Swimming-back to basics

View from Lillomarka

Well, then here I go. Writing this report three days after carrying it out. Anyway, I went swimming again Monday evening. Last session a week ago was disappointing when it comes to technique. My measure was to return to a small pool and focus on technique again. It worked! Within 45 minutes of reps consisting of drills with a length of 10 metres I managed to regain some of my technique and make som improvements. The latter was to lift my head a bit in order to reduce resistance in the water. In addition, by practising reps of just 10 metres, technique is 100 % prioritized. That clearly makes a difference. My approach in the coming time is to focus just on technique using the same workout and increase number of workouts a week to two.

Technicals:
-Total time: 45 minutes
-Total distance: unimportant

Back swimming again

From Rallarvegen

Finally, I'm back in the pool again after a break of 6 weeks. Demanding session with me struggling to reestablish my technique. Initially it felt like I'd forgotten about it all, but gradually I managed to execute some of my previous technique. It's a new pool, longer length-25 m and partly with greath depth(3,8 m). Today I stayed on medium depths, but next time I'm starting at greater depth swimming towards shallow depths. My target is to execute a steadily better technique and complete a whole lap of 25 metres. My measures for achieving that is to increase the number of sessions from one to two and swim every week except in competition-periods.

Technicals:
-Total time: 30 minutes

Swimming: increasing on my lap-length

From Rallarvegen

Due for another session with swimming again. This time I'd decided to increase the lengt of my lap to three lengths of 10m each. At first I managed fine and maintained a good technique. After some time I got tired and didn't manage to keep up my focus when it comes to technique. After 45 minutes I stopped the session. Next time I'll try with 1 minutes rest between each lap. This time I was down to around 40 seconds.  The important thing is to execute a good technique at all times-not the number of sets.

Technicals:
1. 25 laps of 30 m
Total distance: 750 m
Workout time: 45 minutes

Swimming: technique-session

Nice to swim again tonight. Actually it's my first training session since the race last weekend. Next training-session will be next Sunday and will also be a swimming-session.
The goal with todays session was to relax more in the water while focusing on executing good technique and increase the length of the lap. I managed both. The last 7 laps was 30 metres, the first 26 was 20 metres. From now on I'll only be swimming laps of 30 metres and longer. The fun part is that I'm able to relax more in the water. By being able to relax it's easier to execute good technique, and by executing good technique it's easier to relax.-it works both ways. Still I need to work more on my breath. Now I'm able to catch air, but I need to get rid of it as well while I'm not breathing. It was a very good workout tonight. Hours of training has certainly paid off. I just need to keep on working.

Technicals:

1. 26 laps of 20 m: 520 m
2. 7 laps of 30 m: 210 m
Total distance: 730 m
Workout time: 47 minutes

Swimming: consentrating on my breath

Gardermobanen

My focus this time was breathing. After experiences made on Wednesdays session it was time to work more on my breathing. I need to relax more in the water, allow more time when breathing and increase the distance on each lap. With that as a goal I went for it. Initially I felt bit worn, but managed to relax more and use more time when breathing. As a result of this my technique improved. Important is to keep the body straight, head down and twist the body a little while executing a stroke-even when I'm not breathing. When breathing I exacurate a bit-making sure I get enough air, before I pull the next stroke. That means I'll lose some time, but will be able to increase the distance for each lap. I'll be working more with this in the next session the week to come.


Swimming: Vestli school in Oslo, length of pool is 10m
-25 reps of 20 m-total of 500 m
-Total time spent: 45m 0s

Swimming: increasing speed

Due for a new swimming-session tonight. My goals for todays session was to continue my work on improving my technique when it comes to front-crawl. I've managed to established a more efficient stroke by using less strokes to cover the same distance. I do that by deliberately streching out when pulling a stroke and twisting the body a bit at the same time to reduce the resistance in the water. I've been doing laps of 20 m each with a break of 45s in between. Today I reduced the break to 30s. By doing that I need to focus even more on executing good technique. My goals long-term is to relax more in the water, move forward with less use of energy(less resistance)and be able to swim at greater distances without pausing. Earlier on I needed 7 strokes to cover 10 meters. Today I need 3-4 strokes. That's good. At the end of the session I got a bit tired. Experiencing that it's even more important to force myself to focus on executing good technique in order to save energy.
Next time I'll be covering 30 metres without breaking up. In the mean time I'll schedule session no 2 starting next week. It'll be on Wednesday in a pool with a length of 25 metres. That'll be a new challenge. I need that in order to develop my swimming-skills.

Swimming: Vestli school in Oslo, length of pool is 10m
-35 reps of 20 m-total of 700 m
-Total time spent: 40m 30s  

Running: technique session of tonight

Lillomarka-Oslo

All set for another session of running tonight, anxious to learn if my knees had improved the last days. My goal besides that with this session was to work on improving my running-technique. My approach was to run short laps with high cadence and high stride. Speed is of no improtance in this session. The important thing is to get those knees up and maintain a high cadence. Initially I didn't feel anything close to pain in my knees. After a couple of km I felt a growing pain in my right knee. The left knee was painfree all the session. After 4 km the pain in the right knee didn't grow any worse, but I could clearly feel it. With 1 being no pain and 10 being unable to walk because of pain I would rate the pain in my right knee to 5. I was able to run, but I would say that it affected my running to a certain degree. The shoes I'm using is in way a bit restraining. It's like my normal pronation-pattern is restricted. I'll monitor this closely. Tomorrow I'll buy a couple of running shoes with normal pronation-Saucony Jazz Grid.

Tecnicals:
-Distance: 6,96 km
-Time: 41m 03s
-Average pace: 5:53 min/km
-Average moving pace: 5:45 min/km
-Elevation gained: 51 m(7,3 m/km). Below 10-ok
-Calories: 489 kcal.
-Average heart rate(max): didn't measure
-Shoes: Addidas Supernova Sequense
-Weather: clear skies, light, 4 degrees celsius, breeze, medium humidity in the air

Swimming: working towards less resistance

This afternoon it was due for another technique-session. My aim with todays session was to work on relaxing more in the water by trying to rotate a bit on every stroke and at the same time make an effort to move my gravity-point forwards by pushing the head a bit more down in the water.
By reducing the area of which the water must travel past to a minimum I will reduce the resistance in the water. I achieve that by rotating a bit on every stroke and trying to move the gravity-point forwards.
I'm doing laps of 20 metres in a pool with a length of 10 metres. In addition I'm adding laps to a set of 5 laps trying to work on something in particular in that set. In todays session I clearly felt that by relaxing more, rotating a bit and pushing down at front had a significant effect. I was down by 1-2 stroke on each lap. I felt that rotating slightly was easily approachable, but moving the gravity-point fowards demands more work.Next time I'll assign one working task to each set-working on rotating and gravity-point in different sets. On the last set I'm combining.
I'll extend the length of the lap to 30 metres next time. When I'm managing laps of that length properly I'll add another weekly session of swimming. That will probably be from mid november.

 Swimming: Vestli school in Oslo, length of pool is 10m
-25 reps of 20 m-total of 500 m
-Total time spent: 45 minutes  

Swimming: technique session

Another workout focusing on technique this afternoon. The pool I'm swimming in has a rather small length(10 m), but it's more than adequate to work on technique. I'm doing laps of 20 m focusing on front crawl. So far my foot-work is good, my use of arm is adequate and my breathing needs improving. Naturally, I'm consentrating on my breathing. My technique is better on the first part of the lap-I need just 2 strokes to get to the turning point. On the second part then I suffer a bit when it comes to maintaining a good technique resulting in the need for more strokes(3-4) to get to the finish. There are two main reasons for this, I think.
First I haven't established a good breathing pattern yet-but I'm improving though. I'm more relaxed in the water and have established the ability to breathe out in the water before returning for more air. I think the solution for me is to establish a pattern which includes breathing on a pre-decided stroke(every second or third). In addition I need to breathe on the same side every time to be able to relax. My decision is to breathe on every second stroke and always on the left side. Before the next session I'll prepare myself mentally for it by visualising in advance.
Second I was a bit tired in my feet after the long run Yesterday. I'll continue my long runs so I'll just have to adapt.
I also tested out a watch meant to monitor my swimming by counting every time I turn and my strokes. I seems like the pool is to small to make the clock work so I'll just have to make notes of the number of reps and try it out in pools of longer lengths.
Finally I shure think it's about time to add another session of swimming in order to establish more amount of swimming training. One session a week is not enough. I'll consider adding one more session in a pool with greater length(25 m).
I'll decide on that in the weks to come and introduce it in the week after that.

Swimming: Vestli school in Oslo, length of pool is 10m
-25 reps of 20 m-total of 500 m
-Total time spent: 45 minutes

Swimming: improving on my breath

Good to be back again in the swimming pool. I've missed the sessions during the summer and the third quarter. First time was two weeks ago and now I'm having one session a week until the end of this quarter. My focus now is on breathing. I've established an adequate technique so far when it comes to feet-work and the use of arms to enable me to move forwards in an efficient way. Now it's time to work on my breathing-technique. I tend to breathe on every, second stroke and on the same side always(left). In a way I feel more confident by doing so. I think I'll stick to that for the time being. In addition I'm trying to increase the distance covered in one single repetition. The pool we're using is small(10 metres long), but that just mean I need to turn a lot more. It's good to practise that as well. Right now one rep is two lenghts and one turn. I must have done 15-20 of these this afternoon. It's diificult to tell just how many. I need to buy a watch that does the counting. Swimming is all about technique, so my focus is on executing good technique. If I get tired it's important to take short rest in order to be able to execute good technique during my workout. Today I did good by improving the length of my rep. I also managed to adjust my arm-work enabling me to have a more straight-forward direction in my swimming. The next time I'll be working more on breathing technique by using a spesific breathing-pattern decided upon in advance. Before the session I'll visualise myself doing it and make sure I'm mentally prepared.

2. Swimming: Vestli school in Oslo, length of pool is 10m
-15 reps of 20 m-total of 300 m
-Total time spent: 45 minutes