Daily log 13 March 2011 - Swim and run

The changes in my running form within 4 months..  

After my first race yesterday I wanted to take it easy. Tomorrow is my official rest day so today I decided to do some light swimming and a short run.

I swam 250m today but with the aim of  improving my stroke technique. One of the problems identified during my swimming lesson last week was that I lead with my palms instead of my elbows. So today was focussed on raising my elbow (see the post on last week's swimming lesson to understand what I mean).

So I focussed on raising my elbows but I always seem to fail. I can't get it.

See how I'm lifting my palms out of the water. My elbows still quite straight.

Hardly any movement in my elbows. 

I'm still focussing on moving my palms and there's still hardly
any movement in my elbows

In this position I'm using more energy as I am not using my shoulders at all

How awkward is that?

I got a bit frustrated today as I can't seem to solve this. Why is this important? The nett effect is that I am wasting energy because I'm using the wrong muscles. One of the strongest muscles we have are in our shoulders. My current technique does not let me use those powerful muscles.

I'm tempted to get my swimming coach to spend a whole day with me so we can work on the technique part.  Let's see what happens when I go back in the pool.

I enjoyed my run today. For the first time we decided to run in KL's Lake Gardens.



This is very different run than the one I'm used to at the park near my home. There a lot of trails you can use. Some are hilly whilst others flat. I only ran about 3km and I wanted to make sure I don't push myself beyond 75% MHR. But i found that I was running at 85% MHR. I think I'm letting myself run too fast. Speed is not important at the moment. Endurance is. I should be running it at 65%-75% only. I'll be talking more about this in another post I'm planning.

Back to the run today. Despite the issues I had a great time and can't wait to run here again.

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