Reaching

Today was my long swim day. While learning to swim I found a piece of advice in Terry Laughlin's Triathlon Swimming Made Easy book that helped me refine my swim technique more than anything else I've read or seen on video. Instead of getting overwhelmed by focusing on all the technical details at once, pick a focus point and concentrate on it for as long as you need to. When you're satisfied move on to something else. Today my focus point was reaching.

As I swam the thought occurred to me that triathlon is all about reaching. Reaching for the wall. Reaching for a goal. Reaching deep down inside. Reach, pull, glide. Ever since I began down this path I've been reaching for the next goal. So it seems that for me, focusing on these mental swim focus points has had another positive side effect in addition to improving my swim stroke. By training your mind to focus on a physical act to the exclusion of others, the pathways that are etched in your mind are retraced during the course of your every day life. The way you train becomes the way you are.

Wow - deep stuff for shallow water. It was a good swim today!

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Workout Summary

60 minute continuous swim - 3600 meters.

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Workout Week Review
Long run on Sunday went very well - was able to keep good form and an 8:30 pace. Gotta plug my Garmin Forerunner 301 here - I love it.

For my midweek brick workouts I had more energy than usual. My treadmill runs were surprisingly good - and I'm not a big fan of the treadmill. I've been mixing up the treadmill runs by varying the incline and speed, and using a playlist that also varies in cadence from 85 to 95. Really helps break up the monotony. Did a lot of one leg drills during spin classes as well.

After reading through the Core Performance book I decided to add some cable workouts to help strengthen my supporting muscles and core during my circuit training. Over time I'll add more ideas from the book, but overall I found that their routines really won't fit my workout schedule - would have to add another hour to really do it right and I'm already at 3.5 hours on Tuesday and Thursdays. Any more time and I'll be a puddle for the rest of the day.