Aquatastic

[andygates]

Huge thanks are due to Ehutch for coachly goodness as I swam the 1km stretch of the Hunstpill that her tri club use for open-water training. The swim wasn't a David Walliams moment of glory, but it was a full klick of wet stuff, mostly progressed in crawly goodness.

That's the big scary bugbear of Cotswold nailed. I can do 1km so I can do the lake's 750m; this was a goblin that surfaced at my Bude Awakening and only got bigger as the Exeter Tri mob were all just plain better than me. Goblin: owned. Its evil space monkeys can bite my shiny metal ass.

Race-day will raise my game (it's one thing I like about racing even at my level: "oh wow, I didn't know I could do that") and I've got a couple of stroke pointers to work on to increase the speed and sustainability of my crawl too.

Comments

[ravenbait.livejournal.com]

I've got a couple of stroke pointers to work on to increase the speed and sustainability of my crawl too.

Care to share?

[andygates.livejournal.com]

I was over-rolling on my breath and slacking off on the pull - effectively resting. So tip one is to sync the breath with the pull and keep my mouth at the waterline letting the pull make the wake.

In turn that suggests exhaling on the breath-side stroke and that ties it all together into a breathe-on-two strokein, strokeout, kind of thing that seems to be much faster.

Otherwise it was hand placement, I was drifting towards the centreline.

My sighting still sucks. I'm hoping for lots of swimmers to follow. If I end up in the lead, I'm screwed. I won't worry ;)

[ehutch.livejournal.com]

You did fantastically well - consider time and effort small payback for all the time and support you've given me on the bike. I'll even thank you for getting me into cleats... You'll nail Cotswold no problems!