Life came before triathlon today.  I spent the vast majority of the day, continuing the work on the painting our family room.  This meant I didn’t have time to do my scheduled short run or have time for my mobility exercises.

I did make time for one workout and that was a swim.  The swim session that my coach gave me today, involved both drills and fast swimming.  After a 200 yard warm up, I did twelve, 25 yard intervals, that were build intervals.  This meant starting slow and building to a fast finish.  Over twenty five yards, this just feels like a sprint start to a race.

The main set of my swim session involved a 25 yard Tarzan drill swim, followed by regular swimming with a building pace.  Tarzan swimming is tough.  It is just regular freestyle swimming, but you need to keep your head completely out of the water.  This means you need to kick hard to keep any kind of reasonable body position in the water.  You also have increase your swim cadence and keep your arms out wide.  All of this is good for building swim strength and for getting a good feel of the water.

My total distance for this session was only 2,100 yards, but I was really tired by the end.  I was really happy with how I did, and it also reminded me of the kind of effort you need to put in, if you want to get better as a swimmer.  I am looking forward to lots more sessions like this in the pool over the winter. I need to be in great swim shape for next season.  I don’t want a swim to ruin my race, like it has done in the past.