Endurance Swimming Its a kick!

Coach Ryan told me to keep my head down towards my chest to keep my legs and feet higher in the water. He also pointed out that my elbows need to come up out of the water higher so that my arm doesn't have to travel through water and meets less resistance. I found myself getting a cramp today near the end of my workout. I ran low on electrolytes again. I decided to go ahead and invest in Hammer endurolyte capsules. It is tough to know exactly what I need to take each day to keep up two or more exercise sessions. It has become easy to swim for an hour but I need to build up endurance for a much longer swim time.

I swam again during lunch break for 45 minutes. I swam continuosly without stopping. If I got winded, I flipped on to my back and continued to kick taking long slow breaths for 20 seconds and then turning back over to a free style stroke. My arms got sore from the exertion. It seems that is my weak point. Strength training makes a lot more sense now.

Interval training, running & the joy of swimming

Running today was easier. We did interval training; running within Zone 2 (146 -154 bpm) and running in Zone 3 for two minutes (154 - 162 bpm) and then dropping back down to Zone 2 for 4 minutes. We did this for about 50 minutes. Checking my watch I noticed that I kept moving into zone 4 and it didn't feel all that uncomfortable. I ignore how many miles I'm running and simply monitor how much work my heart is doing or how fast it is beathing. I set the treadmill incline to 6 and speed between 5-6.5 to get my heart rate between zone 2 and 3. As I get hotter later in the workout, I notice that it takes less incline and speed to get my heart rate higher.

As I swim, I've rediscovered an excitement to glide through the water gracefully with very little splashing and noise. I tried to avoid touching the walls as I completed laps. I swam continuously with a free style stroke and turned on my back with arms extended when I needed to catch my breath. I noticed my shoulders and arms getting fatigued much like my legs did several months ago. Ryan taught us to turn over on the back and swim instead of stoping at the edge of the pool. It is the equivalent of walking when I'm too winded to run.

I also noticed that I dropped another pound of weight.

Keep swimming!

This morning in swim class, I swam for the entire hour. My shoulders are a bit sore but energy level is high. I notice that my heart rate stayed around 128 bpm. Coach Ryan noted that I wasn't extending fully in my reach phase. I noticed it too this morning. My shoulders were a bit tight and just didn't want to easily give that extra 1/2-1 inch unless I demanded it. I did and I suppose that is why my shoulders started to burn. I swam more than 1000 meters plus warm-up, drills and cool down.

I asked Ryan to write a little bit about himself to post on this blog. I also asked a few of my classmates in Triathlon class if they would like to be included too. My journey may be a long one and the stories of people you meet make it very interesting.


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Location:Thanksgiving Way,Lehi,United States