December 2, 2020
The Road to Tokyo Journal
Clermont Training Camp Day 3
We got today kicked off with a short but hard swim. The National Training Center—where we’re training out of for this week—pushed all scheduled swim times back a bit due to expected cold weather. Understandable since it’s an outdoor pool. So instead of our swim being at 7:30 AM we got in the pool at 9:00 AM. And when Derick says bring a wetsuit all of his athletes know what’s coming. That means a 750 meter swim for time followed by a VIE (vomit inducing effort). We had 10min to get in what ever warm up we wanted so I cranked out a quick 400 sprinkling in a couple of hard 25s to open up the lats and shoulders. Since we were in a 25yd pool we were tasked with doing an 825 which roughly equates to 750 meters.
I fixed my Platysens Marlin which counts my laps and gives me splits every lap to my goggles, less for the time and pace reading and more for the lap counter. We Launched and I went out hard. I was breathing so hard and the water was washing past my ears so fast though that I couldn’t always catch what the Marlin was chirping in my ear. I do know that I turned so fast a couple of times that the Marlin couldn’t catch up, so it fell a lap or two behind. Oh well.
I felt strong through the first couple of hundred yards but then felt it catching up with me. When at the Olympic and Paralympic Training Center (OPTC) in Colorado Springs, I have a sprinkler system spray me when I’m about three meters out from the wall so I know when to turn. The lanes at the OPTC are also significantly wider so I don’t pinball back and forth as much. Unfortunately when I’m in a 25yd pool, with no sprinkler system, and when I’m trying to swim fast, I pinball back and forth between lane line a lot. As a result, I kept raking my right shoulder against the lane line. Then when I tried to make a correction I’d end up over correcting and hook my left hand in the other lane line. As a result I probably swam an extra 3-4yd per 25. I hit the wall in 11:21 which is still my fastest pool wetsuit 750. So while that was pleasing, I was still disappointed that I couldn’t implement what Derick and Andy have stressed so much to me over the last couple of months about staying patient out front and focusing on swimming straight and smooth. Smooth and straight is fast and I did too much muscling today.
That was evident when I swam the VIE 100yd. I came in at 1:09, but got hooked on the lane line in the first 25yd costing me precious seconds. I’d been trying to go sub 1:07 but I muscled too much and didn’t trust my form which caused me to pinball and swim slower and waste energy.
After a little break, we kitted up for an easy social spin. We pedaled casually through some quieter Clermont roads. We pedaled up the backside of Sugarloaf, which was my nemesis when I started in triathlon several years ago. Derick wouldn’t let me go for my personal best up the front side of Sugarloaf, so I’ll have to just come back some time next year to crush my time. It was nice just to spin easy with the group and chat with teammates that live across the country.
Post ride we did a quick change and went out for an easy 25min run off the bike just to remind our legs how it feels to run after riding. I love running after a bike ride so much better than just straight up running. My legs felt decently strong, although sore from the last couple days of training.
I made myself up a ham, turkey, cheese and spinach sandwich for lunch and also snacked on some trail mix. Then it was off to the gym where I did three rounds of what my strength coach, Sam, calls the Enterprise Series. It’s a physic ball core routine consisting of:
Crunches, roll outs, plank leg lifts, kneeling roll outs, plank knee drives, Pikes, hip thrusts, Jack knives, push-ups, and V-Up Pass.
Then it was into the shower and fuel and hydrate up for an early morning track session tomorrow.