Today was a typical ironman training day. I got in a 5 1/2 mile hilly run, with the goal of not pushing too hard, but certainly not going too easily. Considering that my run had plenty of climbing, averaging under 10 minute pace was a positive sign. I then went to the pool and wasn't sure what I'd do, just that I'd get in volume. After warming up with drills, I realized that I was just swimming slowly today. Some days are like that, so I used today as an opportunity to do something in the pool that I often talk about when running. Just move forward. I actually ended up doing two 1000 yard sets where I just focused on my form and staying consistent. While I've had faster days, today was interesting.
I realized that while my pace was a little on the slow side (1:50/100 yards), once again, I felt like I could have swam forever at this pace. That is to say, todays swim wasn't really fatiguing to me. In fact, whatever fatigue I had today, was probably due to the run. Running always takes more out of you. The good thing is that I know that I will have faster days in the pool and I also know that come race day, when I'm fresh, I'll definitely swim to my potential. In the meantime, it's actually really good practice to swim long on a day like this. It really forced me to focus on my stroke and not waste any needless energy or speed.
Timing the hand entry and pull are important factors. As my swim coach has pointed out, and I've read about before, is that not having both hands in the front quadrant together will inevitably slow you down. I may have to go back and look at underwater swim videos to get this in my head, but I felt like I was feeling it during todays swim, albeit a little slower than I would have liked. The fun part about ironman training is that it's not really about speed, it's about putting one foot in front of the other and one arm in front of the other.
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