THE MASTER PLAN

One cannot just do an Ironman. You cannot just roll out of bed one morning and swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and then run 26.2 miles. Nor would you want to be told that you didn't make the cut-off time and have to go home after swimming 2.4 miles and paying $650 to enter the race.

Now, I do like to do things on a whim (my husband likes to call me a pooffy cloud....pretty darn accurate actually) but I know I can't just go out and do it like my 5k's and 32 mile bike rides. Both of those are my furthest distance thus far and I really did just roll out of bed and say, 'Cheddar, we are going for a run', 'Bike, we're doing 32 miles so that we can hit two pie stops instead of one. Let's go'. Food definitely motivates me. (hmm, their supposed to have pretty good food stands throughout the race. Maybe I could just roll out of bed and have the stands keep me going? Nope! Pushing that thought out of my mind right now.)

For any of you that are wondering what it takes to get to the starting line, here's my Master Plan;


This is the six-month training schedule provided by Ironman; everything before Nov. is my own

 If the schedule is too hard to read, here's the link to it on the Ironman website.
http://www.ironman.com/triathlon/news/articles/05/six-months-to-ironman-a-basic-training-program.aspx#axzz2fqK68Qbi

Wish me luck!

Elo

Swimming: Breathing Technique

Tuesday has rolled around again which means so has another swim session. Class number two went much better than the first one; my hair wasn't on my face like squid tentacles killing its prey, I got to work on breathing, and I wasn't drowning the whole time I was doing a swimming style that's similar to the breast stroke but with my back in the water facing up.

So how did I do with the breathing technique? Here's a list of the lessons I learned tonight, then you can decide if breathing kicked my butt or not.

Lesson #1 - Pigtails may be cute but don't bring them to the pool lanes.
Remember that swim cap I was supposed to buy, well I forgot about it until Sunday. I promptly ordered one online from REI (a nice bright yellow one so I can easily be spotted in open water if I ever become crazy enough to go for a swim in the cold Puget Sound waters....brrr, I get cold just thinking about it) upon which they confirmed my delivery for THURSDAY! The pigtails held strong for about thirty minutes after which little strands started slipping out and gluing themselves onto my face again.

Lesson #2 - What do you mean there's more to exhaling than just creating bubbles with my nose?
Last class my highlight was that I actually exhaled through my nose underwater creating lots of bubbles. I was thrilled because I was not afraid of doing so and in one of my laps I was actually trying to make more bubbles with every exhale. Little did I realize that I was pretty much just pulling my head out of the water and putting it back in just to create bubbles. Apparently, the arm movement, inhaling, and exhaling are all supposed to be in some sort of rhythm. Hmm, how to get rhythm?

Lesson #3 - Lung capacity and what it has to do with you.
Lung capacity has to do with your breath rate, and how deep (long) or shallow (short) it is. You hear it every now and then in sports/fitness articles and I knew what it was but never really realized how one's lung capacity effected one's performance. Well, I am ignorant no longer.
Towards the end of class I was starting to get into some sort of rhythm, and that was after I realized that I don't have great lung capacity. In fact, my lung capacity is very shallow which is why I felt like a mess when I tried to do three arm strokes and then inhale. Personally, I started to find rhythm when I inhaled with every stroke, meaning I was exhaling as I rotated my head to the other side.

Lesson #4 - Rhythm is not the same as timing.
Even after I figured out that I needed to breath with every stroke things still didn't go smoothly. At times I would splash some water in my face or pull my head out instead of just rolling, and in order to reset myself I would have to stop where I was and start the swimming process all over again. Timing, rhythm, coordination...I'm sure these are all things that will come with time and practice.

Looking forward to the improvements I will see and the new lessons I will learn next Tuesday.

Elo

First Swim Class

Having my only experiences in swimming be from family trips to a river an hour and half away from our home in central California, the beach before I was in second grade, and the few times I played in a friends pool in high school I am keenly aware that my weakest leg in the Ironman will be the swimming portion. In fact, it's so obvious to me that sometimes I feel like a giant sign with the word SWIMMING in white letters appears over me. None of this worries me though. I don't think I'm in too bad of shape that I can't make it with a lot of hard training over eight months. But, also knowing that I'll need help in this the most I signed up for a swimming class with our community's parks and rec (biparks.org).

My first session in the Adult Skill Builder II class was this past Tuesday, the 17th of September. So, with my brand new goggles that I proudly purchased at a discount price of $5 at Target, I excitedly attended the first session. (I was a bit anxious in the free time I had at home before the class. Without thinking I did something that gave me great comfort when I was growing up, I laid down on my bedroom floor and stared at the ceiling. My Airedale Terrier, Cheddar Pancakes, joined me and provided an extra sense of calm. She let me snuggle with her for the thirty minutes before I had to go.) The class consists of four students (myself included), of which I am the least skilled as the others all know how to breath properly; you know the technique where you inhale through the side of your mouth and exhale through your nose in the water. That's OK, my main reason for signing up for class was to learn that skill.

We did various things to build our basic skills; swam with boards, put on fins, used only our upper body or lower body, etc. Those were all well and good until I actually tried breathing properly while swimming freestyle. I'll just say this; I have never felt so uncoordinated in my life! There were so many things going on as I tried that one activity, my brain couldn't keep up with all the orders to give my different body parts and organs. It was total chaos!

After pushing off the wall and surfacing my arms started moving forward, then my legs started kicking at the same time I took a breath with my head turned left. Having to exhale right away my mind commanded my head to face down in the water and force air through my nose, creating lots of tiny air bubbles (woohoo! I actually did it w/o breathing in water). I was so focused on exhaling though that my legs would stop kicking, then when I would remember to kick my arms would do more of a thrashing motion while my face would go from in the water to turning left, back in, turn right, in, left, in, left, in, right, waaah! my right arm just splashed water at my face, back in. By this time my too short to tie back hair was plastered to my face with its ends just barely in my mouth (which reminds me, I need to by a swimming cap before next class!).

As my friend who grew up swimming competitively put it, you didn't drown and you exhaled through your nose, that's a win.

- ELo