I am absolutely 100% attached to my Finis Tempo Timer in my swimming sets lately.  There are so many things you can use it for.  The down side is that I use it so much I swear I can still hear the beeping in my sleep!  “No, it’s not a bomb.  It’s the TT beep that has been ingrained in your head!”  I figure the insanity is a small price to pay for the benefits of this little sucker though.  We are all crazy anyway right?  Here are a few ways I have been using it……………

TEMPO TIMER PROFILE:  For the bike and the run our whole team uses blood lactate profile tests performed at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine to mark and measure fitness.  I’ve always wanted to do the same test in swimming, but the logistics are a real pain.  I’ve come up with a pretty good substitute though using the Tempo Timer.  I just did this test recently so I will use myself as a model. The test consists of 20×100yds performed at a constant leave interval.  Each 100 is done at a progressively faster cadence dictated by the Tempo Timer.  I decided to use 1:45 for my leave time.  I chose this interval in hopes of getting somewhere from 20 to 30 seconds rest after each 100.  For the cadence setting I started at 1.09 and dropped down by .01 every 100 so that my last/20th 100 was done at a setting of 0.90.  I chose this range because I know I am pretty comfortable right around 1.00 so I tried to make that the middle of the range.  To keep precise splits I used a stop watch and here are the results:                             So this data and graph serves as a nice baseline.  I can follow the same protocol in the future and put the results right on top of each other to hopefully see improvement.  Just like the lactate curve in the blood lactate tests; my hope is to see the black line shift down.                                                                                                                                                                                                PUSHING THE CEILING: I try to spend at least a small piece of each swimming session pushing on my cadence ceiling.  In the test above I was really starting to lose my stroke as the cadence approached 0.90.  I’ve learned to embrace this though.  My swimming coach has taught me to go ahead and struggle with the higher cadences even though the stroke starts to break down.  The idea is to keep pushing the limit where you feel comfortable and that comfort range will get bigger.  One of my favorite tricks is to push the ceiling right before a big main set.  If 1.00 is feeling really comfortable, but I want to try to do the main set at 0.95, then I’ll put in some small 25s or 50s at 0.90.  Then when I go back to the 0.95 it feels much easier.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            PERFECT PRACTICE: The low end of your comfort range with the TT is really important too.  I think of it like learning a complicated piece of music.  My guitar teacher back in the day would set the metronome extremely slow for a complicated riff and have me play it over and over and over at this painfully slow click….click…..click…..The result was that the slow pace allowed me to play it perfectly and really groove it.  It’s the exact same deal with the swimming stroke.  I set it as low as 1.35 and methodically flow through the stroke trying to make every catch perfect right down to the last detail.  Then when I speed back up I feel much more sharp.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   KICK IT OUT:I hold the unpopular opinion that a good efficient kick is important even for triathletes.  So I use the TT to strengthen my kick.  I just use all of the same tricks mentioned above while using fins……stretching out the ceiling……working on perfect form……etc.  I’ve found that it really helps me to link up my kick with the rest of my stroke because doing it on the beep makes it very steady and rhythmic.  It’s just like doing the waltz……3 kicks per beep.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     BAND WORK: I do a lot of work with a gigantic rubber band made by a company called Stretch Cordz.  Basically this band attaches with a belt around your waist and you tie the other end to the blocks.  Then you swim against it.  It’s surprisingly difficult.  Not only does it provide strength work, but it helps you find “holes” in your stroke.  As the band stretches out and you get to the point that you are basically swimming in place, you have to hold constant pressure with each stroke or the band will snatch you back towards the wall and you end up bobbing back and forth.  I use the Tempo Timer with the Band to give me instant feedback on my stroke.  I set it at my comfortable cadence and swim out to the static point.  Then as I breathe, I take a glance at the some kind of marker, (life guard chair….tile on the wall…..etc), on the side of the pool to see how far I have made it.  The idea is to keep the cadence the same, but be able to stretch the chord out farther and farther before you hit the static point.  This definitely means you are catching the water better and better and eliminating dead spots/holes in your stroke because the Tempo Timer is keeping you from cheating by speed up your cadence.                                                                                                                                                                                                      Okay……I seriously rambled on this one.  Until next time, shop at trisports.com using my discount code chowie-s, eat more powerbar, and tell your endurance family you love them.   

Okay blog readers.  Prepare yourself because I’m about to get a little philosophical on you with this posting…….     

Last week I had a talk with one of my coaches, Neal Henderson, as I was warming up on a treadmill at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine and he said something to me that really hung on.  I haven’t been able to get it out of mind and it has really helped me since then in my training………  I had just finished a really hard bike interval set with one of my buddies in the centers fables “Pain Cave”, and I was warming up for another tough set on the treadmill.  To be honest I was really anxious about the set.  I was worked from the ride and struggling to keep my thoughts positive for the suffering ahead.  

Neal came over and I congratulated him on his recent success with Taylor Phinney.  Taylor, one of Neal’s athletes just earned a spot to Bejing in track cycling!  Awesome!!!!!  And he did it at the incredibly young age of 17!  What a high for both of them.  Then our conversation turned

to another one of Neal’s athletes, Jamie Whitmore.  I don’t want to betray the confidence of our discussion about Jamie so I won’t go into too much detail.  The bottom line is that Jamie, the amazing Xterra World Champion, is really struggling right now because of a recent surgery to remove a large tumor from her hip.  Talk about a roller coaster of emotions!     Neal is arguably one of the best endurance coaches this world has ever seen, and in my opinion the number one thing that makes him great is how much he cares for his athletes personally.  I tried to imagine myself dealing with the two completely opposite emotions of extreme elation and deep sadness at the same time with two of my athletes.  “How do you do it?”  I asked him.  He said, ”you put up a huge sail and you put down a very deep rudder.”     It didn’t sink in at first, but I had a long treadmill run in solitude to think it over.  My take on it…….you keep moving forward no matter what.  You keep striving for greatness.  You keep clawing for improvement.  When success comes, put up that big sail and ride it.  When setbacks come you depend on that deep rudder to stay right on course.  Thanks Neal.   If anyone reading wants to help Jamie out, you can find all the info at jamiewhitmore.com.  Huge congrats to Taylor! Until next time, shop at trisports.com using my discount code chowie-s, eat more powerbar, and tell your endurance family you love them.

I’m convinced that every improvement I make in this sport as an athlete and a coach is a result of constantly trying to learn from those around me.  I try to take all the bits of information in, no matter where it comes from and no matter how big or small, and put it all together into my own witches brew that fits my style.  Here are just a few examples that relate to the story of one of my runs last week…… The UNC Track and Cross country coach once told me that “you can’t drive a car fast if the brakes are on.” My awesome massage therapist and team mate, Jessica Gumkowski, taught me how to fall asleep easier by focusing methodically on relaxing my muscles from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. My good friend and training partner Craig Greenslit imagines that his legs are incredibly long.  “Your upper body is about 2 inches tall……you are just all legs.” My good friend and team mate Kristina Freisem explained to me how she runs down hill nice and relaxed letting gravity take over by imaging herself as being made of rubber band material.  “Run like a Rubber band Man!” One of my coaches, Neal Henderson, speaks of running in an almost meditative state by shutting the mind down.  “No thoughts…..just be right in the moment and tune out.” 

My swimming coach talks about finding a “calm center” like you are right in the eye of a hurricane.  “There may be chaos all around you, but you are relaxed and at peace in the middle of it all.”

THE RUN…..Last week I headed out the door for one of my overdistance runs.  I had really gone to the woodshed the day before with some monster intervals on the bike and the run so it would be an understatement to say I was cooked.  I started the run very slowly in Z1 as I always do and as usual my mind started doing the full body scan from head to toe to see how the things are running.  OUCH!  I was definitely getting some rough signals.  My chest and lungs felt tight, my neck and shoulders felt like I had been working at a computer for 8 hours….rightly so……my feet were sore, and my legs felt very heavy, sore and sluggish.  “okay,” I told myself, “these are the days when you really earn it.”  It’s times like these that I’ve learned to play a little mind game to try and get myself into the zone.  It’s fairly simple.  I just try to see how relaxed I can possibly be.  I started at the top of my head and slowly began relaxing every muscle from top down.  I realized I had been grimacing.  My eyes were squinted.  My mouth and lips were tight like I was about to yell at someone.  My shoulders were shrugged up like I was expecting a blow in a fight.  My hands were clenched.……the list goes on and on…….Slowly, I relaxed more and more.  I kept playing the game.  Can you relax more? Finally, I was most definitely in the zone.  My heart rate told me I was in Z2 but suddenly I was light, relaxed, and flying.  To anyone passing by, I probably looked like some kind of stoned zombie with a running death wish!  My eyes were glazed.  My jaw was slack. My upper body was so relaxed that my hands were bouncing around lifelessly off my chest.  No wonder people think I’m a weirdo!   

As I neared the end of my run I was sort of snapped back to reality as I realized it was time to cool down and jog the last kilometer.  Now I can see why the best endurance athletes in the world have that absent, stoic, slacked Jawed look as they fly by everyone.  What appears to be the ultimate in concentration is quite possibly the ultimate in relaxation. 

Until next time, shop at trisports.com using my discount code chowie-s, eat more powerbar, and tell your endurance family you love them.

Here we go with my first posting.  My number one goal with this blog is to drive improvement in our sport.  Hopefully you will find my thoughts interesting and please feel free to build on everything I post.

Recently my swimming coach, (Scott Obrian, the best swimming coach on the planet!), and I had a long discussion about visualization.  I think Swimming in particular requires a hightened sense of body awareness and feel for very precise movements.  In this case, being able to visualize these precise movements can be a huge help.  The question is, what exactly should we envision?  Coach Obrian listed off the best swimmers in the world and various movements that they all have in common.  Then he suggested that I watch film of these monsters and try to internalize it all.  Brilliant!  In our day and age with YouTube and other video access it was simple to find instant footage of the masters. 

The video that has stuck with me the most so far is the footage of Grant Hackett setting the 1500m world record.  Here is the link for it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6qIhkuzTx0&feature=related  Absolutely beautiful!  Can you imagine coming out of the water in an Olympic distance tri in 14minutes!

This naturally led me to seek out video of the worlds best on the bike and run as well.  As you can imagine, I am rapidly accumulating a huge list of what I am calling my Visualization links.  Here are my favorites for the bike and run.  I dare you to watch Deena Kastor take the bronze in the link below without shedding some tears!  WOW!  I have goosebumps just typing this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOQflZqzn_U&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AhEDEuPLCY&NR=1

I hope this helps everyone.  I think the bottom line is “see it and be it.”

Until next time, Shop at Trisports.com using my discount code chowie-s, eat more powerbar, and tell your endurance family you love them.    

Here’s my first post of many that will help you along in your triathlon training and racing.