My approach to swim training

I am beginning to flesh out the Winds of Hawi website and thought I would share some of that here. Specifically the stuff about swim training. I believe it was Joe Friel who said there is nothing really new about long course triathlon training. Seems to me like every couple of years we hear about some new, radical method that will revolutionize the sport. They come and they go. Athletes who chase after them are no better off, while their wallets get lighter. I make no claims for doing anything new. Maybe a little offbeat.

When I took up swimming for triathlon I was fortunate in that throughout my life I spent considerable time around water. I recall vaguely some group swimming lessons when I was maybe five or six. Some scattered memories:

• Diving for shiny pennies
• Holding onto the edge of the deck and flutter kicking
• Whipping my arms around like a windmill
• The water was cold, we shivered a lot
• The girls were annoying

So I never had real swim training. Never learned to do freestyle. I think it was my dad who  taught me side stroke, and I stuck with that. The good news is that my rudimentary exposure to swimming made it easier to learn late in life compared to someone who did not have those opportunities. I am grateful for that.

When I started to learn how to swim, everything was aimed at swimming in pools. I ran into a huge problem there. Public pools were not open before work, and after work they were reserved for youth teams. I could not get started until late afternoon, which had me coming home late for dinner. Then I found the Oahu Club, a nice, clean facility that opened at 6:00AM for us old folks.

It was there that I learned to swim the Total Immersion way. After a week-long swim camp in Kona I bought Fresh Freestyle (one of the authors, Celest StPierre, taught the Kona camp) and used that as the basis for my pool workouts.

If there is one thing learning to swim has taught me, it is patience. Progress comes very slowly. It is so tempting to give up in the face of what feels like not getting anywhere. Literally! The goal that kept me going was my desire to race at Honu. A good example of the value in having a clear, attainable goal.

For the last year I kept going to the pool, almost out of habit. Then along came COVID-19. Like a lot of things, the pool closed. After a few weeks off I began swimming again at Ala Moana. It was at this time that I decided there must be a way to practice TI style in open water. And it was that insight that lead me to decide I wanted to be a coach.

This is what I have been spending much of my time on. I feel like an explorer. Am I looking at lands never seen my human eyes? Probably not. More likely my role will be like that of a travel guide, working out how to make the most of your time when you visit a place. The TI technique is the same whether swimming in a pool or open water. The initial challenge is how to execute the drills without the pool. After that, how to create simple workouts that can be done without a page of notes in a plastic bag pinned on the deck under a water bottle. I think the biggest challenge will be how to measure progress.

Here are a few key points I am working on:

• My hunch is that many triathletes who practice in the ocean just put in time, without focus.
• There are sections of shoreline where water depth tapers gently enough to allow TI drill practice (superman glide, spearing, etc.).
• Workouts prescribed by short distance can be just as effective when prescribed by stroke count, e.g. 4 x 25, 2 x 50.
• Time in the water is better for managing training stress (TSS) than total distance.
• Just as with the bike and run, there should be one long swim per week, and this is more effective when done in open water.
• Landmarks spaced reasonably far apart can be used to create a course of arbitrary but consistent length for doing assessments. This week I am investigating the buoys at Ala Moana.

Much remains to be explored, built, and tested. Hopefully some of the patience I practiced learning to swim will transfer to my new endeavor, learning to teach.

Maybe there is something in your life that might benefit from the same type of scrutiny. It is so much easier to keep on doing what we do. Now that COVID-19 has turned our world upside down and shaken all the spare change out of our pockets, use the opportunity to stop, question, turn upside down, and find a new way. Maybe better. Maybe just different. Time will tell. Be patient.

Tossing my hat into the ring

In my last post I described how I am designing my own Ironman training plan based on the principles put forth in Joe Friel's book, Fast After 50. I am ten weeks along, and very pleased with the result. It is still very much a work in progress. I have not polished up the final few weeks --  what Friel calls the peak and race periods -- and am just getting started turning place-holder swim workouts into something more specific.

The most significant improvement has been fatigue. The number one takeaway from Friel's book is that senior athletes need more time to recover from hard workouts. The corollary is, the older you are, the more this will be true. Since I am twenty years older than the age targeted in the book's title we can assume that recovery is an issue for me, and it is. I find that by following Friel's advice I do not struggle to get through the day, or feel the need to take a day off. This is important because consistency pays. Working too hard and taking time off due to fatigue and breakdowns produces less improvement and a greater risk of overuse injury than sticking with a well designed plan.

Which brings me to the title of this post. I have decided to try my hand at coaching. Naturally this has unleashed a host of daemons. Am I qualified? Do I have enough experience? What if nobody signs up? You know the ones. Would it have been easier if someone asked me to coach them first? Perhaps. But then I would have stumbled into a new role without giving it much thought, and that would not be fair to the client. Even now I must stress that I will be learning as we go, but when is that never true?

When I started to take this idea seriously I saw it as a way to supplement my retirement income, when I ever get around to retiring. As the plan came into focus I realized that I am a long way from making significant money as a coach. So, as it turns out, the timing is good. I still have a full time job and can focus on improving my coaching skills without relying on financial success.

One piece of good news on the financial front, I managed to reach this point without spending any money. Many years ago I had a project aimed at implementing computers in education. Many, many years ago, when laptops weighed ten pounds, cost thousands of dollars, and had a battery life of maybe an hour. Long before there was Google Docs or anything like it. When I began, my ideas were so revolutionary people thought I was a dreamer. If they were being polite. As time passed the world caught up and passed me by. I still had my old website, so I tore it down and repurposed it in support of my new coaching endeavor. I already had a social media presence, began when I took on the challenge of racing Ironman 70.3 Hawaii, a.k.a. Honu, and I decided to stick with it. Let's face it, Dunn Coaching does not send a good message, right? So, Winds of Hawi it is. Please give the website a look. And please keep in mind that I am just getting started. The foundation is there, most of the framing is done, the roof is on, but there is still much to be done.

At this time I have no plans to do what the established triathlon training programs around town do. No group training. No brick-and-mortar storefront. There is a place for that. It is my belief that there are other athletes like me, who prefer to train alone but could do better with a little help. I also intend to minimize in-person sessions. This makes good sense given the COVID-19 situation, but even after things get back to normal I believe an on-line relationship can be effective and less expensive. One advantage I have is that I live, train, and race in Hawaii. This should be an advantage to local athletes. 

In a future post I want to share what I have been doing with regards to swimming. With pools closed the only option has been the ocean, and I in the process of adapting Total Immersion training to open water.