Daily Log 24 March 2011 - Bike and swim

There's always time to promote myself...  

No running today. Today's focus is on the bike as well as the swimming.

CYCLING


I cycled for 30 minutes on the trainer today, focusing on making each pedal stroke is smooth and keeping my heart rate at a moderate level. A nice gentle warm up for 15 minutes at 65-70% MHR, 10 minutes at 70-75% MHR and spending 5 minutes warming down (see here for an explanation of Maximal Heart Rate - MHR and the importance of warming up).

I have to admit that I'm feeling the pressure now. Even the short 10 minutes at 70-75% MHR seemed like an eternity to me and I can feel the onset of fatigue coming on at the end of the 10 minutes getting to the warm down stage felt like paradise. My Polar RS 800 registered just under 8km and an average heart rate at 66% MHR. How on earth am I going to get to 20km and have enough energy to run another 5km?

My cadence averaged at 69 per minute and I know I need to be able to comfortably achieve a cadence of 80-90. I just have to focus on technique and making sure my pedaling is smooth. I need to get the bike refitted I think. I am not feeling too comfortable riding at the moment.

SWIM


I swam another 15 laps at the pool today. Again focusing on technique. I found a great article on the trinewbies.com site which talked about 4 drills to do to improve the freestyle stroke. Trinewbies.com is a great resource and I'm going to be returning to that site a lot.

Anyway, back to the drills. They are:

Thumb to Thigh
Touch and Go (aka Catch-up Stroke)
Closed Fist
Balance and Rotation

I haven't done Balance and Rotation yet and have instead been focussing on the other 3 tonight. My favourite drill is the Closed Fist drill. As the name suggest, it swimming with the fist clenched. It was tough to get moving at first as I can rely on the resistance my palm creates to move forward. When the fist is closed I found that I needed to use the underside of my arm more. I think I actually swam smoother when I swim with my fist close as I can no longer rely on my palms to provide propulsion in the water. It does give me the sensation of having to really reach out in order to move.

I did this drill as well as the other two for four laps of the pool each. I ended the remaining laps to putting all those drills together. I managed to get data from the RS 800 (the RS 800 watch cannot with the heart monitor itself if both are submerged in water). I promise to write soon regarding my workaround to get the Polar RS 800 to collect data while swimming.

I managed to swim tonight at an average heart rate of 59% MHR which is a far cry from yesterday's 68% MHR effort at the same distance and time. Something must be improving.

Tomorrow is running and swimming day. I'm really looking forward to running in the morning.

About Reza Ali

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