The plan

This week the Juniors will be doing time trials again so we will be finishing the 8am session at 9am to give them a bit more time.  As usual, in return, we will be getting the pool for all 3 hours on 6th October so we will be taking full advantage with two hour and a half sessions to officially mark the end of the our main Triathlon racing season.  That means we will be starting Winter training on 13th October (for most people) so I hope you have been thinking about your swimming goals for this Winter as I wrote about in my post last week.  I will talk more about that in a future post.

The slight exception I will be making this year is to keep our faster swimming going for those who are racing at the end of October in Ibiza at the ETU Championships and also as the Masters Short Course Championships in Sheffield.  To accommodate those doing these races I will be keeping the race pace sessions going for lane 1 in both sessions on 13th and 20th October as well as the 8am session for lane 2 on those dates.  I think that covers most of those racing at these events and also provides options for those wanting to start the Winter training by choosing a different time or lane for the sessions on 13th and 20th October.

For our last race-pace session this week we will be doing some speed endurance 100s followed by 100% effort 50s.  This is a good session to keep your speed endurance going for any late season races and enjoy a max effort blow out for those who just want to finish the season with a blast in the pool.

See you Saturday!

Rob

Outcome, Performance and Process

As the triathlon season draws to a close it is time to start thinking about our goals for the Winter.  Helen is much more of an expert than me on goals and you may have seen her article on goal setting in Outdoor Swimmer.  For me this provides a good framework in terms of outcome goals, performance goals and process goals.

• Outcome goals are exciting! These represent a goal which is motivating but is not necessarily in your control, for
  example doing a personal best time in a 5km race or taking 20 minutes off your Ironman time.
• Performance goals monitor if you are on track. This is where you set small challenges for improvement, for
  example doing an extra swimming session each week or aiming to reduce your 400m time trial time by 10s.
• Process goals are most directly in your control, these are steps that you can do on a daily basis in order to help you achieve goals, for example choosing a specific technical element, such as your high-elbow pull underwater, to work on each time you go training.

 

So what are your outcome, performance and process goals?  It might take some time to think them through.  I would encourage you to do this over the next few weeks before we start Winter training, since having clear performance and process goals will give you a great focus, as well as providing the psychological benefits Helen talks about in her article.

In the session this week we will be doing the Jess Learmonth session of 100s and 50s interspersed with kick.  We haven’t done a session like this for a while so enjoy the challenge!

See you Saturday,

Rob

Relax and Breathe

Great effort over the last few weeks doing some pretty intense sessions with many of the swims at and above race pace and often with short recoveries.  We’ll be having an easier week this week with a refresher of some quick breathing drills (see here for a reminder) and a steadier paced aerobic pyramid for the main set.  

In the main set I would like you to think about that nice quick breath and using it to keep your stroke rate nice and quick while staying relaxed.  So just relax and breathe and get ready for the high octane racing fun during the Aquathlon on Sunday!

See you Saturday!

Rob

 

Photo by Dharm Singh on Unsplash

Aquathlon prep

Only just over a week until the club Aquathlon so we’ll be looking to sharpen your 400m time trial skills.  We’ve had some good speed work over the last few weeks so this week we will be doing some speed endurance swims – doing blocks of 100s at race pace with a short recovery.  And to add a bit of race-day practise I am going to ask you to do a quick exit from the pool after each block of 100s before heading down to the opposite end of the pool to start the next set.

As we all know, racing any multi-sport event, like Triathlon or Aquathlon, requires a measured effort on the first disciplines to ensure you have enough left to quickly and efficiently get through both the transitions and the subsequent disciplines.  So please try and simulate this approach this week and swim each block of 100s as fast as possible but trying to hold a little bit back, as you would for going in to the run, by swimming as fast and relaxed as possible.  As I have said before a good way to do this is to have a good high stroke rate.  The drills we will be doing before the main set will help you get ready for swimming a higher stroke rate in the main set.

See you Saturday, Rob!

 

Photo by Mateus Araujo on Unsplash