Focusing on my swimming

I have always loved the water.  Thanks to my mum, I was introduced to swimming lessons when I was 4 years old and I progressed well as a club swimmer.  My 'racing' stroke was breaststroke and I was always a pretty rubbish front crawl swimmer so years later when I took up triathlon and got back in the pool I died off after one length. 

Swimming is all about technique.  You have to get in the pool regularly,  as in a minimum of three times a week, to improve and maintain it.   It has taken hours and hours both in the pool and in open water, and while it has paid off there is always room for improvement.

I had a swim analysis in January in an endless pool which included a video analysis that critiqued my stroke and basically showed that I needed to improve my body position, stop my arms crossing, slow down my arm cadence, improve my kick,...and god so many other things but anyway I took away the report and after a couple of months gradually saw my swimming pace get significantly faster from around 2.15 / 100m to around 2.00/ 100m in the pool and a bit faster in open water when helped by the buoyancy of a wetsuit.  I completed my 3.8k race swim in 1.21 and was really happy with that.  

However, this month I realised despite all my efforts my speed had stopped improving.   My coach Paul offered to get in the pool with me and take a look.  That one hour session was really helpful.  He immediately identified that while my body position was fine in the water I was not getting a good enough catch and pull to my swim.

The catch and pull technique is something that has been explained to me before by swimming coaches but generally quite hard to understand.  That is maybe because they have been explaining it usually while standing above me at the side of the pool and not in it actually demonstrating what they mean.  

Essentially, it is all about getting a good entry point for your hand and keeping a high elbow through the pull phase as well as engaging your lats.  www.swimsmooth.com has a really good explanation of this.

I also found this short film by Olympic Chloe Sutton one of the best ones that explains how to get a good catch and pull https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1OY_yQBiXM&t=452s

Since the session with Paul I have been in the pool working on specific drills that will help my technique and while it still feels a bit unnatural to swim this way I am already seeing improvements in my time.  My lunchtime swim today was 1.56 / 100m.

So my advice for anyone keen to make some improvements would be to find an experienced coach to preferably join you for a swim and look at your swim technique, then get some drills to correct your stroke incorporated into your pool sessions so that you can maximise swimming throughout the off season.

Happy swimming!

Lx

Finding a cycling spirit

A sobering thought for this time of year is that most fatal cycling accidents occur in the dark, with the most dangerous hours for a cyclist reported as between 8.00am-9.00am and 3.00pm-6.00pm.  While these facts are unlikely to inspire more people to ride bikes during the darker months, it raises questions on how we can improve road safety generally. 

Sustrans suggested safety is linked to building more segregated on-road cycle routes when it published a survey this week showing significant public support exists for them.  That is all well and good where there is space to do so, but in Bath and many other towns and cities, there is very little room to change the road infrastructure. Yet cycle friendly cities exist elsewhere, even in densely populated places with busy roads and where they have similar challenges to Bath. Osaka in Japan is an interesting example. It does not have miles of bike lanes, nor does it have a modern infrastructure or a bike sharing system but it is considered to be one of the most bike friendly cities in the world because the Japanese culture has instilled a cycling spirit in its 2.6 million residents. 

This makes me think that simply looking to spend money on cycling infrastructure is approaching the problem the wrong way.  Whatever we introduce to improve cycling safety will only work if we collectively as road users are prepared to change our behaviour.  We need to find a way to shift the “them and us” attitude that exists between cyclists and drivers, we need to make better decisions as road users and we need to rid our roads of rage.  Finding our cycling spirit in Bath is surely worth striving for and investing in. And right now, we need to invest in being visible to one another. Even when there are streetlights cyclists are often not easily seen.  Ride 

with your lights on day and night and wear some bright high visibility gear and drive cautiously and keenly. 

Road safety is the responsibility of both drivers and cyclists and to sensibly adjust to the road conditions, not least at this dark time of year.     

Keeping motivated this winter

With the days getting shorter and chillier I am getting back into the swing of indoor cycle training.  I know many people enjoy cycling outside throughout the winter months but personally I prefer to mainly stay inside.  It’s not that I am averse to training in the cold, in fact I love to run on a bright cold day, but when it comes to cycling I now choose to avoid the roads if there is a chance of ice and slippy conditions. This means I have dusted down the turbo and to keep me motivated I have committed to riding my bike on my turbo for a minimum of 30 mins a day during the month of November.  There are a group of riders taking part and some other aspects to the challenge, but essentially it is free and open for all to take part in, all you need to do is register.  Find out more by using the hashtag #turbovember.

There are lots of challenges designed to help keep you motivated during the winter.  Running Heroes is another free initiative I would recommend you look at.   You simply link up your running app to your personal Running Heroes account which then awards you points for each mile your run.  In doing so you can win entries to various running events as well as other running and fitness products. There is a lot more to this so the website is certainly worth a look.

Exercising with friends and trying new fitness activities are both great ways to keep up the momentum of the fitness you have built from summer training, however, for me by far the best way is to always have a goal and a training plan.    I have already set my two key goals for next year and one of them is early in the season which means I have a great incentive to train over the winter.  I also have new training plan in place designed to help me monitor and hit my targets on a weekly and monthly basis.  It is rewarding to track your progress and by continuing to train through the winter will only make your summer stronger.  Happy training!

@lindatodd74

Kona inspired viewing

On Saturday I spent a few hours glued to my TV watching the Ironman World Championships take place live in Kona, Hawaii.   This year, Bath was represented by Paul Ransome, Head Coach of Team Urban Endurance and former Olympian Heather Fell, who lives, works and trains in the City.  To get an entry to the race is beyond difficult.  To put this in perspective, during the last 12 months 85,000 people have raced Ironman events around the world with only the top age group winners from each race gaining one of 2,400 places at the World Championship. While just making the start line is hard enough, the race itself is brutal.  Conditions are extremely hot and the island is notoriously windy, unsurprisingly it is known to break even the pro athletes.    From my seat on the sofa however, the conditions looked beautiful, the sea blue and clear for the swim, long stretches of empty road for the bike and huge crowds cheering on the run route.  It was an inspiring event to watch, some incredibly fast performances from both Heather and Paul who finished strongly, not to mention GBR’s Lucy Charles and David McNamee being on the finishers podium.

Considering we are a small nation, sport in our country really punches above its weight.  We consistently produce World Champion and Olympian sports men and women, develop professional football, rugby, rowing and cycling teams, and boast some of the best racing car drivers, golfers, cricketers, jockeys and snooker players on the circuit and yet we are massively underinvested in funding athletes and facilities. 

Living in Bath you would not think this is the case, we are extraordinarily lucky to have access to world class facilities at the Uni, a new multi-sports facilities at Odd Down and a Sports centre that, once it’s refurbishment is complete, will give more people access to better facilities.  We also have numerous gyms, fitness classes and plenty free running groups and cycling clubs in the city to pick from.  With so much on the doorstep to take advantage of, it is important we keep on encouraging our young people into sport as well as finding more ways to support and fund our inspiring, professional athletes.

@lindatodd74