Review: Triweaver

Site: Triweaver

Score: 97: Practically perfect in every way*.

* It's impossible for me to be objective, but I'll try!

This 'review' is going to be a departure from the others, in that I created Triweaver as my own answer to all of the criteria I was looking for in a training planner. I'm going to take each element as an opportunity to talk about what went into the process of creating it, and still try to give it a score as objectively as possible. Making Triweaver has been a lot of fun, and I'm really hoping others find it as useful as I do! I'm excited to launch it as a free alternative to what's out there, and my hope is that a community grows around it to help it improve over time.

Again, as objectively as possible I tried to score it and came up with a 97, with the major deduction coming from not doing imports of files in the 'traditional' way, but I'll explain that later. I feel Triweaver competes nicely with the current offerings, and is structured in a way that it can scale\extend rapidly based on feedback from users. I intend to keep it free for users, and will (hopefully) move towards a banner ad revenue model, so what's currently blank space on the sides and bottom will - over time - become ads for triathlon products we triathletes care about. I'm looking at alternative revenue sources as well, such as rewards for continued usage, referral rewards, etc, but I just don't see charging users ever in the future. However, if the community says they believe differently (can't see anyone asking for people to take their money, but I could be proven wrong!), then I'll change accordingly.

I've been using Triweaver for my own training and planning for the last 6 or so months, and I find logging on often, getting emails daily, and making decisions based on my data is logical, quick, and pleasant using this tool. The goal has always been to create something of worth, not to scrape money from coaches and athletes, and I think by following that principle it will grow into something valuable, if it isn't already.

My last comment before launching into the review is that it's my intent to make the user interface open source, allowing the tech-savvy engineer athletes of the world who stumble upon Triweaver to extend it in ways I haven't thought of.

OK, let's get going!

Layout (25)

• Logical Flow: After registering and entering the site, you come to a screen to define your profile and your data hookups, the life blood behind Triweaver. As you come to learn, there's no way to import files into Triweaver, as it relies on what I call 'data stores' to function. A data store is - at press time - a Garmin Connect, Suunto Movescount, Trainerroad, and Strava, although also on the roadmap are MapMyFitness, TrainingPeaks, and RunKeeper. More on this later in the 'Device Store Connectivity' section. After defining your data relationships, you have tabs for Activities, Analyzing, Scheduling, Profile, Sync, Social, and Help. I'd like to think these are pretty logical, and that you can find the things you expect to find behind the tabs you think they should be associated with.
• Feature Location: Again, some thought and several iterations went into how many tabs and where to put things, so hopefully users find what they are looking for with less than a couple of clicks. The guiding principal was to keep things simple, uncluttered, and present as much functionality as possible given what triathletes are looking for.
• Feel: A lot of the functionality from a click, point, and styling perspective is a result of using the Twitter Bootstrap framework, a popular (for a good reason) standard used in web development these days. Bootstrap solves a lot of cross-browser and mobile conversion issues without any meddling, which is both convenient and cool. While Triweaver isn't the pinnacle of web design by any means, it should feel sturdy, but light.
• Performance\responsiveness: In beta, I had the site hosted on a dollar-store provider, and it felt sluggish. It's now hosted on Amazon's AWS platform, and it's pretty snappy. AWS also gives Triweaver the opportunity to scale without changing hosts, a nice promise.
• Mobile conversion: While the aforementioned Bootstrap framework takes care of a lot of this stuff for you, I also spent some time making sure displays that made sense converted and ones that didn't condensed down to something that did make sense. In some cases, that meant truncating columns off tables, but I was careful to not remove functionality. As the saying goes, I 'ate my own dog food' for months here, and did a lot of my daily interaction with Triweaver on my Apple iPhone 4s. If I felt something was missing or difficult, I'd fix it or move it until it made better sense.
• Creating a plan: This is the real main point of Triweaver, and it's split into three distinct parts. 
• First, creating a workout - workouts are expressed as intervals in percentages of your personal bests, as opposed to distinct paces. For example in Triweaver you would say 'do 5 minutes at 75%' rather than 'do 5 minutes at 8:00/mile'. The percentages are applied against your personal best on the day you do them, and your personal bests are automatically culled from your trailing three months of data. This is a subtle, but important facet of Triweaver - by only looking at 3 months at a time, it forces you to test your paces on at least a quarterly basis. If you don't use it, you lose it! Special consideration is paid to swim workouts, which are expressed in yards or meters instead of time. 
• The second part is to organize the planned workouts in weeks. These weeks can then be applied into the third part...
• Scheduling weeks, which you can do out into the future as far as you'd like. The paces themselves won't be 'activated' until the day you do the workout, so you're afforded a lot of flexibility in terms of how you plan. You can re-use the same week's plan months at a time and have it be viable over that period, as opposed to editing the paces and times manually as your paces change.
• Creating a workout: I tried to make this simple and self explanatory, based on intervals and percentages. Hopefully users find it to be as easy and painless as I do. You can also edit and copy existing workouts, which makes creating variations of a single workout easier, if that's your flavor.

Score: In many ways I did this series as a way to figure out what I was doing myself with Triweaver, and this scoring template became my way to keep myself honest. I'd give it 25 points here, trying to be objective, while still realizing I have a natural bias. 

Analysis Tools (20)

• Charts are time variable: Yep, you can vary the number of months worth of data you're looking at.
• Heart Rate:  I'll be honest, I have never reached for this chart, and didn't include it. I did include an alternative - Time at Load - that to me, expresses the same concept in a way that actually makes sense to me. If I get a request to add a heart rate chart I will, but I'll let the market dictate its importance. If people feel differently, let me know!
• Fatigue vs. Freshness: Yep. 
• Duration: Yep
• Distance: Yep
• Zones: Nope, for the same reason as heart rate. If I hear it's important I'll add it, but I never cared. Sure, to some extent Triweaver is an extension of how I and those I have worked with train, why shouldn't it be? :)
• Personal best calculation: Again, as a backbone of Triweaver, this is present.
• Zone calculation: There's a tool to do this with resting heart rate and max heart rate on your profile page, but it isn't 'sticky', meaning it's not saved with your profile. If anyone asks for heart rate charts, it's simple enough to save these values and create charts based on them.

Score: If I'm trying to be subjective, I would remove 5 points for the 'missing' tools and score this a 15. 

Activity Detail display (10)

• Time analysis –  Yep
• Maps - Yep
• Overlays – yep

Score: It's there - so a 10 -, and a note - Triweaver doesn't *store* the gps or series data, it fetches it from the data store when requested. I've toyed with the idea of simply providing links to the original data instead (in a separate tab), and I'm of two minds about it presently. I'll be listening carefully to feedback to see what people prefer. 

Coaching features: (15)

• Follow athletes – Yes, you can follow athletes and connect in coach mode, which allows your coach to schedule workouts for you, view your results, etc. You can even have multiple coaches!
• Provide feedback– You can send messages to your friends/athletes. I think eventually I'll replace the messaging with email, but I'll let users decide how that should work.
• Scheduling tie in - you have the full ability to schedule workouts for your athletes, as well as view their results and charts

Score: I'd give Triweaver full points  - 15 -here, this was a big part of the design.,

Device Store Connectivity (15)

• Garmin - Yep, although it bears mention Triweaver is not an 'official' partner of Garmin. Triweaver uses the same sync mechanism that tapiriik.com uses, an open source way of connecting to Garmin Connect via http and cookies. If at some point Garmin decouples their api completely from their website, this will cease to work, at which point I'll ask the community to help me raise money to pay for the exorbitant API key - a $5K investment.
• Suunto - Yep, and it's official, Triweaver is partnered with Suunto. It's no secret I'm a big fan of Suunto, and I look forward to doing a lot of work with them moving forward, including pushing workouts into Movescount and integrating with their recovery calculator, a very cool feature.
• Strava –Yep, and since it's open, it will stay in place as long as Strava keeps it there.

Score: I'd give Triweaver extra points if I could for connecting with Trainerroad, a tool that a lot of triathletes use, but no extra points were given to others, so that's unfair. 15.

As demand warrants it from user feedback, I'd like to also add Under Armour\Map My Fitness, RunKeeper, and Training Peaks to the mix here. If there's others that are of interest to users, I'll look into those as well.

Import (10)

•  Manual entry - nope
• .fit –nope
•  .tcx – nope

Score: I'm forced to give Triweaver no points here, because it doesn't import anything, it simply connects to your data provider. Being a data store adds a significant layer of complexity, in that you have to encrypt a bunch more stuff to ensure privacy, add export features so users can get their data back out, and your database has to be a LOT bigger. There's no small investment to get these features done right, and I made a conscious decision to leave that to the Suuntos and Garmins of the world. No points for Triweaver, but I feel this was the right decision. You can import your files to Garmin, Suunto, and Strava and they will import just fine to Triweaver. 

Help (5):

• Well written: I'm no English major, but I think I got the point across. The same help chapters are located under "?" buttons where they apply, as well as from within a dedicated help section.
• Clear term definition: I made a concerted effort to explain what Load means, how it's calculated for Triweaver, and what the Load vs. Recovery chart means. Hopefully I hit the mark.

Score: I'd like to think a 5 is in order here.

Extra features (bonus, 2 points each)

• Email reminders – workouts: yep, if you want em, just check the box in your profile settings.
• Email reminders – equipment : yep, if you want em, just check the box in your profile settings.
• Workout text messages – nope, but I'd like to. This requires profiles to have your wireless provider and phone number, which is more of a security concern than anything else. If\when I move to a more robust server, this is something I'll be investigating.
• Sync with online calendars : yep, via iCal, which works with Google, Apple, and Outlook.
• Allow messages with other athletes: yep
• Allow tracking of consumables –yep, pretty standard stuff, except it automatically calculates usage as opposed to you having to choose what gear to apply. 
• Metric\imperial conversions\Time zone\Clock\Calendar: Yep, actually the time zone is determined by your log on location, derived from your browser.

Score: This is easy to be objective about, 12 points

Race Report: HITS Hunter half iron

I got up at 4:30 for a 7:00 am start, had my packet already, just needed to get there (15 min away, I stayed locally) and set up. I downed a protein bar and a Clif bar with some Gatorade, vowing not to eat again until the race to give my stomach a break. I'd also eaten an early and light dinner of a sandwich the night before, really didn't want GI Joe showing up uninvited.

It was a frosty 42 degrees at transition, and I mulled around in jeans and a hoodie to stay warm. I gave the power meter one last try to pair to the Joule, but it seems I was out of batteries on the PowerTap and it wasn't going to happen. Bummer, so much for the power plan, have to ride on feel. I'd seen the course by car the day before and knew it was pretty much down a screamer, then up the same, which I'm used to on the commute course to work. I felt like if I kept it going hard on the downhills, I could pace the rollers and ascents fine.

Swim time! The water was comparably warm, and perfect for racing. The RD (a great guy) led a prayer on the beach, and off we went. I had what felt like a 90% great swim, there were a couple of points where I lost form, but I gained it back. We lost probably a good 2 minutes on the funkiness of the course - get out after the first lap, run down the beach and go back in navigating over some nasty large and jagged rocks. Once swimming, all is well. Popped out and heard 9th out...which was great. Granted, this was a small field, but I knew I had swam well. A guy who had been tickling my feet the whole time thanked me and commented how powerful my kick was, and thought that was a great swim time. Again, I'll take it! Thanks buddy, way to hang behind that two beater! Up the hill and over the mat, I put the swim at about 30 minutes less the weirdness, which is perfect. The buddy's watch confirmed the pace later. Sweet!

Arm warmers on and dried off as much as possible to prepare for a freezefest. I was concerned that I hadn't been able to find my flat kit and was just praying nothing would flat or my day would be over. Fortunately, no bad luck. However, it was COLD. And then the wind started. Oh the wind. It blew in your face on the way up the starter hill, to the side on the way down it, then in your face again (what?) on the way back up. The side wind made me chuck my plan to hammer on the way down, it just didn't feel stable enough. I passed and then was passed by the eventual 2nd place finisher, and given the wind I didn't feel I could chase him down without burning matches I didn't have for the run. I really wanted to nail the run to the wall. I hunted down a rider in Plattsville town, and chatted with him a bunch, another benefit of a lonely ride - no refs. He had the same plan, nail the run. Nice guy. We finished the bike within seconds of each other and left for the run. His brother shouted at him to run a 1:25, which I fessed up immediately was not in my wheelhouse. I told him to take off.

OK, so the run. I couldn't feel my feet, but fine, who cares. I started out. The plan was to relax - sing some Bon Iver to myself, and keep my pace low to start - around 8:30 to 9:00 even. Assuming I could settle in and not freak, start increasing the pace at 1 to 1.5 miles and then lay it down. What can I say, I did just that. I stopped at each aid station for flat coke, but quickly. A whizz at about mile 8 to notr be distracted. A brief, :30 walk over a very rocky portion of the short foot trail to not risk twisting a foot or aggravating an ITB. Other than that....I did it. My best half mary on a HIM, a 1:49. Deep bow. I coasted in what I thought was 7th overall, found out the next day it was 6th. Won my age group handily.

Again, not a deep field, but I know it was a solid effort. In a deeper field I would still have done well, not won the age group, but podiumed in it, no flukes. The run was the key. Was it because I didn't burn too many matches on the bike? Eh, not sure. I definitely took it easy on the bike to be conservative to the wind. I'm capable of better on the bike, but the balance in the performance has to be key. If I keep my bike fitness up, race weight down, and fight to maintain what I have in the other two, I will do well at this distance. I don't have a lot to improve on the swim or run, I don't have the physique or time for it. But I can destroy on the bike, and need to race accordingly. The longer the distance, the more I have to simply hold on the run, not chase people down. Shorter distances will be harder for me because I can't swim as fast. I have a feeling I'm going to plan next year's schedule around longer distances only. They are very fulfilling and speak to my strengths more.

A great way to end the season!

Race Report: TriFitness Norwalk Sprint

Got up around 4 for a 6:45 transition area shutdown, planning to get there at 5:45. Had a half hour ride, plus some time to pick up my buddy in town, who was going as well. Warmup was nothing special, some quick sprints up and down the sidewalk, fit test in the water with the wetsuit to get acclimated, but nothing deep. I've been wary of overdoing the warmup of late, after the cramp\tear experience in June and subsequent training.

Settled into a smooth stroke right off the bat, sighting often and staying long as I've been doing in training. The higher my turnover lately, the worse my stroke, but if I keep those points in mind, everything gets good quickly. I moved into the back of the front pack and stayed long, as others started to fade I kept moving up. Zero issues today. Could I have gone a little faster? Yes, but I was so in need of a solid swim performance this year, I just stayed in rhythm and let it go, a comfortable, all day pace of 1:35\100 yd. Hopped out, unzipped and got on the bike ready to lay it down.

Solid bike, stayed right at FTP the whole time as planned - an 11 mile bike, figured the transition would give me the recovery. Made one bad turn (overshot a right turn and had to go through a gas station), which probably cost maybe 5 seconds. Surprisingly I ended up with not the best, but the second best split on the day, behind the overall winner who I didn't know, a very strong female rider. It's not often I get caught on the bike, and it's a first for a female, and on a roadie no less. That's some serious speed, I tip my cap!

Being a sprint, I was redlining pretty hard setting out the run, and held on to a 7:20 pace as long as I could, which turned out to be a mile, at which point I had to settle down for 50 yards before setting out again at a lower pace. At this point I was in 2nd overall as far as I knew, as I hadn't seen any women yet. I burned a lot of matches on the bike and the transition was not enough recovery, and I was paying for it. 3rd OA came up and hung with me a bit before motoring on - I wasn't going to get him - and I saw the two women leaders, including a friend, an ex ITU pro. The one in front was looking very strong and was clearly going to pass me, and in some quick calculation I figured out I was out of the top 3 at this point and wasn't going to get it back....going for the AG win. The course afforded me a long look at the competition and I was several minutes ahead of any in the group, so I stayed easy and finished well within myself. Handily took the AG and sixth overall! My best AG finish to date, albeit in a sparsely attended race, but a win is a win.

Even more good stuff, my buddy surprised himself with a personal best and took home his first podium finish, which elated him enormously. Great to see the sport take root in a good friend!

If I'd dialed it back a tad on the bike I could have run a bit stronger, but it's a trade I won't make. I can make up too much time on a bike that I can give back on the run. The only thing I can do is what I have been - get the bike as dominant as possible and continue to increase my bike threshold to give myself more cushion to get to my run pace with matches to burn. Swim is building well towards Hunter, I'll continue the build for the next 3 weeks and be at peak.

Race Report:Mighty Moss Half Iron

I wasn't sure what to expect coming into this race, both because I wasn't sure my calf would hold up after ripping it up a few weeks ago, and because I'd lost fitness accordingly not being able to do much of anything since the injury. I hadn't put nearly any time in the water, and I knew my swim was not going to be very good. I decided on a plan to swim VERY easy, bike to where I felt like I was going strong but not chunking the run, and do whatever I could on the run, being sensitive to my calf. Thankfully, everything went according to plan.

I swam well within myself, not worried about time at all, just being steady. I was deeply paranoid about cramps, and started very wide to give myself clear water. The first half mile went by without issue, but I was chafing on the neck, so I stopped for a moment to fix the velcro. I really didn't care about time! Once fixed, I felt like it was time to give it a better go, and swam a bit harder to finish off. Coming out of the water, I heard several comments that the course was long, some said 1.4, another said 1.3. The RD said it measured 1.2 even from triangle to triangle, which means I was a dope for swimming the second turn with the sighting buoys to my right unnecessarily (well, that WAS the instruction, but it wasn't a requirement!), probably added the additional 200m. I came out of the water feeling absolutely fine, so I counted it as a victory.

I rode strong, but not hard, focusing on keeping my power around 80-85%. I still didn't trust my calf, despite a couple of good rides. The first 16 miles are a steady climb, followed by rolling hills, a few longer climbs, then the descent back the same way. I passed my way to my 'normal' slot near the front and stayed true, picking the riders I was matched with and pacing accordingly. The calf felt ok, but my quads were starting to bark. Eh, that's a half for you.

Came into transition, slapped on the shoes, belt and visor, off we go. I ran fine for the first mile or so, but could tell there were some cramps trying to bubble out. I took the conservative route and switch to a walk :30\run 5 plan, which I did for most of the run, save for the last mile, which I ran through. It wasn't a great run, but I stayed focused despite not having my legs beneath me. I never fully cramped, which I'm happy with, but I also feel like I was digging as far down as I had in me that day. Psychologically, I knew it was a hard day for everyone - I knew from the bike turnaround and from a quick count in transition I was roughly in the 20s overall coming off the bike, and I was passed by a few on the run, but nothing crushing - all confirmed at the end to find I was 29th overall. The surprise was I also managed 3rd in the age group, which was a little tough to stomach.

My overall time was slower than last year by over 15 minutes, of which almost all was the swim. The takeaways are nothing groundbreaking - I need to put in the time swimming to have a good split. Duh, I'm actually happy I didn't try to go harder than I was capable of. Riding, I don't have any lessons, I was nervous about pushing harder and aggravating the injury, and my split was strong regardless. Fully healthy, I would easily have turned in a better ride. Running - I don't think I made the wrong choice about how I ran. Without the time off I *probably* would have been able to run the whole time, but it's so hard to say. Halfs are NOT easy. I'll try again next year (maybe even this year if I can find one that makes sense for me) and keep trying to improve. Last year I lost focus on the run and mailed it in for the last 6 miles, which I didn't come close to this time. I'm proud of this one, I gave it everything I had.

The Self Examined Swimmer Part III:

Be Excellent To Each Other, and Party On, Dude

Quick recap. If you’re here, you've hopefully read Part I and Part II of the series, leaving you with both a revelation (that you’re a swimmer, and not a hack) and a plateau (you’re good! But you don’t think you’re excellent). So we sit on the plateau.

The view is nice here. Heck, I could sit here happily. From here, I swim well, certainly well enough that I would never dare say my swim hurts my chances at performing well in a race. There are many excellent triathletes that win regularly who sit on this plateau with us. Again, nice view. I’ll share a story while we bask in the view.

If you've never had the pleasure of a deep water start to a race, I’d recommend seeking one out. They’re unique, in that when the gun goes off, there’s some decent spacing between the athletes already, and the washing machine effect is somewhat mitigated, allowing everyone to slip into a more natural rhythm and have a better swim. At one particular deep water start I was in, we all fanned out across the ‘line’ (it’s all kind of imaginary in the water, and nobody can stop you if you cross the line early anyway, it’s on your honor), and awaited the horn. Jokes were made about the cold water and mysterious warm pockets, whether or not we lubed properly, etc. All was well in the triathlon universe. The horn sounds and off we go. Normally I’ll sight every 10 or so strokes, and dutifully did so at about that time. I came up to peek and saw several swimmers about 50 yards ahead. I’m not exaggerating to make the story better, this was shocking – we started swimming about 20 seconds earlier and they were FAR ahead of me. A glance to my left and right on the next sight assured me I wasn't towing an anchor – I was in the front of the middle, but these dudes were porpoises disguised in neoprene and swim caps. How the heck were they doing that?

Well after the race I reviewed the splits of the day and cordoned off the top 10 or so guys in the wave I witnessed firsthand. For a 1500 meter swim (Olympic distance), the average porpoise swam just about 21 minutes. Not too shabby. That’s roughly a 1:17\100 yard pace. Leave current out of the conversation, and for the sake of argument let’s user the rule of thumb that a wetsuit gives you a 5 second per 100 yard advantage. Five seconds off 1:17 is 1:22 per 100 yards. Hey wait, that’s almost you, the article reader! But truth time, with the occasional sighting issues that pop up, that pace is probably even faster in reality. Why the heck did they go out so fast? What’s going on here?

Back to the porpoises. They were way out in front, seemingly almost immediately. There is, of course, only one way to pull that off, and that’s to swim fast right from the get go. This is where we use ourselves as a science project again. HOW FAST IS FAST? Good question, if you ask me. If you jump in the pool and I told you to swim your absolute fastest, what would happen? What distance would you ask to swim? 25? 50? Would you give me a blazing length followed by a flagging second, then stop after 50? Would you go 100 yards? Would your turnover per length increase, or just the tempo? Why does any of this matter anyway?

Again, back to the porpoises. Let’s figure this out using SCIENCE, bitches.

In a pool, imagine a dude who swims 240 yards in 3:00, or a 1:10\100 yard pace. That’s damn good. Why 240? Just go with me here. Then the dude swims 28 laps at a 1:25\100 pace. A little more down to earth. We've just watched the dude swim 1640 (aka 1500 meters – I told you to stay with me!) yards in a total time of 22:30. Slap the imaginary wetsuit on this dude for the 5 second per 100 yard discount for a total time discount of 1:23…and he swam 1500 in a hair over 21 minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, your porpoise, in the lab.

Why the sprint to start off? Well, because quite frankly, this isn't the only thing you’ll be doing in a race. You want an average pace that’s fast, but you don’t want to swim the majority of the distance at that pace, or you’ll zap yourself for the bike and run. Self examination time again. How do you train yourself to do this? The 28 laps at 1:25\100 isn't a problem, you do that all the time. You have that locked in, it’s automatic, you know that pace, you have that song stuck in your head forever. If you swim a few times a week you should be able to do that easy peasy. Lemon. Squeezy. So your challenge is to

1. Go from a dead stop, warmed up heart rate to a 1:10\100 yard pace
2. Hold said pace for 4 laps (200 yards)
3. In one lap gradually slow down to 1:25\100 laps
4. Hold that pace for 14 laps.

Oh right, Bill and Ted. I promised this is about being excellent. Well, guess what, you are excellent. No, really! You have a beautiful stroke, a truly nice stroke. There’s only two things in the equation for how fast you’re swimming, and that’s distance per stroke (DPS) and stroke rate. You've done some really excellent work on DPS, so much so that it’s worth simplifying your life again and realizing that the only way you’re going to swim that 1:10\100 pace is to increase the number of strokes. That’s it. You’re going to have to push the same amount of water faster while kicking faster to keep the timing right. If you want to get better at something, you practice it.

Get that video camera out, because you will probably lose some of that beautiful graceful stroke when you start increasing your stroke and kick rate. Don’t. Just increase the rate. You could use a Finis Tempo Trainer to increase that rate, you could use a waterproof ipod and songs with a particular tempo, be creative. What you’re getting used to is your ‘top gear’, eventually to the point where you can call on it and your body will hit that tempo because it knows the feel of it. It feels GOOD to go fast, but you have to learn what it feels like and get comfortable with it. It’s not a comfortable feeling to swim that fast, but you have to get comfortable with it. Make sense? All those swim workouts you have that have interval sets on T plus 5 seconds suddenly make a whole lot of sense. Swim practice is now making sure you keep that beautiful form (yay video camera!) and getting used to a high stroke rate, and the sensation of coming out of it.

A disclaimer – this “gear” will disappear completely without regular, focused workouts to keep it in place. If you haven’t been practicing it, don’t call on it for race day, you’ll just exhaust yourself off the bat and have a bad swim. Just swim your balanced pace, and enjoy the view again.

Party on, indeed. You’re excellent,dude.

Disappointed, not discouraged. The dreaded DNF comes a-haunting...

I had my first DNF yesterday- Did Not Finish, for the uninitiated. I'm not surprised how disappointed I'm feeling, and it's not pleasant. I felt feeble, weak, and unprepared, all negative garbage my body knows I'm not, but my mind is more shot right now than my body. I'm certainly humbled.

Forgive me as I recount the morning in high detail. May it help any reader gain knowledge without experiencing it.

I rode to the race with a headlamp while it was still dark out, being that the venue is only 6 or so miles away, the hometown race. It was chilly - around 45F - but I wouldn't say it was cold. Of course, I was riding, so I didn't notice as much, I was wearing a sweater over my kit and didn't feel underdressed. The goal was to get there right as transition opened to get a good spot on the racks. For the next hour and a half though, we basically stood around. I eschewed going for a run - even though I ALWAYS go for a run, somehow rationalizing that any sweat would freeze and cause issues. Why, I don't know. This was bad decision number 1. Instead I chose to put on the wettie at half mast to stay warm, and then get in the water early to reach the same end (water was balmy in the mid 60sF). I swam a bit to get my heart rate up and gathered at the beach for the start.

My race was over literally as it began. I went to jump to start the dolphin dive and both calf muscles cramped and locked immediately. My legs were not even in the water and both legs were barking. Of course, I'd lined up in the front, preparing to draft off a buddy who I knew I could keep pace with, so I spent the next minute getting beat up as other swimmers pushed past me as I was trying to swim with absolutely no functional legs and feet I couldn't point. My left leg unwound slightly enough for me to straighten it out and at least engage in a one beat kick, but at this point I was in the middle of the pack getting clobbered. Any feet I saw I overcame with half a stroke - I was a stronger swimmer than any of the folks I was around at this point - and so I couldn't get out of the melee. I tried several times to veer to the edge, but ended up swimming over another pair of feet to do so, making matters worse. All the while, the right calf is still locked and I am starting to realize this is going to be a bad day. Still, I pushed on. I rounded the last buoy and took 5 seconds to collect myself and try to shake off the juju. I couldn't get the cramp out, and did the best I could to swim out the rest using nothing but arms. The clock on the beach greeted me with a miserable 15 minutes on exit, and coupled with the pain that was grabbing me, I was starting to feel defeated.

I hobbled down to transition and tried to get the wettie off, but of course since I couldn't point my toes on one foot, it didn't work out so well. A friend volunteering saw the pain that on my face and encouraged me to try and walk it off, which I did indeed try. I have no idea how long I spent in transition, I'd guess 3 or 4 minutes at least. Finally, convincing myself that I could somehow shake this off with a good bike, I unclipped the shoes and rubber bands, hobbled out to the mount line and tried to ride. This was bad decision number 2.

The first mile was agony. I couldn't push at all. The meter said my biggest thrust was around 225W...I did what I could and shifted to a small gear and started spinning through it. I have no idea how many people passed me between transition and this mile, but it was a lot. I hit a descent and said screw it, I don't care how much this hurts, everyone hurts. This was bad decision number 3. However, for the next 30 minutes, it felt genius. I shrugged off pain like I have so many times in training and lit the course up. I passed anyone I could see, breaking hearts and crushing dreams. Then I started passing people I knew...from my wave. I'm not a scientist, but I put together how fast I was actually going, and rationalized that I may had actually put myself back in the race. I came down the last descent and saw the lead runners - knowing they were only at most 3 minutes ahead of me. However, on the same descent I tried to stretch out the right calf against the pedal and


SLICE


it felt like someone had stabbed me in the leg. I made the decision right there, the only good one I made, to resign the race. I rolled down to the dismount area, and had to ask for assistance to get off the bike - I couldn't move the leg at all by this point.

The doctor I visited afterwards felt around and decided he felt no deep tears, but of course prescribed a slow and strict rehab. He suggested that if it didn't start to recover or worsen in a couple of days, I should seek an MRI, but he was reasonably confident that it was simply a bad cramp that got worse, and that the damage I did was to try to push through it. He felt the lack of warmup was the culprit, didn't suspect hydration issues, kept coming back to the contrasting temperatures and sudden start. Everything he said was thoughtful and deliberate, and I thank him for his professionalism and attention.

A friend graciously offered to give me a ride home, which he did after sticking around the award ceremony. Many friends asked what had happened, and I did my best to keep the story short and keep the attention on their accomplishments, where it belonged. Nobody needs to hear a sob story while they're receiving an award for a job well done.

My father and I spoke later, and he recalled a sermon he had heard that morning discussing the difference between disappointment and discouragement. How fitting! I feel the former, deeply looking forward to my next chance to train and race and achieve what I am capable of. However, in the meantime I can't describe what I'm feeling as anything other than anger and depression- I simply didn't perform, and the reasons were within my control. Discouraged would mean I don't want to race again...something I can't imagine feeling right now. Right now I want to lay the Wrath of God on the next course I see.

Great picture from last year

Taken by Gus Ellison prior to the Mossman sprint in Norwalk, 2013

The Self Examined Swimmer Part II:The Road to Good : Becoming Your Own Science Project

In part one of this series, you left behind Adult Onset Swimmers Anonymous and started swimming in clearer waters. Well, maybe not clearer, since the average rec center\YMCA pool is over-chlorinated and full of...er...yeah, maybe we shouldn't focus on that so much. Let's leave it at "I'm glad I'm fit and healthy and have such a strong immune system to fend off anything".

Have a good look in the proverbial mirror and look at your stroke. Look at it! Wait, you can't? On the bike, you have a speedometer, cadence sensor, possibly a heart rate sensor, maybe a power meter. On the run you have a stopwatch, maybe a pace watch, GPS, heart rate, elevation, calorie counter. You use these tools to create workouts that focus on areas that require improvement, plan a schedule that includes these workouts, and over time you see improvements. In the pool you have...a stop watch? A method to count laps? Your way of improving is to look at the clock and compare the last interval to the previous one, or worse yet, against some goal time you set for yourself. More symptoms of AOS Anonymous. Good news, you're not a member anymore, you're a swimmer, so the game is changing.

If you're going to get better at swimming, you're going to need a way to measure progress and a way to assess issues. You could certainly hire a coach or teacher, and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, there's a lot of great things about that, and it works for most people.  However, if you're like me (lucky you, you awesome dude!) you have a full time job that starts early, no weekday free time until about 8:30, and a weekend made up of shuttling kids to activities and taking care of the honeydew list. This schedule doesn't jive with any of the coaches in my area, so I was forced to be my own coach. How? Well, that's the point of the article.

Punch onto Amazon.com and buy yourself a handheld waterproof video camera. There are several models available for well under $100. That's less than the price of a coach and I promise will be as valuable to you as anything you've ever bought for triathlon. Now hop over to Wal-Mart or Target and get a suction cupped plastic soap dish for a couple of bucks. This is your camera mount. I made a cutout in the bottom of the soap dish that allowed me to squeeze my camera in there and hold it in place. Use the suction cups to mount your rig to the pool lane wall. Congratulations, you now have the ability to assess your stroke. I'll bet your stroke doesn't look like you thought it did, does it?

You tell me what your average (not your sprint) time is and we'll figure out what to look for in your video. Paging the Amazing Kreskin...

1:30-2:00\100 yards:

Good news first, which is that there is some low hanging fruit on your stroke tree. MOST likely is that it's all coming from lifting your head when you breathe, which is the lynchpin to a whole mess of issues. You can see that you lift your head when you breathe in your video pretty easily...just note if both goggles come out of the water and you can see both your cheeks clearly. If this is the problem, you are causing a lot of issues for yourself...you're pressing down on the water (as opposed to catching and pulling it) to lift your head, which is sinking your legs, flaring your chest, over-accentuating your roll, and slowing you down. It's like raising a sail off your head blowing you in the opposite direction you're trying to swim in. You need balance! The balance we're talking about here is fore\aft balance, specifically meaning you are higher with your chest than you are with your legs. Some call this 'sinking legs', and you hear a lot of cyclists with enormous calves and quads blaming their poor swim on their big legs. Okay, I'll grant you there are some people with chicken bones that can lay on their back in the water and have their legs float with ease, but the majority can't. There's two ways to get your legs up to the surface. One is to wear a wetsuit. That's not a bad solution, but it's not THE solution. THE solution is to learn to kick properly.  A wetsuit is not THE solution, because you are leaving a lot on the table - namely speed, timing, body position, endurance...you get the point. Someone who can swim fast in a pool without a wetsuit can swim faster with a wetsuit. Why compromise?

There are three distinct flavors of the freestyle kick, the two beat, four beat, and six beat, with a beat referring to how many single foot kicks there are in a two arm stroke cycle. Drills? Nope, just grab a kickboard and start kicking. It may be exhausting at first, but you'll slowly work up to doing 200 yards and have something moderately propulsive. It may take a while, but it's a prerequisite to integrating it into your stroke. Integrating a non-propulsive kick that exhausts you physically is pointless to work with. Don't go on until you have a propulsive kick that you can hold for a long time.

Once you have a kick, I think it makes sense to start with the two beat kick, because the timing is very deliberate. I've seen two different explanations for the timing, debated by some very good swimmers on both sides. One view says you kick as you spear with your opposite arm. The other view says you kick on the same side as the arm pointed straight down in the middle of the pull. You could look at that and say they're essentially the same thing, and that's not untrue either. Whatever works, the point is that the kick is part of the timing mechanism for the body..

The four beat kick is really more of a drill, because it's not a balanced kick. It teaches your body independence, but it's hard to maintain for distance because it negates a lot of the roll. If you think about it logically, you kick twice per arm - meaning whichever foot starts first will always be kicking as you start your spear, regardless of the side. It's worth learning and mastering though, because the more things you can do with your body in the water, the better swimmer you are.

The six beat kick is the most common kick pattern, because the body sort of does it naturally after you learn proper kick timing. You may equate it to a flutter kick, but it's not quite the same thing - a flutter kick has no specific timing to it, it's just move the feet as fast as you can. The start of the cycle is the same as the two beat kick, and has a waltz feel to it - ONE two three, ONE two three. If you're musically inclined, this can be really fun to do, just pick a song that has this time signature and sing it in your head while you go.

Once the kick is truly integrated into your stroke, you'll notice that magically, your legs don't sink any more. Amazing, huh? With non sinking legs, it's much easier to maintain proper head position, looking down and rolling one goggle out of the water quietly to breathe. You can now easily swim 1:30/100 yards without trying really hard. You're starting to get good!

1:20-1:30\100 yards

This is the range I began to call 'death by a thousand pin pricks'. There are no more BIG changes or flaws in your stroke, but there are many very little things that add up to something noticeable. No one thing, when corrected will make a consistent improvement, so it's difficult to tell when you've actually done anything - which is why now, more than even before, you need that video camera.  You should be looking for all the little things that you know you should and shouldn't do...

• head down
• a full stroke, finishing at the back
• no flaring of the head or hands
• quiet, quick arm entry on recovery
• even, non hurried breathing with quiet head turn
• no crossing the center line
• good streamline
• hips high
• no snaking of the body
• a kick size no bigger than your shoulder width

Of course, there is a gorilla in the room, and that's a strong, early catch. There are myriad articles, books and videos dedicated to the topic that put it out of scope to discuss here, but suffice to say it's extremely important. What you're eventually going to end up with is a full body stroke that has no dead points, just an even distribution of propulsion.

Better than 1:20?

You know what, get out of here. You now have a great tool with the video camera, but you don't belong in this article. Skip to Part 3, please, we'll see you there. And shame on you for calling your stroke lousy if you're swimming 1:20\100Y, you're just fishing for complements. I bet you think your 320W FTP and 6:30 marathon pace are pretty lousy, too, huh? I don't suppose your last name is 'Carfrae' or 'Alexander', is it? MmmKay? Move along.

The Last Paragraph

Ok, if you've made it here, you're now swimming somewhere between 1:20-1:30\100 yards. If you're not, go back to the chart above,  find your pace, and work on that stuff until you move up to the last category. Now you, my friend, are definitely, unarguably, 'Good'. Congratulations! Go out there and take your well earned place among the front of the pack at most -if not all- of the events you participate in. Well, the middle of the front of the pack, or the MOFOP (how stupid are the acronyms in triathlon??!). The FOFOP are pretty 'Excellent', and they are still faster than you. The good news is you might already BE excellent and not know it, but you'll have to read Part 3 of the series to find out what the heck I'm talking about. Stay tuned!

The Self Examined Swimmer Part I: The First Step is Admitting You (Don't) Have A Problem

Have you ever heard the term "adult onset swimmer"? The way it's worded I think it's supposed to imply that swimming is some sort of affliction brought on by age, and if you listen to most swimming adults complain about how 'lousy' they are, you'd be hard pressed to disagree. I imagine a room full of adults in swimwear sitting a church assembly room somewhere solemnly standing up and saying something like this:

"Hi, my name is Dave, and I've been swimming lousy for 5 years."

"Hi, Dave," says the room full of swimmers.

"I joined Adult Onset Swimmer Anonymous, after I started swimming in triathlons. When I started swimming, I did it just to get to the bike, and could barely make it across a pool..."

I'll stop, because most of you could probably fill in the story from there. By my estimation, adults who swim regularly are either part of a masters group, a triathlete, or both, which I'll bucket as a master for purposes of delineation. Among triathletes, most say they swim 'lousy', with the definition of 'lousy' being anyone who believes they swim 'slowly', which is to say they don't swim as fast as the folks at the front in a given race. This is of course a poor interpretation of statistics - show me the 'slowest' Olympic runner and I'll show you a pretty speedy individual - but when we're talking about triathletes (which we are) then we're talking about people that don't settle for adequacy if they see room for improvement. If you're coming out in the back of the pack, then the prescription is simple...just swim more. Really. You'll get to the middle that way. Come back and finish this article after you've been swimming for a while. Still here? Ok, if you're regularly competing in triathlons, you're not slow, you're pretty darn fit, and you're among a very small group of people who use a pool for fitness. Be proud of that, and try to realize you're a swimmer, not just a triathlete who happens to swim. Let's leave behind the term 'lousy' , replace it with 'adequate', and get to defining 'good' and 'excellent'. Deep breath. Feel better? Now that you're a swimmer, let's talk.

If you swim adequately, you're swimming the crawl the entire distance of the races you race and come out somewhere in the middle of the pack. I'm going to channel the Amazing Kreskin...something's coming to me...you've figured out a stroke you call 'It' that has the following traits:

1. You can 'settle into It' pretty quickly
2. It doesn't require a lot of training to maintain
3. It sees a noticeable benefit from both a wetsuit or a pull buoy
4. It doesn't tax you tremendously
5. It falls somewhere between 1:40 and 2:00 per 100 yards in a pool, not including flip turns since you don't do flip turns!

Did I get it right? Creepy? Those are the characteristics of the middle of the pack in a triathlon. That's adequate, by every measure of the word. There are some very good triathletes with an adequate stroke that win their age groups, and occasionally place overall, owing to a strong bike and run.

Here's where some people stop the conversation, using the rationale that it takes a lot of time to improve your swim, and the yield for that work isn't high enough to make it worth it. These people make up the population of that AOS Anonymous meeting, and it's the source of the misery in the room. The argument sounds something like, "In order to become a better swimmer, I'll have to swim at least 3 hours a week or more, which is a lot of time that isn't worth it. If I take the same time and bike or run, I'll improve more there. It's not worth it to work on the swim." Such misery.  I disagree completely, and here's why; In a sprint distance, improving your stroke to 1:30 per 100 yards from 1:40 per 100 will yield 1:28 over a half mile distance (obviously half that for a quarter mile distance, depending on your race). Let's say you put that same amount of work into the bike and improved your FTP from 250 to 275 watts (which is a lot!). 25 watts over 12.5 miles yields an improvement of about a minute. Let's say you dropped your run pace 30 seconds a mile (also a lot!) - that's 1:30 for a sprint. Hmm...looks like the work is worth it no matter where I put it in....interesting. I used a sprint because doubling it gives you roughly an Olympic distance measurement, but the illustration is the same.

Back to our imaginary room full of miserable adults in swimwear that don't call themselves swimmers. Leave the room. You're cured. You're a swimmer now. There's work to do, and now that you have the right mindset, you can get it done. In the next article, ' The Road to Good : Becoming Your Own Science Project', we'll discuss how to self-diagnose our stroke and self-prescribe the work necessary to improve it, and we'll cap it off with an examination of Bill and Ted's philosophical masterpiece, 'Be Excellent To Each Other, and Party On, Dude'. 

Rest, young lad

Being on vacation for a week, I took a week off from any workouts. I wasn't lazy, and did a fair amount of walking, but I gave my body a chance to rest. I'm an idiot. Every time I rest I come back to swimming, biking, and running and remark to myself, "Self, you're quite a bit stronger!". Duh. In preparation for the Mighty Cow next week, I plan on not running a lot. I'll swim instead and eat sparingly. I look at the schedule I'd concocted for myself for the iron distance I was previously planning, and it stands out starkly how little rest I was giving myself. A 'rest' week was 8 hours of training, as opposed to 12-18. I was driving myself into a wall!

April showers

The weather is finally nice enough to run outside, and I've been taking full advantage. I have trouble breathing in the cold, and I just arbitrarily decided not to bother running outside unless it's above 50 degrees. Seems to work. All the treadmill work seems to have been worth it again, and I'm bounding around quicker than last year at this time. I'm still not a great runner, and likely never will be given my frame, but I don't need to make any excuses any more. I've been running for 4 years now, and I actually enjoy it, which of course means I've gotten better at it.

Played around with the bike and switched saddles back to my Profile Design Tri Stryke. Felt faster, so I tested it...yeah, it is, about 10 watts so, owing to there being no pain in the groin from the Adamo. I have traded the Road model with another guy for the Prologue model, which is narrower - I'll see if that makes it better. Otherwise, I'll take the occasional numbness for the otherwise very comfortable saddle that wasn't really broken in the first place.

Swimming has been fun lately, I'm thrilled with the Vendetta, which I tried out in the pool the other night and promptly ripped out a few 1:10 100scy reps. Yikes, that's fantastic. I need to do some more work with the pull buoy apparently! The gain shouldn't be *that* dramatic. Not that I'm complaining, I never thought I'd see that time on my watch after a 100. I'm having an internal debate now about Roka Sim shorts, instead of the pull buoy, just so I can keep kicking and not stress the groin muscles when using it. Probably an excessive solution to a small problem, I'm better off just continuing on with what I've been doing, which seems to be working.

Getting antsy to start racing and putting it all together again.

Sour grapes and lemonade from lemons

'Oh you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.'

And so I won't be making an attempt at an Ironman distance this year. My buddy is returning to the workplace after a three year hiatus, and with it goes the opportunity for me to pile the hours on necessary to rise to the task. That sounds like a load of hooey. She pointed this out by saying, "I wasn't staying at home so you could do an Ironman". Indeed, not.

I was starting to really tire of the training as well. Working out twice a day was becoming a routine, and had come to the point where I didn't want to do much of anything. Long runs had become a chore and logistics issue, the bike a way to burn hours without joy, and swimming...well, I still like swimming. The more I read, the more it seemed I was turning a blind eye to the dark side of the Ironman, leaving athletes beaten and uninterested in riding or running for months afterwards. The statistics showing that Ironman athletes have higher divorce rates. The sign my friend jokingly posted to me on Facebook that said 'If your relationship is still working, you didn't train hard enough'. No, it isn't going to happen this year, it is clear.

Part of me is saddened, part of me is greatly relieved. I can race sprints and olympics, and even halfs. That is great fun. I wouldn't be racing an Ironman, I'd be surviving it. Not sure that sounds like fun. I know I will make it, that wasn't the question. It seems that question, however, drives most people who attempt the race, and makes them enormously happy. Surviving - at least to me - isn't an accomplishment. You can do that in myriad ways, some athletic and many not. Surviving a tenuous situation you put yourself into could easily be categorized as blatant stupidity. I don't survive athletics, I celebrate them. I race, and do so in celebration of life and health. Scratching the long race off the calendar and replacing it with either a half or a oly on the same weekend brings me joy. And isn't that the point? Isn't that a reversion to the path I should have been on?

Level up

I have been frustrated with my new power meter (Powertap G3) since I started using it in place of TrainerRoad's otherwise excellent Virtual Power calculator. It's largely psychological, in that my FTP is lower than VP estimated it to be, but I had been advised to expect this. However, it's still hard to stare at a power target and struggle to hit it knowing the last time you saw that number it was at a much lesser effort. The other component to my frustration is of course physical; the difference between riding at 75% and 80% FTP is no small step, and the difference between 75% and 100% FTP is a VERY large step.

I've come to understand why - with virtual power, the calculation is based on wheel speed and resistance, where speed is variable and the resistance curve is constant. While my particular trainer (CycleOps Fluid2) has a well documented sloppy curve -it's not consistent, depending on temperature - the bigger problem in my observation is from smoothness of pedal stroke. To understand this, imagine the pedal stroke split into quadrants around the crank. A single pedal stroke, for simplicity, can be though of as occupying half the circle, since the other leg begins its power stage as the one leg ends its own. Now imagine what happens with a masher, or one that creates the bulk of their power in one quadrant, as opposed to a smooth pedal stroke throughout two quadrants. If they apply, say 300W in quadrant 1, and 100 in quadrant 2, multiplied by 2 (two legs), that's an average of 200W. Let's say that makes the wheel spin at an average of 22mph. Now over to the power meter; applying 200W of consistent power only spins the wheel at 20mph. Quelle horreur! So why not just use the masher stroke?! A worthy question. Because take the bike off the trainer, and you aren't dealing with the smooth resistance of the trainer, you're dealing with wind, topography, and racing stresses. You're also making sure you don't overcook yourself on the bike (if you're a triathlete that is) so much so that you can't compete on the run. Nope, constant power is the coach in your corner...can't get away with surge pedaling. You need something measurable and repeatable.

Anyway, so back to the lab...borrowing a video game term from my kids, I 'leveled up' this weekend, and in one fell swoop seem to have increased my tolerance for lactic acid. It still kicks in at the same point, but if I stop thinking about how much things hurt and start thinking about how damn strong I am (visualization folks, not ego problems), there's a lot more in the tank that I previously had found. I'll be doing some more work with longer (ie 10-15 minute) intervals at 95-105% FTP using my last test, as it's feeling like I'm higher than that now. My goal wattage is no longer a freight train travelling towards me in the tunnel, it's the *actual* light at then end of the tunnel. I was getting mentally beat up by my power meter until this happened, it's about time.

I'd be remiss if I didn't log another part of the puzzle - I moved my cleats back. This rather small, seemingly innocuous change (we're talking about 3mm difference) relieved a strain I felt in my upper groin near my glutes after about 45 minutes of riding, and translated into fatigue quickly. I experimented with it on a longer (2hr) ride yesterday and felt like I was able to hold my targets better, or at least with greater comfort. I had tried sliding the saddleback and height up to provide the same tweak, but it put me in a strange place on the bars that wasn't good, and tightened me up on my back pedal, so I moved the saddle back and adjusted the cleat instead, finding that significantly more comfortable. I can now get steeper as well, although it's not something I think I'll set up permanently; I'm very much enjoying the relief in my back since adding the extra 5mm spacer under the headset. There's now 3 under there, but it feels great.

Swimming Tips

I spent some time in the pool last night with a buddy who is undertaking his first triathlon this coming June. He finally relented to me bugging him to come swimming, as it's a half mile swim that measures long, and not to be taken lightly. His technique needs a lot of work as one might expect, and it struck me watching him the journey I've taken with swimming. I did my best to not overload him with information, trying to limit the advice I was giving to the 'big things' that I saw first, with the 'little things' left to tackle further down the road. What I saw I think translates across most new swimmers, so I thought I would share.

Breathing! 

My friend was very concerned about how much water he was taking on, and kept saying it was difficult to find the timing for when to breathe. It's natural that this is the biggest concern, without it, death can come quickly! In some cases, this could be driven by both anxiety and technique, but in this case, I didn't sense the anxiety. He seemed comfortable enough in the water, and while his stroke wasn't smooth, it was consistent. If I'd seen it falling apart after a few strokes, I'd look more to anxiety first, then tackle the stroke. So how to address breathing? After talking with him a bit, it came down to his feeling he had to breathe too often; the main symptom as not having exhaled by the time he went to take a breath. After visually checking that he was actually exhaling underwater (again, not an anxiety issue here), we set about fixing the 'timing' as he called it. If he didn't have enough time to exhale fully, I suggested first slowing down the stroke. Doing this meant changing how long his arms were underwater, and in turn what they were doing down there. Again, keeping the information short (not the place yet for a full discussion of proper catch and pull, nor even roll) I simply suggested reaching longer in front. It seemed to help him slow things down, which was the real goal, and his breathing timing started to make a little more sense to him.

Legs!

It's interesting to me that all of us as kids who learn to swim are told to start with our arms fixed to our hips, using nothing but the kick to motor us around, and then as adults, we have the worst looking kicks imaginable. My 3 year old son has a textbook kick motion. The 38 year man that is my friend had a scissor kick that swung well beyond his shoulders and propelled him backwards. How does this happen?

As someone who had to re-learn to kick, it seems to me because we think the crawl is driven by our arms, and that the legs are there for 'extra' propulsion, or possibly nothing at all. There certainly is a version of the crawl where that's true, but if I'm teaching the crawl, I don't subscribe to this version. What I did, and what my buddy is currently un-learning, is using the legs to balance null points in the stroke - that is, when you go to breathe as a beginner\novice, your opposite side arm is probably not starting a good catch, it's more likely pushing down on the water in order to push your head up for a breath, a natural instinct. That push down buoys your chest and sinks your legs. Your legs react to you being sideways (you're breathing to one side) and their own sinking by trying to do what they do on land when balance goes awry - they spread out. Our land instincts are useless in the water, however. 

Useless land habits

On land, in order to go faster, you need to use more force. There is of course an economy of motion that must be mastered first, but if you want to run faster, you need a more powerful stride, and more of them (higher cadence). This increase creates turbulence, but at little cost. You can move your legs really fast, and it doesn't make you slower - ever. If you lose you balance, you regain it by throwing out your arms, becoming supple throughout the body, and spreading your legs to focus your center of gravity. 

In the water, the more turbulence you create, the less you move. You just create bubbles. If you lose your balance or bearings underwater, the simplest way to regain them is to stop and let your natural ballast put things right; your lower body, having less air than your chest cavity, will sink, and your head and chest will rise. Moving faster underwater is about maximizing the amount of propulsion you generate with as little turbulence as possible, and minimizing the amount of resistance you create against that propulsion. A textbook catch and pull is massively negated by a kick that's too busy and too low in the water. A great kick is negated by a pull that pushes water towards the kick. Every motion underwater has a corresponding vector of activity, and is either enhanced or fights with the other vectors. Starting from the front, the hand entry should be quiet and quick, the goal being to get in the proper position as quickly as possible with the least turbulence. Once in position, the catch is simply a muscle engagement - the water becomes 'solid', and you push it backwards until there is no more leverage. The kick serves to keep the hips high, flattening the torso against the water, again to minimize drag. The legs can very well do nothing - in fact in a wetsuit (where they float flat on the surface), this could well be advised, and is exactly what I had my friend do. I handed him a pull buoy and told him to stop moving his legs completely. If you *do* have a kick, it should be propulsive, fluid, and at the surface of the water. If it's too low in the water or too wide in the water, it creates turbulence against the flow of the vectors created by the arms. Disturb the water in the wrong place and it becomes less solid and more viscous. The more viscous the water, the harder it is to catch it, and the slower you will be. No pool, no channel, pond, lake, inlet, ocean, etc. feels quite the same in this regard.

Back to the example

After tying up his legs with a pull buoy and slowing his stroke down by having him reach further, he was able to swim 100 yards without stopping, which he wasn't capable of when we started. His comfort increased and his effort decreased properly. I showed him a short video of his legs underwater (invaluable tool, by the way!) so he had a mental image to go with the sensation that his legs are still too wide. We'll continue to swim together over the coming months and weeks, and we'll see which directions we take, but after one session, he is already showing improvement.

Triathlon

The birth of my first son wasn't enough to convince me that smoking a pack plus a day and drinking whiskey most nights of the week wasn't a sustainable lifestyle. Well, fine - I knew I wasn't healthy, but I wasn't grossly overweight. Just a little. I got sick just like everyone else, my hairline was receding a little, everything normal. Then the birth of my daughter wasn't enough. Yikes. Then a few years later the birth of my youngest son...ok, I see the issue. When you have kids - at least when I had kids - little alarms go off in the brain saying "Hey! You should see this! Watch that kid, it's somethin' else!". The little devil that sits in an easy chair on one shoulder that fed me smokes and tumblers also had some choice words, along the lines of, "meh, so what." Those two things don't juxtapose too well.

Eventually - as in my youngest was now a couple of months old - I decide that as stubborn as I appear to be with myself (now THAT'S embarrassing), the only way I might actually clean myself up is to put myself in a life or death situation where I have to live cleanly. Signing up for a triathlon seemed like it fit that bill. If you can't swim, you'll drown. Bingo, death - check. If you don't quit smoking, you'll die on the bike or the run. More death - check. Must "train", so that I actually finish, meaning I'll get in some sort of shape other than 'lumpy'. Excellent. I signed up on January 1st for a sprint triathlon (the naming of which made me laugh for a couple of years - how do you sprint for an hour, I thought?!) in my home town to take place the first week of June, just prior to my 34th birthday. What a birthday gift, I thought.

I started to work out how to run, and it didn't seem I could. I would barely make it a mile before a searing pain enveloped my lower legs, all the while my chest and back jiggling. I can't describe the breathing sensation, but it wasn't therapeutic. The race distance demanded five kilometers of this. Into death's sweet arms I marched on.... The swim. I quickly came to the conclusion that I could not swim a half mile as required. More accurately, I couldn't swim 4 laps of a pool doing anything but the breast stroke. So that's what I decided to do. I tried desperately to swim a crawl, but I couldn't seem to last at it much more than a couple of minutes. Could I ride a bike? Well yes, in that department I thought I'd be alright. I'd ridden bikes everywhere since early youth, commuting with them through high school and college. I'd even taken a bike tour through Cape Cod in my teens, and had ridden at the front the entire time. I'd never ridden a road bike, but I knew my legs were strong and my road knowledge and comfort were there. I purchased a used road bike and considered that the portion to worry the least about. This was a challenge!

Fortunately, triathlon proved to be the perfect distraction, and I shed my slovenly habits without missing them. I can't remember my last cigarette, it wasn't an event. I can, however, remember my first triathlon. I swam a lovely breast stroke, rode my bike 12 miles, and ran\walked my way across the finish line. I had lost about 25 pounds since the first of the year, and I became infatuated with the bizarre sport of triathlon. In comparison to the vast majority of the participants, I was awful at it. I had a lot of room for improvement, though, and an engineering background to apply. I considered myself a work in progress and took to training a lot more, vowing to come back the next year and try again, but the triathlon bug bit deep; I made it only two months before I completed another sprint distance race, and improved substantially over my first effort. Whatever hope I had of this being a passing fancy were obliterated.

A few years later, I've actually come to be rather good at triathlons. I've podiumed (race-speak for a win, place, or show) in my age group several times, and have taken on longer and longer distances each year. Like other athletics, triathlon races are split up by age groups, meaning you might be first among 60-65 year old males and get a nice pat on the back, or you might place overall amongst all finishers and be given a heartier pat on the back. You don't typically win anything tangible other than a pat on the back, and maybe a pint glass with some words on it. The sense of accomplishment is enormous, however.

A perfect example of a reversion - I was off the path, and found my way back on. Triathlon changed my life, and I enjoy it immensely.

Race Report: Park City Olympic Tri

Total Time = 2h 16m 20s Overall Rank = 36/287 Age Group = M35-39 Age Group Rank = 0/

Event warmup:

talked with the RD, who has had a stellar race season of his own. Found my main man Rudy, wearing his clown wig and doing body markings as a favor to Team Mossman before heading off for a day of cyclocross. What a beast.
Knew this was going to be a strange race, with a receding tide that was more than halfway out to the far marker. Had a mile run, got in the wettie (which is now getting noticeably too large! Ahem! Time to size down) and got in for a nice zip around.

SWIM

• 24m 58s
• 1640 yards
• 01m 31s / 100 yards

Comments:

I place no stock in this swim performance, we all started swimming and some of us noticed very quickly the floor had come up, and started walking\dolphin diving. The lead pack was up about 100 yards at this point, and my overwhelming thought was "why the hell don't I just train to sprint the beginning?" I can keep up fine, and I'm sick of getting whacked by weaker swimmers going sideways trying to navigate in front of me from some weird angle. When I get in a groove, I'm now swimming in the 1:20 range with a wettie (which as I said is now too big!) and I just need to get out of the middle. Bad on me for not being smarter about this.

What would you do differently?:

Be more aggressive, but more open water swim practice, too. By next year I'll have it put together I have no doubt. This was a weird one, but for the period of time we were actually swimming, I was long, even, and strong. 

TRANSITION 1

• 00m 56s

Comments:

I took the wettie off on the beach, which was smart. Actually walked for a couple seconds to get my heart rate down a bit from running up the sandbar with the wettie on and overheating.

What would you do differently?:

meh.

BIKE

• 1h 03m 24s
• 25 miles
• 23.79 mile/hr

Comments:

I rode really well. Period. I got dinged for a 2 minute penalty which was total Bull$hit, so I'm not including it. I spoke to the two refs afterwards, and one agreed with me, and the other didn't, and the penalty stood. The RD thought it was BS too. The official's motorcycle came up fast behind me while on was on a pass and scared me stupid (it's a MOTORCYCLE) so I quickly ducked right, to the right of the guy I was passing. I finished the pass on the right side because, hey, I was going really fast and the other dude wasn't. The argument was I should have either 1) told the motorcycle to wait (really?????? REALLY?) or 2) slammed on the brakes and resumed my pass on the left after the motorcycle left. Whatever. The ref was pretty sure of herself, and I know what happened out there. Nothing else to say.

What would you do differently?:

Nothing, I had a great bike.

TRANSITION 2

• 01m 5s

Comments:

my back hurt a little at first getting off, so I stretched it for maybe 5 seconds.

RUN

• 45m 58s
• 6.2 miles
• 07m 23s  min/mile

Comments:

Took a little while before I remembered I had a longer stride in me for shorter runs...turned on the jets in the last loop and regained about 15 spots I'd lost earlier. Dumb. I'm still pretty new to running, so the fact that I'm improving to the point where I forget I can go faster is kinda funny to me ;)

POST RACE

Warm down:

My family was there! Hung with the kiddos, wife and my mother on the beach. Gorgeous. Waited WAY to long for the awards ceremony to collect my...Ahem....2nd place overall in the Mossman Championship Series. :)

Event comments:

The post race sucked this year, but that's all. The swim was idiosyncratic to the particular day of the month, can't ding the race for that. Last year was totally different. This is all part of the game. I''m THRILLED at knocking off more than 16 minutes off last year, that's the kind of year I've had, and it's incredibly rewarding. Lots of hard work paying off, and I feel great about it. I just want to keep pushing harder and harder and have more years like this one! I can't believe I started this crap only 2 1/2 years ago, it feels like I should have been doing this for years. So happy my family was there to be with me today at the end of the season, it was really quite joyous and I feel very blessed. See ya next year Mossies!