Training Tuesday

The past couple of weeks have been all about swimming. The weather has been really up and down and my right ankle has been on again off again more than I care to admit. That is the beauty of swimming. It is easy on the joints and not weather dependent.

The master’s coach has been helping me with my backstroke and although I am not by any means proficient, it is nice to develop another tool for my bag. As a beginner she was pointing out some pretty obvious stuff like keeping my arms close to my head, pushing with a bent arm during the stroke and staying balanced fore-aft. Similar to my freestyle, my legs have a tendency to be a boat anchor. It was very enlightening to swim with a pull buoy. I have a greater appreciation for a strong kick.

On another note, I started talking to a coach about helping manage my entire training schedule. This individual was giving a presentation at work and I was really impressed by his technical cycling knowledge. Unfortunately I don’t feel like our personalities mesh. They certainly don’t mesh enough to justify $95/month in charges. My original request was simply for lactate testing that I assumed could be done for a one-time charge of $50-$100. I am more than happy to continue to be a self coached athlete. Sometimes that is as fun for me as the actual training and racing.

Finally I had a nice bike ride on Leyden Road. I was turned on to the route based on an e-mail advertising an ad hoc time trial series. As I usually bike west on SH 72, I thought it would be nice to try a different route. There is no shoulder on Leyden Road, but fortunately there is not much traffic either. It is very quiet and scenic with some mild rolling hills. The actual road is only about 4 miles long between Indiana and SH 93. The time trial course would start in the middle head west then east and then back west to the finish line to create a roughly 8 mile course. That would work well for me as the start is about 7 miles from my house which would make for a good warm-up. The series starts tonight and I hope to take part next week.