Spence Smith

I’m always amazed that no matter how tough or easy the practice is, I’m always wiped out at the end of the night. The next day I’m usually useless physically. You know they say swimming works every muscle in your body…I agree. I am thankful thought for these work outs though. With my travels coming up i’m going to be missing a few. Coming back into the speed of things will be tough…but well worth it.

I’m amazed at some of the people i swim with. There are 3 or 4 in our group that have signed up for next years Louisville Ironman 2008. One of the guys swim s in my lane. His name is Mike. But then there’s my new friend Lynn. She’s a runner and this past summer she did a bunch of triathlons. Then on Saturday of this past weekend she ran her first half marathon. I asked how she did and she said she came in third overall! Impressive. Way to go! Then she said she the most she has ever ran was 8 miles!!!! Yikes!!! She ran it in 1 hour 45 minutes!!! Impressive again!

Here’s the deal. I love being a part of a group of people for two reasons. The group pushes me to work hard and I’m inspired by people who go for it, like Lynn.

Which reminds me…My friend Krissy Thomas is two weeks away from running her first marathon. The Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco.  I’m proud of her for going this far AND for raising the $4,200 for Team in Training! Way to go! You are inspiring….

That’s right! I love chocolate milk!!! My favorite childhood drink has just been validated for my adult life!!! My swim coach, Ashley Whitney, emailed this article over in an effort to keep us educated on all the latest in multi-sport nutrition.

by Coach Troy

Chocolate lovers
rejoice! You can now enjoy your favorite beverage, recover from hard
workouts faster and save a few dollars from purchasing expensive sports
recovery drinks.

In an article written in a recent issue
of The Amercian College of Sports Medicine Health and Fitness Journal,
Stella Lucia Volpe, Ph.D, R.D., L.D.N., FACSM wrote about some
interesting research on the topic of recovery drinks and compared them
to plain old low fat chocolate milk.

[...]

Tonight’s swim practice was a tough one. Our coach, Dee Davis from Excel Aquatics in Brentwood, TN, put us through hundreds of yards of interval swimming which would be like tempo running for…well…runners. It was a great work out but tough. the bulk of the swimming was 1200 yards split into 3 sets of 4 100 yard intervals on a 2 minute 15 sec interval. This means, you swim the 100 yards in under 2:15. However, you are starting another 100 yards every 2:15. If you finish in 1:45 then you have 30 seconds to rest. Got it? Here’s the catch. for the first 2 sets of the 3. You have to come in within 2 seconds faster or slower than you first 100 time. The catch is to swim the first 100 as slow as you can without going over 2:15 and giving your self enough time to catch your breath…so ideally…1:50 would be a good slow pace. Then you have some room to get through the other (3) 100′s for that set. Make sense? ok…so now…you do the second set the same way. Both sets I came in faster than I wanted to…the first 100 of the drill was  1:38…fast yes…kick my butt for the other 3 intervals…very much so.  The 3rd set of four 100 yard intervals had to be in descending time. So whatever you do on the first set, you have to descend your time by 1 second for every interval. Remember, by the time you get the this set you have already done 800 yards of interval swimming. Not mention 400 yards of warm up and another 800 yards of other drills. Here lies the problem…I’m beat by this point in the work out and now I have to give it all i got and swim faster now? oh boy…The end result is always great. I finished and it was good. However, I’m starting to feel the soreness more and more with each work out. I think I’m getting a little better each time.

Last night I went to swim practice triathlon training. I do this with a group from EXCEL AQUATICS. We have two coaches that work us over. Ashley Whitney, who I’ve mentioned before, and Dee Davis. For the past few months Dee has been coaching our group. She’s tough, but good. As we were doing these drills and she told us that by opting out of breathing with every stroke we could save more time by creating less resistance in the water…basically, move your head less to streamline more. Take a breath when you need it, not because it’s every stroke. Once I fell into a pattern with breathing every third stroke, we took off the pull buoys and just swam…at this point, I had my breathing down to taking a breath every fourth stroke. It really felt good, but getting there took some patience. You take a breath, keep your head down and breath out for, in my case, four strokes. On the fourth stroke you feel like you are out of breath and you think "OH MY GOSH I’M IN WATER!!!!" I mean no one really wants to be taking water into their lungs because they are out of breath right? As I was working up to this, the only thing that kept running through my head was this, "just be patient…you’ll get there." In this situation, the natural thing for your body to do is want to speed up just to get the air. When your mind goes into this survival mode, your breathing gets quicker, heart rate goes up and basically you are pushing yourself to hard to make it work right when what you are really doing is swimming sloppy…so you have to ENDURE the anxiety a bit and stretch your lungs as Dee would say.

I wonder, how many times in life do we try to rush to the end and make things a little sloppy on the way there? What would happen if you took a deep breath, and exhaled it patiently through a stressful time?

With anything physical, when it comes to training, the first thing you learn about is correct form.  Why? because you want to use your muscles the way they were meant to be used and so you dont get hurt in the process.  If you stick to the form, (for you non athletic types, you could call this your plan) you will be more effecient and better at the skill…so, Dee would say, As your taking fewer breaths, think about form, do the form right and the breathing will come easier…

So I swam and thought…Just be patient…you’re doing ok.

Since January of this year I decided to take on the task of training for a triathlon. Not a specific one, just train so I could do one when I thought I would be ready for one. Well, now I’ve decided to do one in August down in Alabama. Back in January when this all started I figured what I needed was to get in to a routine for swimming. Having been on a swim team when I was a kid, I thought all I needed was a little bit pool time and I would be good to go. But of course, as with any training I’ve done, I needed a plan. So I signed up for some coaching with a group of people who are training to be triathletes. “Awesome” I thought as I worked it out in my head. So I began with the Excel Aquatics team in Brentwood, TN. My coach is Ashley Whitney. She is an Olympic gold medalist and an incredible swimmer. And that’s very much an understatement.

I’ve been fairly consistent with the training schedule of Monday and Wednesday nights until the last couple of months. Between my travel schedule and events here at home, I have missed the past month and a half of training. I went back tonight for another training session and am completely wiped out from the work out!! The whole experience has been awesome and I’m so thankful to be apart of this program. If you are at all interested in training with this group you should check out the link here, Excel Aquatics. Believe me when I tell you that they beginners and advanced swimmers. If you are a beginner, then don’t fear. They start you with the very basics and work you up to where you need to be.

Remember, when it comes to competing in a race, whether it’s running, cycling, or swimming, It’s not about how fast you get to the finish. It’s just about finishing well.