Somethings new

OK so first of all, I am setting some goals, one of which is to post here, every day.

It can be time consuming, (mainly because I talk a lot and don't know when to stop :)) but I think it is an important part of my discipline to do this and have at least some sort of accountability to do this.

Some goals I have set for the week (started Friday actually) out of bed by 5:30 (yes that is AM) - which means I have to be asleep by 9:30Pm or sooner. So far so good, up at 4:30 on Friday (also part of the goal as I have a meeting at 6:45 on Friday mornings and I want to swim before hand every time.

Some other goals for the week, swim M-F for 1 hour before work. Run every single day with a long run on Saturday, Long Bike ride on Saturday, Computrainer workout M and W, and don't miss my vitamins on any day, twice per day, post every day here and include a daily log in a format provided by my mental game coach John Ellsworth http://mentaltoughnessnetwork.ning.com/

So far pretty good!

I went swimming this morning and first some positive things!

1. elbow height on entry improving

2. first time using my new tempo trainer and that was really swell, right on beat every stroke, with my rate set a 1 sec and 1.15 secs!

3. good balance even at the higher stroke rate, and LS breathing continues to improve

4. kicking is improving with a better feel for kicking from the hip, every time that I get into the water

5. reaching for the end of the pool consistently, while maintaining early entry on the catch

Good swim overall, I just need to ad to my goal of getting up at 5:30.....get out of the house by 6am M-T and by 5am on Friday, so that I have time to swim for a whole hour.

For improvement

1. Balance on right side (when breathing left on sweet spot drill)

2. Patient hand out front at all times, for improved length on my vessel, with more consistent front quadrant swimming

next workout focus (tomorrow)

1. Drill 200 yards (4 laps) on left side sweet spot with my goal to keep my head back (low in water) to maintain balance and not drink/breath in water. Will likely be able to accomplish this more efficiently by starting on the right side and paying attention to my position and how it makes this work.

OK so at lunch, I ran 3.1 miles and my Garmin Forerunner, (which I could have sworn was fully charged last night) decided to give me the dreaded battery low message, as soon as it fired up and locked in on the satelites. This gave me an opportunity to try to adapt and recover, from an unanticipated problem. I did good, but there is definitley room for improvement in this area.

I did my extimated (probably a little more than 3.1 miles) in 27 min 45 secs. What I actually calculated was 27 min 15 sec, but given that I did not decide to adapt until 2:30 into the run, my accuracy on this is up for debate. Plus the 17mph wind factor out of the east could not have done much for my actual time. So regardless pretty good run.

What I did well

1. did not get shook up when my Garmin checked out and did a little bit of premptive work to be able to have a record of what my performance was

2. kept on the beat like a machine for the second half of my run (85 BPM) used my gears to keep my pace up even when going directly into the wind. Was able to stride out long at the end and not rev it up

3. loose arm swing

4. good foot strike - felt right in the middle the whole time

5. Good linear rotation on my hips - maybe that fast time was totally acurate

Things to improve on.

1. faster turnover

2. keeping head up and focused attention ahead instead of down.

Focus next time - bring BPM up to 86 from the start - better preperation with Fore runner :)