I was introduced to one new workout concept that just bowled me over: the recovery run. It goes like this: you run your ass off one day. Wake up the next morning all creaky and sore, and go right out for another run! And afterward, you feel much better! To me, it defied the basic laws of the universe. But then it was explained to me: the easy run you do the day afterward essentially massages the muscles enough to circulate more blood to them than if you were just sitting around. This helps them to rejuvenate more quickly. It really works.
The new workout schedule kept me pretty busy. It was a lot of work – even outside the workouts, scheduling them into my already busy days. With this much time being spent on workouts, I had to get one in early-morning (5:30 or 6:30am) just about every day to keep up. Michael had me doing different things every day,
which keeps it interesting, but also kept me off-balance, in a not unpleasant way. I love a challenge.
Another new workout concept blew my mind too. As a former swimmer and someone very comfortable in the water, I had always felt swimming a mile was a pretty good workout. Right from the beginning my new pool workouts were between 1.4 and 2.2 miles. No more would I be in and out of the water in 30 minutes or so. Now every pool workout was an hour, plus. And complicated.
The new workout schedule kept me pretty busy. It was a lot of work – even outside the workouts, scheduling them into my already busy days. With this much time being spent on workouts, I had to get one in early-morning (5:30 or 6:30am) just about every day to keep up. Michael had me doing different things every day,
which keeps it interesting, but also kept me off-balance, in a not unpleasant way. I love a challenge.
Another new workout concept blew my mind too. As a former swimmer and someone very comfortable in the water, I had always felt swimming a mile was a pretty good workout. Right from the beginning my new pool workouts were between 1.4 and 2.2 miles. No more would I be in and out of the water in 30 minutes or so. Now every pool workout was an hour, plus. And complicated.
When I was talking to Michael in that first interview, I described my typical pool workout of swimming a mile and then hitting the showers. His understated comment was, "I don't think you'll see many pool workouts like that from me". Now I was beginning to catch on to his low key manner.
Every swim had new stuff in it that I’d never done before (swim training had changed a lot since I was in high school). I acquired a set of swim training toys: training fins, paddles, a mesh bag, a lap counter finger-watch and a swim cap (if I was going to compete in one I wanted to train in one). In the first few months, I spent time every week doing Internet research on swimming drills just to figure out what these things were on my swim workout cue sheets that Michael was putting together. Shark-drill, finger-tip drill, zipper-drill, catch-up drill.
At one point fairly early on, Michael and I discussed swim breathing. In all my lifetime of swimming, I had only ever taken breaths on my right side. As a result, I could tell had an imbalance in my stroke. And it was becoming more obvious the more time I spent in the water. In order to fix that, and develop a stronger, faster stroke, I had to learn a whole new way of swimming: bilateral breathing.
I realized this was not going to come easily, and as I started to build bilateral breathing into my swim workouts, I fought the drowning instinct all the way. I had to learn not to contort my whole body in a panic to get that left facing breath. After two weeks of working on this, I realized that it would take a lot longer than I had thought to get to the point where breathing left felt as natural as breathing right. I told Michael, “give it another fifty miles”. Oooph.
Part 8 on Cycling in a few days. Thanks for reading! And please visit my American Cancer Society fund raising web site: http://main.acsevents.org/goto/pmeese, click the RED "DONATE" BUTTON and, if you are able, make a small contribution in support of my entry in The NYC Triathlon.
Due to the generosity of friends and family, my personal fund raising goal of $3,000 has been exceeded by more than 60% now, and still climbing. Don’t let that stop you from joining more than 50 other supporters and contributing a little more if you feel this is a good cause and this contribution would fit into your annual giving budget.
Every swim had new stuff in it that I’d never done before (swim training had changed a lot since I was in high school). I acquired a set of swim training toys: training fins, paddles, a mesh bag, a lap counter finger-watch and a swim cap (if I was going to compete in one I wanted to train in one). In the first few months, I spent time every week doing Internet research on swimming drills just to figure out what these things were on my swim workout cue sheets that Michael was putting together. Shark-drill, finger-tip drill, zipper-drill, catch-up drill.
At one point fairly early on, Michael and I discussed swim breathing. In all my lifetime of swimming, I had only ever taken breaths on my right side. As a result, I could tell had an imbalance in my stroke. And it was becoming more obvious the more time I spent in the water. In order to fix that, and develop a stronger, faster stroke, I had to learn a whole new way of swimming: bilateral breathing.
I realized this was not going to come easily, and as I started to build bilateral breathing into my swim workouts, I fought the drowning instinct all the way. I had to learn not to contort my whole body in a panic to get that left facing breath. After two weeks of working on this, I realized that it would take a lot longer than I had thought to get to the point where breathing left felt as natural as breathing right. I told Michael, “give it another fifty miles”. Oooph.
Part 8 on Cycling in a few days. Thanks for reading! And please visit my American Cancer Society fund raising web site: http://main.acsevents.org/goto/pmeese, click the RED "DONATE" BUTTON and, if you are able, make a small contribution in support of my entry in The NYC Triathlon.
Due to the generosity of friends and family, my personal fund raising goal of $3,000 has been exceeded by more than 60% now, and still climbing. Don’t let that stop you from joining more than 50 other supporters and contributing a little more if you feel this is a good cause and this contribution would fit into your annual giving budget.
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