Towards the beginning of July, I rented a tri wetsuit to see what effect it would have on my swimming (since I was only one of three people in my age group at the Patriot that did not have a wetsuit, and I knew that I'd want one for the full iron), as well as to get an idea for what features/model I'd be looking for. The difference was startling - details of which I'll put into another post - but the main takeaway for now is that it fixed two of my major problems in becoming more streamlined in the water: disjointed hip/shoulder rotation (especially after fatigue sets in), and leg drag.
Up until this point, I knew that I was doing either a 4-beat (two kicks per stroke) or 6-beat (three kicks per stoke) kick, and knew that at some point I needed to transition to a 2-beat kick for energy conservation purposes - but what I didn't know was how much my kick was actually affecting my ability to streamline through the water. Once I felt what it was like to swim without all that fluttering, a couple things became obvious: it was time to work on the two beat kick, and that the two beat kick would actually help fix the two major issues at hand. I had avoided working on the 2-beat kick in the past because I felt like I had other, more important things to work on at the time - bilateral breathing, head positioning, swimming straight, etc.
So the past couple weeks, I've been hitting the pool more frequently, doing another round of starting over with regards to swimming, in an effort to sink the two beat kick into muscle memory. At first it was just 50 yds, then 100, then a couple 200's. While at Lake Placid, we swam the 1.2 mile course, and after about a mile, when I was sufficiently fatigued, I actually found I was able to relax a bit and settle into somewhat of a rhythm.
Feeling a little more comfortable with swimming in open water using the two beat kick, I took advantage of another opportunity, doing a 1.3 mile session.
Garmin Results
The water on this day was a bit choppy, and since it was in the afternoon, there were a couple boats in the water, which added to the waves I had to contend with. Annoying, but then again, swimming in open water during a tri is just as bad, if not worse. So I rolled with it, taking it in as part of conditioning.
Overall I am pretty happy with the results - mostly that I was able to do 1.3 miles with the two beat kick, but also because at this point, I'm not significantly slowed down. If anything, I might be slightly faster - but I don't have a swim to compare against. All I know is that I'll naturally speed up, and with the wetsuit I'll speed up even more.
No comments:
Post a Comment