Swimming and more swimming

First up is a PRP update

Last week I joined the swim squad at Jellie Park under the guidance of Coach Roly. Boy did I get a shock. I like to consider myself a front pack swimmer when I’m going well, and that usually means putting in x4  2.5-3,000 yards each session with the Nitro crew or by myself while in Texas. I received a big wake up call this week with Roly as each session was 5.5km! You do the conversion and that is around a 6,000 yard swim. The volume initially just destroys your arms and I had to focus so hard in executing excellence on all my flip turns, making sure I was as streamlined as possible at all times during my stroke. It took me three sessions to finally adapt to the volume and move up from last place in the lane. Yes, last place. We all have to start from the bottom and work our way up. I’m really hoping this volume with all the speed injected into each session will take my swimming to higher level. It would great to be able to go sub 2 min and sub 5 min for the 200 and 500 free again!
The biking and running have been coming along much more slowly. The biking increased in volume this week, but there was still only three sessions. I completed the week with a FTP test and was rather surprised with my number. I knew the number wasn’t going to be as high because of lack of endurance training the past 10 weeks. However, all the strength work I did with Scott Woolwine at Wild Basin really paid off and I ended  up in the Cat I. cat in the power profile chart. It helped that I lost a bit of weight and gained more strength to get solid power-weight ratio. Now the goal is to be working very closely at, and around FTP levels in the training toward Tauranga Half Ironman! If you are looking for a great read on Power, I suggest “Training and Racing with a Power Meter 2nd edition”. Has given much more insight on how to improve my cycling in 2012.
The riding here is great with long country roads that go for miles and miles with no traffic signals and little traffic. This is old on Old West Coast road. It was overcast on Saturday so the view was not as spectacular, but you can see the long straights on the green Canterbury plains. Having a blast riding my QR here.

Running is the toughest event for me while training here in New Zealand. Running is so simple with just shoes and minimal amounts of clothing. It is easy to get out of the house, get into rhythm, and just feel great. The running here is great with some many parks and trails with soft surfaces, so  you can see how hard it is to hold back.  Coming back from injury is a slow process. Last week I was running 4 min/ walk 1 min for 30 minutes. This week I advanced up to a whopping 5 min run/1min walk for 45 minutes! This weekend I get to advanced to hill work. As you can see in the pick below, there are some very cool running trials in the Port Hills. Can’t wait!



















Keep training hard. Till Next time.

James