More Ironman training
........not!
Miners, thanks for the vote of confidence, but my half hour in the pool today is unlikely to see me out there in triathlon land in the near (or distant) future.
I did find a tri I could manage next year, but unfortunately it was the Weetbix Tryathlon and I'm about 34 years past the cutoff age for the level I could manage. Shame...I quite liked the sound of a 100m swim, 3k ride and 500m run. I'd probably come last, but I'm OK with that.
Anyway today was another combination of swimming, water running and kickboarding. Plus I worked at doing some drills to try and improve my breathing.
I've always really struggled in the water.
I hate putting my head under so I swim with my head much more upright than it should be, and I've always wondered why I get puffed and have to rest after every 50m. And then I read this in this month's RW... "The most common beginner's mistake is to swim with the head tilted up....That's called swimming uphill and it will have you gasping after a few minutes...".
Wow! What a relief to discover that a lot of my difficulty might be fixed by working on a fairly simple technical fault. So today I did some practice with the kickboard to try and teach myself how to look down and turn my head to the side without lifting it up to breathe. It feels terrible at the moment. I keep feeling like I'm drowning, which would be very unlikely given that the deepest part of the pool is up to my neck, but hopefully with enough practice I'll get the hang of it.
Miners, thanks for the vote of confidence, but my half hour in the pool today is unlikely to see me out there in triathlon land in the near (or distant) future.
I did find a tri I could manage next year, but unfortunately it was the Weetbix Tryathlon and I'm about 34 years past the cutoff age for the level I could manage. Shame...I quite liked the sound of a 100m swim, 3k ride and 500m run. I'd probably come last, but I'm OK with that.
Anyway today was another combination of swimming, water running and kickboarding. Plus I worked at doing some drills to try and improve my breathing.
I've always really struggled in the water.
I hate putting my head under so I swim with my head much more upright than it should be, and I've always wondered why I get puffed and have to rest after every 50m. And then I read this in this month's RW... "The most common beginner's mistake is to swim with the head tilted up....That's called swimming uphill and it will have you gasping after a few minutes...".
Wow! What a relief to discover that a lot of my difficulty might be fixed by working on a fairly simple technical fault. So today I did some practice with the kickboard to try and teach myself how to look down and turn my head to the side without lifting it up to breathe. It feels terrible at the moment. I keep feeling like I'm drowning, which would be very unlikely given that the deepest part of the pool is up to my neck, but hopefully with enough practice I'll get the hang of it.
posted by Cirque at 4:46 pm
4 Comments:
Swimming has always been difficult for me too Cirque but I think you've jsut discovered one of the main reasons you're having problems! Keep persevering and you will find it easier to swim more horizontally in the water. :-)
ah yes, but at least the thought of tris are creeping into your subconscious ...
I have a solution to your swimming technique yvette - go and take yourself on a holidays to the Whitsundays, particularly now during the winter months when the weather up there's bearable.
Once you try snorkelling up there, you will have no trouble at all in keeping your head down lest you miss the scenery
I'm bad at swimming too.... though I do actually quite like it. Must try changing my breathing techniques too one day!
Hope your shins feel better soon!
Cirque, do an enticer tri. 250 swim, 10k ride and 2.5k run. Tiger angel persuaded me to do one with her last year (and I can't swim for nuts!). Her wave entered the water 5 minutes after mine, and we left it together :-)
Still it was fun
sfG
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