Anyone who knows me will attest to my mildly (?) obsessive compulsive nature. I get very focused, to te point where I have difficulty prying Brain away from the current obsession. I have learned over the years to use this to my advantage. A current obsession is dialing in my training schedule and workouts. I know for fact that if I just continue on as I have in the past, doing hard workouts, but not expanding my range, or finding specific drills to improve my weaker areas. To this end, my OCD works to my benefit, I am an avid researcher. When I get focused on something, anything, I will research the hell out of it, reading everything I can get my hands on, finding the experts, picking out bits and pieces pertinent to me. I have found a great website: Active.com that has so many great articles on fitness, workouts, sport specific training, nutrition, race day tips, as well as an event calender. I spend copious amounts of my time there, perusing, gathering, gleaning, learning.
With that being said, I am implementing a number of tweaks to my workouts to improve my fitness in very sport specific ways. Last night was swim night. I have been slowly adding drills to my regular swim. I know I can swim over 2 miles without stopping, so now I can focus on improving my ability to do open water swims without feeling like I am either going to sink to the bottom, or be grabbed by a tentacled monster, pulled into the weeds, and have my flesh sucked from my bones. Of course I know that it is imperative that I get into open water and swim, but before I do I am making sure that I am a strong, confident swimmer. Last night I added Hypoxic laps, and Death Sprints. Yeah, sounds freaking exciting, doesn't it?
Hypoxic swimming teaches me to control my breathing. How? Instead of taking my standard breath every other right hand stroke, I increase the number of strokes between breaths. I focused on taking a breath every fifth or sixth right hand stroke, essentially tripling the number of strokes between breaths. Yes, I was swimming relaxed and easy, with long strokes. Funny thing, it is amazing how much smoother and more gracefully I can move through the water if I don't have to take a breath. I need to sprout gills. I did 3 sets of 5 laps of Hypoxic swimming. It felt great, and seemed to make my regular breathing all the better.
Death Sprints are on the opposite end of the spectrum. I have incorporated sprints into my swims for a while now, usually spring 25 yards, race pace 75 yards, for 10 to 12 laps. With Death Sprints I swim as hard and fast as I can for as long as I am able. Last night that was 100 yards, or 2 full laps. This had me sucking wind a bit, and my shoulders felt the burn. My natural response is to want to either rest at the side of the pool, or roll onto my back for some easy backstroke and unrestricted breathing. Of course, that is not what I did. Instead, once the sprint was over, I returned to solid race pace and forced myself to regain control over my breathing. Yes, I felt a mild, rising panic as my lungs tried to convince me that we were not getting enough air, and we were going to drown. But Brain knew better. It was an interesting study in mind over matter. I did 3 sets of Death Sprints, and my ability to calmly recover while maintaining race pace improved with each set. This is a great lesson for me to learn. It is so easy in the washing machine effect of a triathlon swim start to feel rising panic and the inability to catch one's breath. Most who have ever entered a trathlon will attest to this. And in a sense, it does not get any better, at least in the sense that the swim start is chaotic, brutal, insane, and you are very likely to be kicked, bumped, swam over top of (yes, this has happened to me several times), and definitely splashed. It is utter chaos. So what I need to do is train my body to be less reactive to the chaos, to remain calm, control my breathing, and just swim. It is more difficult than it sounds.
Death Sprints and Hypoxic Laps are a great way to train Body and Brain to understand that the adrenaline rush and chaos of the swim start is nothing to panic over, that it is all in a day's work, business as usual. Being able to stay relatively calm will save me vast amounts of energy and leave me in far better condition as I transition to the bike and run. I will keep adding specific drills to my workouts to refine my skills, build confidence, increase strength and stamina, and totally rock my race season.
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