Removing training wheels

A bit more of a normal day today. A bit of exercise, a bit of work and that's about it. Nothing to see here.

Exercise wise I was back on the Kickr for a bit of a spin before the kids woke up this morning. These pre-kid rides are always a bit of a lottery. The idea is to get on the bike around 5:00am to give myself as much chance as possible at getting in a decent ride. Usually I can get in about an hour before the kids wake up and require attention. This morning I got in 70 minutes so that was a bit of a win.

Going back 6 months I would have simply ridden as much as I needed too and my wife would have handled the kids. That was back when I was racing though and I felt less guilty about being selfish. These days we try and handle things a little bit more evenly, I no longer have the racing excuse after all. With the more even approach in mind my wife was down the pool this morning for a swim while I was the one on kid duty. It may mean less bike time for me, but it does mean a much healthier balance in our household. Just another example of things that have changed for the better since my lifestyle was forced to shift in February this year.

The other bit of exercise I did today was head to the gym. I haven't been in the gym for a couple of weeks with life being so busy and all so it was good to get back there today. I am enjoying the time that I have in the gym at the moment, my gym in in my office building and so all I need is 30 minutes to get in there and do a quick session over lunch. It is a good way to fit in a bit more exercise and also gives me a nice mental break from work. I am finding that gym work fits in well with my heart too, since while lifting weights is physically hard, it doesn't work the heart too much, plus the effort is very controllable. A nice way to slot in another low risk form of exercise. And it gives me chances to take sweet black and white photos. Noice.

While today was a fairly routine day for me, tomorrow is going to bring something a little bit different. Tomorrow I am going to do some coaching and for the first time it is going to be a solo effort. No training wheels.

The coaching I am doing is going to be pretty low key, which is good because that is just what I am after. A mate of mine has asked for some help in getting his swim quicker. He is a triathlete, but interestingly he isn't looking to make his triathlon swimming quicker, but rather normal pool swimming, with a focus on middle distances (400m to 1500m). He is currently swimming 3 times a week with a mixture of technique sessions, red mist and CSS threshold work.

My first recommendation when I sat down with him last week was that he simply starts swimming more. 3 times a week is good, but if he really wants to focus on his swimming then 4 times a week is going to bring bigger improvements. He is actually looking to reduce the time he spends running and riding and so he thinks he might be able to even fit in a 5th swim, which is where tomorrow comes in.

With four swims a week my recommendation was to add in either another CSS or Red Mist session. Red Mist would help more with the 1500m end of things, CSS for the higher speed top speed. Whichever he added the extra time in the water will definitely bring rewards. However, with him adding a 5th session, that brings in some interesting possibilities. One of those possibilities is a dedicated sprint training session, focusing purely on the high end speed work.

I wouldn't usually program sprint work for a triathlete. Triathletes are typically swimming too long for sprint work to be of much benefit. They need to be working on their aerobic system and sprinting pushes them too far into the anaerobic. Threshold work in the form of CSS for sure, but just not pure flat out sprint work. Sprinting has a place, but if you are only swimming three times a week, then those sessions are going to be better spent working on threshold development and endurance. However, with my mate now swimming 5 times a week he suddenly has scope for fitting in a sprint session. I will be very interested to see how it goes tomorrow, plus how his development goes in the coming weeks and months.

As I have said, I am quite confident that he will get speed improvements simply by going from three swims a week to five, I have seen exactly that occur numerous times before. However, by being targeted and a bit specific in what we are doing I am hoping we can maximiise those improvements.

We shall see.