Base Week 1 Friday - 3000 meters of swimming

AM: 3000 meters swimming total - All drills (no timed sets)

1) Warmup: 500 meters

2) Strength Sets: 6x150m paddles (50m left hand only, 50m right hand only, 50m both)

3) Symmetry, Hypoxic Sets: 4x200m freestyle with snorkels

4) "Putting It All Together" Set: 1x500m freestyle (untimed)

5) Cooldown: 300 meters

Paddles can be tough when swimming normally with both hands, but with only one hand pulling, it can be extraordinarily difficult. Add to that trying to keep my form through the entire drill as my shoulders were tiring. So when I get to that part of the set where I can use both arms, I felt extremely smooth in the water.

The snorkels are another tough set. Try breathing through a straw and you'll understand how it might feel in the water when taking breaths. I usually do 100 meter sets with snorkels, but I decided to give 200 meters a try. That distance can make people faint if this set was done wrong. The object here is to keep everything constant and smooth so that I don't waste my breath.

The result of the paddles and the snorkels, is a nice, heightened sense of my stroke and my movement through the water in the 500 meter set toward the end. It just feels so great feeling the water just slip by me with a perfectly smooth stroke.

The paddles, fins, and snorkels are the perfect "toys" to develop a perfect stroke. If your pool doesn't have them, definitely pick them up at an online swim shop because they are essential to your stroke development.

Weekly totals so far: 6000 meters of swimming, 30 miles of cycling, 16 miles of running.

Comments

Original Framework for 2011 Season

The 2011 season will have see 2 -3 100 mile ultramarathons. The one in May is the Massanutten 100, and hope to be in good base shape when I toe the line. I am not sure if I'm doing Vermont again, but I placed it into the framework just in case. My decision will depend on how the training works out. The big "A" race has got to be the Leadville 100, The Race Across The Sky. This race absolutely scares the wits out of me because of the high altitude (10,000 ft+ in most places). I have got to be in pristine shape if I am to ever finish this race. Throw in a Double Ironman in October and a few other ultras and here is the overall framework for the season: (it's a bit hard to see from here, but click on the picture to see it more clearly) I have two sets of 4-week Base mesocycles in the beginning to adapt and set a good base, after which I start to build on that base for three mesocycles. This should put me on pretty good shape to tackle Massanutten. The longer Overdistan...

The Psychology of the Media - It's Been Refined

When I have some free time, usually at the end of the day, I tend to look at what the outside world is up to, especially the mainstream media. And I'm fascinated how they can frame their stories to come up with a narrative to get a lot of people to behave a certain way and to act on it. Before starting to consume this media, you must keep in your head a couple of things: 1) Media can exaggerate, or even lie, about topics, and 2) Media is trying to get you to act a certain way. They mostly do this through emotions and feelings So one needs to take whatever the media says with a grain of salt. That is all media, by the way, even those articles from a favorable website you need a bit of caution on. What I usually do is, after reading the article, step back and ask the questions, "what is this article compelling people to do?", "how is it framed and what emotion does it elicit. Let me give you an example. This has been going on for weeks now, soon after the...

The Double Edged Sword of The Internet and Social Media - How To Be Productive There and Stop Wasting Time

Note: Men, one of the best things you need to do in becoming strong is to be productive. Time management is HUGE in this regard. If you get a handle on this issue below, you will be well on your way to taking your time back and being efficient again! How many people do you know spend most of their times in front of a screen? Phones, desktops, laptops, you name it, a lot of people live and die with what happens in front of a screen. I believe that there is such thing as internet addiction. With so much information at your fingertips, it has a "sensory overload effect", numbing and scattering your thoughts to the winds. This will render you largely unproductive. And it's having a very negative effect on society. All of our genuine bonds between family and friends have been frayed or even destroyed by our "new connections" to the internet. The internet was supposed to be the game changer that was supposed to bring all of us together, make us a lot more producti...

Coach Iron Pete - Men's Success for Tough Times

Search This Blog