Monday, February 23, 2015

IM Canada: Week 2 – Chen’s version (i.e., Oh… so THAT’S how you swim…)

Posted by Chen

2 weeks down; 22 to go! This was another week focused mainly on the swim, as I swam three times during the week and skipped both a long run and long ride in order to attend an all-weekend swim clinic. I’ll do a full review of the clinic in another post, but for now, I’ll say that it was a great experience, and the techniques and drills I learned are already proving quite useful! I focused on those drills during my swim this morning, and my 500 time has already come down ~50 seconds from the 500s I swam last Monday using the same (and maybe even less) effort!

I also crossed the 2.4-mile barrier for the first time last week, swimming 4500 yards (2.56 miles) on Monday. And I got my 100 times down to the 1:33-1:35 range, which was downright shocking. Of course, now that I’ve completed the swim clinic, I’m realizing those intervals were done using terrible form, but I guess that just means I should theoretically be able to get those times down further now that I know what proper form looks like.

Progression of my 5x100yd times since Xmas Eve – not too shabby!

I’ll continue to repeat this 5x100 set over the next few months to monitor how I’m doing – I’m curious to see what happens as I keep practicing and applying the techniques I learned this weekend!

IM Canada Week 2 Recap:

Monday: 
  • AM: Steady state trainer ride 70 minutes
  • AM: Swimming 4500 yards (2.56 miles!) including 5x500 swim, 4x250 kick, 4x250 pull (best 500 time: 9:17)
Tuesday: 
  • AM: Swimming 3000 yards, including 2x500 swim, 2x500 pull, and 10x100 in 1:42, 1:40, 1:41, 1:40, 1:40, 1:43, 1:41, 1:40, 1:39, 1:42
  • PM: Hilly 8.25 miles through Golden Gate Park with 5@tempo (7:40, 7:34, 7:33, 7:29, 7:28)
Wednesday: 
  • AM: Trainer ride with fast spin intervals – 60 minutes
Thursday: 
  • PM: Easy run in Golden Gate Park 8.25 miles (~8:27 pace)
Friday: 
  • AM: Swimming 2500 yards including 5x100 in 1:35, 1:33, 1:33, 1:34, 1:33 (!!!)
Saturday: 
  • AM: Easy run in Golden Gate Park 8.75 miles (~8:49 pace)
  • AM/PM: Total Immersion swim workshop – Day 1 (~2000 yards)
Sunday: 

  • AM: Trainer ride with fast spin intervals – 70 minutes
  • AM/PM: Total Immersion swim workshop – Day 2 (~2000 yards)

3 comments:

  1. That swimming improvement is remarkable. Why won't my biking do that? :)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, coach! And I feel like your biking continues to improve every time I see you! You have mad climbing skillz and you know it :P.

      - Chen

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    2. Sure, I am not bad at climbing. But then 5 min into the downhill/flat everybody has passed me and I can't even see them anymore :)

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