whenever I want to. But despite my best efforts, I'm always ingesting water when I come up to take a breath. This is a huge problem for me.
Then some different drills to teach balance. We were to swim on our sides, the side in the water having the arm outstretched in the direction being swam in. The arm on top just being on your thigh not doing anything, so it literally is all in the legs to propel yourself along. Of course the body position being crucial to maintain balance. The first 25m on my right side didn't go smoothly but the return on my left felt better.
One thing I was also told to do and take breathing out of the equation was to stand up in the pool when I needed to take a breath, do that and then continue on.
The effect that had was quite profound. My brain was no longer wondering "Wheres the next breath coming from?" and I was able to concentrate on the actual swimming technique. It was like when I had move onto skills development coaching at the snow centre. When I bought knee pads, I wasn't constantly worried about banging my knees onto packed ice and therefore was able to concentrate on the actual snowboard itself. As a result, I grew in confidence and relaxed a whole lot more and the form improved.
So I'm more relaxed than I've felt in a long time and starting to just work on the technique to the best of my ability and it just seems to start coming along, at least a whole lot more than it was previously. The average time still faster than Saturday's but I was starting to concentrate on my freestyle
The next morning I woke to find a Strava invite from a club member which I accepted and followed them back. While in there (and getting ready for work) I thought I would see how they fared with their swimming. Bloody hell, in the low 1 minute 20's for a 100m. Oh and their "recovery" which I view as "taking it easy to catch your breath" was STILL under a minute and a half per 100m.
Spinning with Racestrong
on Thursday 20th Feb I had a spinning class with them. Now my legs were not the freshest they could have been as the previous day I did a Zwift session at home AND then a 4 mile run where I went absolutely hell for leather at the end and managed to get my first ever Strava trophy on a segment 1/3 of a mile long (I was 2 seconds off the #1 spot). Anyway, I knew tonight was going to be tough, not just because of that but also after the spinning class I had another swim class.
Still terrible with names as meeting more people for the first time (aside from Lee) but of course everyone I've met so far has been really friendly and welcoming. The guy to the left of me was called Robin and to the far right was Adrian. The guy to the right of me was watching football on his phone and the girl at the very end was off to uni this year and had received her offers I believe (so a mixed range of ages too!).
I'm still not terribly au fait with spinning. I mean, when I'm on Zwift, it controls my Kickr based on my FTP and sets the resistance accordingly. With a spin bike you adjust the resistance yourself and without a power meter I have NO idea what wattage I'm doing. OK I can tell easy and hard but that is about it. So I put my Garmin onto cardio exercise and had it displaying my heart rate threshold which seemed to stay in zone 4 (out of 5) aka the threshold zone for the duration of the class. Zone 5 is the maximum zone. The general rule of thumb is your max heart rate is 220 - [your age]. So mine is approx 175 beats per minute (never mind that on the trophy earning run the other night I pushed it up to 183bpm during the sprint effort).
After thinking I read on the Facebook page that the Thursday night swim session was for the more advanced members who normally get likened to be fishes I nearly sat this one out. But once told it was a mixed ability again I went back to the pool. This time I also had my prescription swimming goggles on as I didn't want to keep on using contacts whenever I went swimming as that would get real expensive real fast using daily disposables all the time.
They'd never been used in a pool so I was a bit apprehensive they'd not keep the water out, but I'm pleased to report they did a great job!
Into the pool I went, this time taking a drink bottle (no, not in case I didn't drink enough pool water!) as I'd suffered from cramp in my calves the time before so was told I needed to keep my electrolytes up. Into the "warm up" as apparently the 1 hour spin session I'd just left didn't count and it started off well enough, nice and slow, concentrating on my technique but again, breathing still an issue.
I have a habit of starting off well enough when I'm nice and refreshed, but soon build up oxygen debt and it all starts going to pieces. To the point where I went to take a breath (as I'd fully exhaled) so brought my mouth out of the water and my lungs just refused to do it! So I went back under with zero air in my lungs and of course couldn't continue on for a few more strokes. Stand up, start over again Dave! My brain was shouting at my lungs to take a breath but they just didn't want to do it, not even a little bit. So I'm still not relaxed in the water.
There were no drills of swimming on the side this time. Instead we did was was called "catch up". Imagine you have your arms outstretched in front of you as a starting point, do one stroke with an arm, and bring it back to the start, but literally just as you do that, you start the stroke with the other arm and when that comes back to the start, you bring it back to the other arm, repeat as necessary. I'd seen this drill done on a YouTube video but like anything its very different putting it into practice. But as I completely expected, it all felt alien to me because it wasn't what I was previously doing.
Then Lee showed me how to get my arm into a more correct position with the elbow up just before entering the water again and I was to try again. I'm still trying to breathe on every 4th stroke (so left, right, left, right while taking a breath) and while its OK at first, it quickly goes to pot. I'm not getting enough air into my lungs. I am going to need to be re-taught how to breath properly because my arms feel fine, its the lack of air in the lungs that gets me every time.
I'm also starting to incorporate rotating my body when doing freestyle and I've seen the effect its having in the efficiency of each stroke where the speed is starting to be increased. For the last couple of lengths I thought a shift to breathing every other stroke, so left, right (while taking a breathe), left, right (while taking a breathe). While it felt more comfortable as I wasn't struggling for breath Lee mentioned in terms of efficiency its not the best as it disrupts the swim stroke which is understandable.
Now while I feel I have gotten a bit faster in the water, I don't believe the pace below so something has gone a bit wrong with how Garmin calculates things I reckon. I do believe though that I have gotten faster.
I'm now hoping to incorporate some resistance training (aka weights) into the program as I would rationale a stronger muscle has less work for the same current output (well it makes sense in my head).
My thoughts
Its been a great first week being with this club. While I have now officially joined, they are still letting me use my 2 week free trial with them which ends when I go to Canada and my official start is the day I come back from Canada.
There are some really chatty people in the private groups which as some of you may know, the more comfortable I am in a situation / group then the more I open up. I'm really looking forwards to meeting more of the club members too. Without doubt I'll be able to learn loads from the sessions with Racestrong and its really motivating me to get back on with my regime.
If you're looking for a friendly, welcoming, group of people to work out with (swim, cycle, or run) and are in Woking or the surrounding areas then I would say to give this group a tri (see what I did there?). They're a very mixed ability group where for the swimmers there are some that'll do 100m in under 90 seconds or distance runners that are constantly doing 5k's, half marathons, marathons, Iron man events or various cycling events including (I think I saw on the FB page the Mallorca 312). Don't worry if you're not at Olympic standard, you'll find your place in the group.
Now I only have next week left on my free trial so will be making the most of it before heading off to snowier climbs in Whistler.
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