One of my swimmers is moving out of the area. He and I have been working together for over 2 years and he’s made incredible progress. Here were some suggestions to him on how to approach training without our regular interactions: Progress is rarely linear all the time. You should expect setbacks and reversals of[…]
In the last few months, I’ve been really into Total Immersion and their teaching method. Swimming is one of those activities which require mastery of so many little details that trying to learn swimming all at once is very very difficult. So they do a great job of breaking down technique with drills, and enforcing[…]
In my interactions with my coach M2, I have learned that there are 6 types of training. These are: 1. Neuro-muscular – training of the nervous system to do something either differently, better, or to some form which maximizes efficiency and minimizes effort. Example: super short high speed treadmill intervals for 15-30 seconds per interval,[…]
Since I began this heat acclimatization training back in June, I’ve finally begun to see some nice results. The Bay area has experienced some truly unbelievably hot weather this summer. I’ve never seen it reach 90+ or even 100 degrees in Palo Alto until this year. However, it’s perfect for preparing my body for hard[…]
Global warming is in full force this year. These last few weeks in Palo Alto have been in the 90s, which is really unusual as Palo Alto tends to be much cooler than San Jose. This morning, I got to Rancho San Antonio by 830a and it was already 82 degrees by my car’s thermometer.[…]
Watching my friends race Ironman China yesterday was really painful. The heat index reached 115 which is a combination of temperature plus humidity. It was an unbelievably hot and humid day on Hainan Island and for the 500+ racers, it was a nightmare. One of my buddies DNF-ed. He was feeling blurry eyed in the[…]
It was shocking to see/feel my mental resolve fizz away so suddenly. I had experienced lapses in resolve before but never as large as this time, half way through the marathon of Ironman WA. In the past, my resolve has weakened at the “wall” of a marathon, where my body just seems to get really[…]
A few years back, I got hooked on the notion of shaving my legs for triathlon. I remember hearing about it and the supposed benefits of shaving my legs. Some of these were: 1. Biking – if you get in a crash and you need to put a bandage on, pulling it off is less[…]
I was walking through a supermarket last week and saw a boxed set of all the Discovery Channel Shark Week series. Being a lover of these types of documentaries, I bought one thinking it would be cool to learn more about sharks. Last week, I went to get my haircut and while waiting for it,[…]
I have a racing buddy with a lot of rage. It’s kind of amusing actually. You can hear him yell at other slow or poor drivers around him when he’s driving. He also yells at himself during races to motivate him to move faster, ie. “C’mon you w**sy, you can go faster! You’re such a[…]