Swim test and video

Continuing a week of testing, today I did a swim test: 1000 long course meters. Time: 17:20. That works out to 1:44/100 lcm. Not exactly blazing fast. Converting my time to short course meters for more accurate comparison with my past tests yields 1:40/100 scm. Not much improvement since my last test. Maybe I can give myself 1-2 seconds per 100m due to altitute...

My pacing wasn't fantastic. I did the first 500m in 8:30 and the second 500m in 8:50. I peaked at the clock after my first 100m and saw that I went out too fast, 1:33 for the first 100m.

Chuckie sent me a technique video that was very helpful. The video inspired me to get some additional footage of my technique.


For this video I was really focusing on having high elbows. Also, I had a band around my ankles holding a pull buoy there, if that matters. My first thought is that I don't look very fluid. That may partially be because my focus on having high elbows altered my stroke a bit.

More importantly, at the beginning of my stroke my elbow is too low. I think that's because my hand is too high in the water -- it's right near the surface. The last frame of the video shows this pretty well. My hand being right near the surface means my hand is higher than my elbow when I start my stroke. If my hand were a bit lower, I could get my elbow into a high position immediately when starting my catch. Once I get the catch over with, my elbows appear plenty high. My shoulders fatigued after only 700 or 800m of holding this form.

Finally, I have an odd hand movement right at before starting my catch. I've always done that and am not too worried about fixing it.

Other workouts of note for the week:
(1) Long ride from Boulder to Lyons to Raymond and back. This ride includes a nice climb from Lyons to Raymond. I considered continuing on to Ward to do a loop instead of an out-and-back, but my fear was I'd get too cold as I climbed to 9,500 ft but would be stuck continuing that was to avoid turning the ride into a seven hour affair.



I did a few 6 minute or so intervals at 160 bpm on the way up. Climbing is a good time for hard effort.

Descending was a bit chilly. My hands were nearly numb by the time I finished the descent, despite two pairs of gloves. I think the key would be to keep my arms warm, as my theory is that blood flowing to my hands is cold by the time it gets to my hands.

Still, it was a beautiful January day.




There was only one sketchy section. I did a loop around Raymond and took Riverside Rd., which is a bit too shaded for the sun to take care of the sun and ice on the road. While it's not apparent from the image, this is a downhill section:


(2) After my swim test today I did an 1:10 run including five 6 minute tempo efforts. My average HR was 160-162 bpm and my pace was 6:11 to 6:18. Not bad.