Triathlon Prep: I.D. Weaknesses
Just finished a ho-hum weight lifting session at the gym. Some sets of squats, bench presses, bent over barbell rows, dumbbell curls, triceps curls, stiff leg deadlifts, and some crunches and pullups. No PRs, or attempts at PRs. Planned to spend 33 minutes on stationary bike but I cut it short after five minutes because of a twinge in my ankle. I feel a little bad about not doing any cardio between Saturday (my first swimming session) and Wednesday (I’m not doing any exercise tomorrow!), but I think I need to give the ankle/tendon a bit of a rest.
I’ve finished skimming Friels’ Triathlete’s Training Bible, and am thinking about the chapter that discusses identifying "limiters" — aspects of one’s overall skill and conditioning level that impede one’s ability to achieve the best performance. Thinking about this very quickly, I’d say my chief limiters are:
- Poor swimming technique. I obviously don’t swim as efficiently as more experienced swimmers I see in the pool.
- Mediocre swimming power. Although my weight lifting has helped with strength, I can tell I don’t have a lot of swimming strength.
- No open water experience. I have to expect open water swimming will be slower than pool swimming because of all the strange environmental factors — particularly swimming in a crowd. I don’t even like swimming with lots of people around me in other lanes.
- Inexperienced cycling technique. I’ve never raced. Ever. A year and a half ago I biked about 35 miles in a couple of hours on the bike trail, other than that I have little experience cycling for any distances. For all I know my bike may not be fitted quite right.
- Poor lactate threshold on bike. I’ve noticed that I feel the burn in my legs at a relatively low HR. I need to push that way up.
- Weak achilles tendon. Not sure if I can fix this by June or not. I plan mostly not to run for the next couple of months and then ease into it. If my ankle is strong enough to give me 8 weeks before the race to really train for the 10K, that will be enough to do it in under 45 min, maybe well under that.
Perceived strengths:
- General aerobic condition — this is fine at this stage of training if I want to achieve my goal of a 2:30 time. I have plenty of time to boost it.
- Overall strength — I don’t need a lot of weight lifting strength to race a triathlon, and I’m already near the load goals as set forth in the TTB. I want to get 1-rep equivalent in squat up to around 290 by end of February.
- Running technique — Probably my greatest strength. I know how to stay loose and economical while I run.
Some things to work on, immediately:
- Swim technique. I have Terry Laughlin’s Total Immersion swimming book and am going to work on the techniques in it.
- Cycling power and lactate threshold. I can do this on the stationary bike; need to concentrate on getting wattage level up just below lactate threshold and then holding it for 20 minutes. Some shorter, faster intervals may boost leg power and strength.
- Cycling technique. I need to get out on the bike trail, or on nearby roads, for this.
- General swim endurance. 50 minutes plus workouts two times a week need to become a habit right away. I already did 45 minutes so jumping to 50 shouldn’t be too hard.
Need to sign off and get to work. It’s a short day today before going home for the holiday.
December 24, 2007 at 1:33 pm
This self assessment is awesome, it should help you focus and prioritize. Have you looked at "Toatal Immersion" as a swimming guide book. It includes drills and programs to help with your swim technique, trying to get you to swim as efficiently as possible.