This Beaver report is somewhat late, mainly because I wasn’t too happy with the race and didn’t really want to analyse it too much. However, the bad races probably help us learn more than the good ones.
The race was a sprint distance – not my current focus and I simply have not done the turbo work to be sharp over these shorter distances. This wasn’t the main problem though. A 5th fastest bike split in my Cat isn’t bad. Put a 3rd fastest run to that and you know what’s coming! The swim was a mare for me! I have been going quite well in the pool but the open water has always been a struggle for me. This time I was well beaten up and just seemed to go backwards. Actually, I sort of went side to side I think! Navigation wasn’t good but all thoughts of smooth technique seemed to go out the window and I resumed my open water thrashing style, fighting off other people and forgetting about my own swimming form.
So, the plan has been hatched! I am commencing regular open water swimming training. It is logical to do this but I have never done it regularly before. Crazy, I know! But the logistics of getting to open water venues has not been easy. I have joined the local club as a swim member and I hope to transfer my pool swimming to open water. The mis-match is stark. Take today, for example. In the pool I did lots of swim smooth drills and then some main sets. One, of which, was 10 x 75m on 1:25. All of these were completed between 1:00 and 1:02. In fact the last one was 59 sec. And I was not pushing that hard and it was smooth. This equates to at least 1:25 100m pace. Hence I should be much more competitive in the open water than I am.
Whinge over. I am addressing this problem and moving on! My training has really taken on a long distance slant. Next event is a 50 mile TT. This is really just training as I intend to ease back and make it a hard ride with at least an hour of tempo running off the bike. Quite enjoying this long distance focus – how times have changed!
3 comments:
still don't understand why you were playing around with a sprint when you could have done the middle distance as part of you long course build up. Suspected the lack of race report was due to dissatisfaction but as you say you can learn more from a bad race sometimes. Your pool times are leagues ahead of me mate yet you never perform open water? More open water training has got to be the key for you I think. No time to dwell on it mate, suck it up and move on. Good luck with the rest of the season mate.
Ditto what Daz said.
Just out of curiousity what was your swim time?
Swim was 15:40 I think. Oops! Just back from open water swim training!
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