I just got back from a nice 45 minute run along my “home” trail – great day with the highs in the mid-40’s. Along the run I was listening to Simply Stu’s latest podcast in regards to his equipment and training for IronMan Wisconsin 2007. Simply Stu was one of the many podcasts that I would listen too to gather info.
For my IronMan Wisconsin training I used the Internet, blogs, podcasts, and books to gather as much information as I could. I found a training plan (free) online that I thought would best fit me. I researched and researched everything about equipment, training needs, nutrition, race day setup, pacing, heartrate training, and on and on. No coaches, no group runs, no group rides, no group swims, just me.
Around July of 2007, I decided I’d attend the WIBA in Madison that basically is a bunch of bloggers that come together to swim the swim course, bike the bike course, and run the run course for IronMan Wisconsin. I noticed that a coach from D3 Multi-sports was going to be in town and would give swim lessons at a local pool. I signed up for an hour lesson in hopes to just tweak my stroke to make the swim part a bit easier.
Well, the swim lesson did not go as planned. The swim coach was a very nice guy and certainly has a ton of knowledge and probably is a great coach, but he didn’t quite get me. My swim stroke was “made” from Total Immersion DVD – right or wrong, this is what my stroke was and still is. My goal with the swim lesson was to have him give me a few pointers to make my stroke just a bit more efficient. I didn’t want to go any faster, just wanted to use the least amount of energy necessary to complete the 2.4 miles.
Well, after the swim lesson I felt that I basically did not know how to swim. The coach wanted me to completely re-do my stroke. I wasn’t really that frustrated because I have confidence in my ability to “GET IT DONE”, but I was frustrated in the fact that his lesson did not take “me” into account. I’m a 40+ year old average at best athlete, little known ego, don’t care how I finish just as long as I finish, don't care if I finish at 11:59, don’t mind being the last in the group, totally self motivated, and basically just out to have fun.
So, I never did change my stroke and I never did review the DVD that he sent to me (even though I will review it now that IronMan is over) – but I did swim a 1hr 26min IronMan swim and could not have been happier…
2 comments:
Certainly know the feeling of trying to soak up as much information as possible, reading as many books as possible and reading past race reports to try and learn as much as possible.
As for the swimming I was lucky and took 4 lessons before I knew how to swim freestyle so the coach taught me as they saw fit (didn't try and change any habits). Now I am just keen on maintaining my time, getting any faster will not really help me in the long run.
I just read some great article on running that basically said you can only change your stride to a certain degree for increased efficiency until you quickly see diminishing returns and actually get less efficient and slower. I have no proof of this, but guess that it's the same with swimming. Everyone's body mechanics are unique to a certain extent, and you have to work within those mechanics to improve -- not against them. But if you want to try out a coach that does exactly what you were expecting at WIBA (and didn't get), come to the East Y Masters sometime. The coach (Dick Pittman) there is great, and offers those small pointers instead of trying to do total overhauls.
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