1st proper swim coaching for Ryan

It has been a long wish of mine to teach Ryan how to swim, ever since I became a swim coach.

Ryan never really took to the water, and was even slightly water phobic, thus I had been receiving non-stop questions along the line of "you are a swim coach, your son must be a good swimmer too"

Pool sessions in the past were mostly confined to the pool at Sis's condo, usually when all the kids will be crowding around me to play, and Ryan will shy away at one corner to play with his water gun.

Even the previous 1-1 session at Pasir Ris swimming complex didn't went well, simply due to the fact that Ryan still wasn't mentally resilient enough to put in enough effort and tenacity to learn a difficult life skill, which requires a long period of learning, rather than something that he can pick up in a minute or 2.

After about 4 months of classes with People Impact, I can tell the obvious improvement in Ryan's behaviour on accepting challenges and not easily giving up when asked to.

So, I took some time off this afternoon to pick up Ryan earlier from school to go for a 1-1 swim coaching session at SAFRA Yishun, when the pool isn't crowded.

Concepts on coaching adults to swim can be adapted and used on kids as well.
The fundamental flow is still similar, even with the TI method, though the basics have to be even more elaborate, explicit and abridged, since kids will not be able to understand complex concepts.

Instead of jumping straight into learning strokes, which most swim coaches will do, I focused on getting Ryan more confident and comfortable in water first.

He is a timid and cautious boy when it comes to physical activities, thus will require a fair bit of prompting and experimentation, before he is willing to adopt and learn new subskills.

Today's curriculum:

• Basic prone flutter kick (no cycling kick)
• Bubbling out underwater in upright position
• Bouncing Bear
• Crab Walk

Part of these are probably part of the old CSA curriculum that I had previously taught, but honestly I don't have much recollection of what was in the curriculum. These were by experience and gut feel on what will help Ryan to gain water confidence through play, rather than over focus on achieving a perfect flutter kick or breaststroke kick.

I was pleasantly surprised that Ryan eventually managed to do all of the above and even took the initiative to practice more at the end of the session when I asked him to leave the pool.

Gotta spend more time with the boy and get him to be able to swim a simple breaststroke before end of 2018

Swim expo asia 2014 Race Report

Had been looking forward to this event ever since I had joined ny swim class, sort of like taking this as a graduation swim.

Signed up for all 5 events, which was a combination of 3.8k, 1.9k, 1.5k, 750m and 400m open water swims. All to be completed back to back.

The prep swim done a couple of weeks ago gave me much confidence that this will be a walk in the park. Especially after seemingly having ironed out the possible issues of swimming in a wetsuit, where the #1 enemy is chafing

My preparation for race day, as usual, a McD Fish Fillet meal in the morning with iced milo to wash it down, while I drive to the race venue. Thunderstorms roared and heavy rain and wind caused a 1.5hrs delay to the start of the first 3.8km swim.

By the time it was clear to race, the sea became more choppy. I stuck with my wetsuit and tempo trainer, and went at a pace of 1.20 sec per stroke.

Bad mistake.

Confluence of a series of factors caused me to abandon the 3.8km when I was into the 5th (out of 6) laps. First 3 laps of 600m went fairly ok, but the choppy waves really started taking its toil on me on the 4th lap as I started to feel seasick. The feeling of wanting to throw up did not subside as I continued swimming at a slower pace, ignoring the tempo that I had set on the trainer. The tempo was probably set a bit too fast, so my breathing and heart rate was on the high side on lap #4. The constricting wetsuit made the nausea feeling worse as I couldn't control my heart rate and breathing even after coming to a standstill on my swim (though the waves made sure it was an uncomfortable pause in my swim).

Sensing that it will be futile to continue with my swim, I decided to abandon the race and signaled for the lifeguards to pull me out of the water. 1st thing after getting onto the boat is to unzip my wetsuit, and I immediately felt much better. Though I did throw up my breakfast in the toilet 20 mins after getting on shore.

Managed to complete the remaining 4 events without much issues (without the wetsuit), though the seasickness got to me for the 1.9km and 1.5km swim as I threw up again after these 2 events.



This is the first time that I have a DNF in any form of race.
It is a milestone decision, but I believe I made the right call.
Getting to know my limitations better and not stretching all the way till physical failure, will pave a safer and longer lasting path for my future sporting endeavours.
I'm still proud that I still managed to soldier on despite puking after each swim for the 1st three events.

Still managed to pick up some new knowledge from this swim.

1) Never try new stuff in a race - taking this mantra further, it should be "never try a mixture of too many new stuff in a race"
Just learnt to use the tempo trainer not too long ago. Shouldn't have deployed it on a wetsuit swim without fully getting used to the wetsuit
Hyper ventilating in the wetsuit. Even though I didn't really hyper ventilate this time, but being unable to slow down the breathing to suppress my urge to puke when seasick, it can be reasonably superposed to imply that will have a similar effect if I really hyperventilate.

2) Managing the choppy waves.
Dave Cameroon mentioned about slicing through the waves instead of trying to ride the waves. It worked pretty well except for the other part, that I still need to breathe.
Slicing thru the waves works on the side when I wasn't breathing, but on the side when breathing is required, I had to ride higher on the wave to catch my breath (and sight), which equals to riding the wave.
I had to ride higher or I risk taking in seawater (which I took too much during the swim that is also the cause of the nausea).
My coach mentioned that we should breathe less in choppy waves.
After experimenting in the 750m and 400m when I did a sequence of 2 stroke, sight, 4 strokes, 2 strokes, 4 strokes. It worked.

3) Tempo trainer.
Getting too aggressive on the tempo without fully understanding the wetsuit effect is another big No No.
Putting the tempo trainer in the swim cap and having it press against my temples for more than 1 hour causes extra pain. Another big No No

Skip the tempo trainer for the next race. Just use it purely for training.
Race on feel instead.

Conclusion:
I'm fully convinced that my stamina & technique is definitely able to last me through the entire 8.35km challenge. Just that I'm not well prepared enough and poor prep decisions costed me the 3.8km swim. Not completing a race is not something to fret about, but completing a race without learning anything will be a disaster. I had learnt much from this race, which will better help me handle my future races, especially a 3.8km swim for Full Ironman, even if it will be in choppy conditions. DNF here is better than DNF or struggling through a Full IM race.

Looking forward to the next race - StanChart 42km.
Very little time to train now...

A wut? incident happened at the pool today

Had a wut? moment at the swimming pool today.
(WTF wouldn't be appropriate to describe it)

Hadn't done any workout the whole of last week due to biz travel, and only managed to do a short run on Sunday morning, so I needed a quick session at the pool for a small workout and a refresher on what I had learnt during the 6km swim 2 weeks ago.

Was playing around with the new tempo trainer that I had bought.
It works by beeping at defined time intervals, so that I can synchronize my strokes to a fixed timing.
Another way to look at it is that it is sort of like a speed control device since my swim speed will be pretty much limited by how fast the tempo is set.

The pool was pretty crowded, so I had to do a bit of dodging while I swam, and slowly increase the speed of the tempo to test for my breaking point, so I stopped at the end of every lap to tune the tempo trainer.

During one of my laps I realized that there was a lot of splashing on my left, and a swimmer just frantically overtook me at a very high stroke rate.
Minding my own business, I just continued to the tempo that I had set and ignored the swimmer.

At one of my breaks when I stopped to adjust my tempo trainer, the same swimmer talked to me.
He was an old man, probably about 60 years old, telling me "Continue swimming and don't stop. Train your stamina! If you stop at the end of every lap your stamina will not improve"

I was like "WUT?"

And the old man went on to tell me that he trains a lot on his stamina, and does 30 laps continuously before ending with a butterfly lap as a gauge of his stamina, and how his strokes were slow and steady, and asked me if I'm training for any specific event, and said that I should swim non-stop to build on my stamina. And also told me to stick to my lane and not dodge other swimmers so that I can stake my claim on the lane. (Hello, I'm the late comer who is joining others that were already using the lane. It is just basic courtesy that I should dodge them if collision is imminent. If it was someone joining my lane, then its a different story)

At first I thought he was going to get technical, so I just told him that I'm on a tempo trainer (pointed to my tempo trainer) and am working on my Stroke per length then he immediately went "Huh? I don't understand"

Tried explaining the details to him but he couldn't understand anything.
Told him that I just did a 6km swim 2 weeks ago and I'm preparing for a 8km swim this weekend, and had clocked a few ironmans, so I have specific training goals.
Then he just went quiet.

I hate to come off as snobbish fart in telling him my endurance training stuff, but this was really too WUT?

I saw him barely overtake me on one of my laps with extremely high stroke rate and lots of water thrashing, while I'm following a strict cadence rate with minimal splashes. It was akin to overtaking me on his 100m sprint while I'm doing a 10km run.

If his technique was good, I'd have noticed it before he approached me.

Generally I don't offer unsolicited training advice to strangers unless they approach and ask me nicely.
But to offer unsolicited training advice when one does not even know his stuff well, is just plain rude.


Saw this youtube video a couple of days ago, and realize that I'm guilty of unknowingly spewing some of the crap stuff that triathletes say, especially those doing ironman and 70.3
To those whom are in the sport, the lingo seems normal.
But to those who have no idea what is Ironman/Triathlon, it definitely comes off as snobbish.

Gotta to watch my manners next time when I talk about the sport to non-Tri folks

Busy September

It has been a hectic month till date, but I'm enjoying it though.

Commenced on my swimming class and just completed my stock trading class last saturday.

The stock trading class has been pretty intense and useful.

I had been buying stocks since 2012 but had no idea of how to properly evaluate a stock to make sure it is good, and no idea of how to take profit, when to enter and exit etc. I had made profits and losses over the last few years without knowing why.
As the common saying goes: "What you don't pay in school fees, you will pay a bigger amount through losses"
Since the biggest paper loss that I had made was more than the course fees itself, I thought that I might as well go learn how to do trading and investments properly instead of continuing to deceive myself that I'll do enough self study on the various free online resources and I'll be one day become a God of Stocks.
Time to grow up and face the reality.

Sure, I had took Biz Minors in NTU, and went through classes on understanding the stock markets, but back then, it was all theoretical stuff without solid hands on and quantitative analysis done, so it was all talk in the air without working on any examples.
It was akin to finishing my 1sr read on "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and then declaring that I'll reach Financial Freedom by 40 years old, without the know how or plans on how to do that.

Burnt a few weekday nights and 2 saturdays for this short and intense course, and I'm pretty satisfied with what I had picked up so far, and signed up for the advanced class without hesitation to extend my knowledge further.
The only downside is that I have to sacrifice time with Ryan & Dear to attend these classes, but it is temporary and I know that the future payoff will be much bigger than the small sacrifice now.


Also commenced on my swimming classes this month.
Actually I started the 1st unofficial class last month, before the OD race, where I picked up some tips on the optimal swimming technique, but was insufficient to make a significant way to my existing technique.
After attending a few classes, I can tell that my technique is gradually improving, and I'm starting to be able to swim faster with less energy expended.
Of course I did my own homework and watched lots of training videos to improve my understanding as well, to accelerate my progress.
Swimming has now become more of a relaxing exercise than a strength training session like what I used to do in the past.
It seems that I am doing more swimming than running these days!


Picking up new knowledge has always been enjoyable for me, and it continues to do so with the swim and stock classes. Free online education materials and videos really make it much easier to learn, absorb and reinforce new knowledge.

I guess these courses can fulfill my goal for this year for learning new stuff, since I'm going to continue with the stock class, and probably with the swim class as well, so I won't have time to go for martial arts and will have to delay this till next year.

Learning new stuff is always good!

Unexpected gain in today's leisure swim

Did a swim at Tampines SAFRA with Weicheng today to push him for a bit of recovery physio from his broken toe injury.

On swimming alongside with him, then I started to appreciate how much I have improved in my swim from the point when I first started doing triathlons.

I used to struggle quite a fair bit to keep up with his speed, and had to use more strokes to complete a lap.
When I moved on to OD, my speed was about the same as his, but it will have to be a sustained effort to keep up.

Only after moving to 70.3, then my swim really improved tremendously as I learnt more through lots of read up, and actively honed my technique on top of my endurance.

It was now with relative ease that I'm able to glide past Weicheng today without much effort, and he could tell the huge advancement I made in my swim technique over the last 2 years.

I had tried to practice breathing on my left-hand side during the front crawl in many of my solo swim sessions in the past, but usually gave up after 2 laps of drinking chlorinated water.
Since today was supposed to be a leisure swim with him, there was no stress to hit any specific timing or mileage, so I spent more time learning how to operating on the left side since this will slow me down and I can swim next to WC rather than going too fast alone.

First 2 laps were horrible as usual, drank a bit of pool water.
With some fine adjustments, the improved slightly in the 3rd lap.
4th lap was getting better.
5th lap, I was able to overtake WC
6th lap, I was getting more comfortable with left side.

It was really an unexpected gain today to be able to properly swim on the left hand side.
I'll need to incorporate this into my future solo swims to properly develop my technique and allow for balanced muscle development on both sides.

This will probably lead to another small gain in my technique in time to come.
I have unexpectedly benefited from today's swim when my only objective was just helping my friend.
Good karma.
Happy!

Ironman 70.3 Putrajaya Race Report

Finally managed to finish a complete 70.3 race (Taiwan wasn't a complete race since the swim was replaced by run)

It was extremely hot, probably around 34 degrees at its peak, and with minimal vegetation cover and no cloud cover.
It made me appreciate how the rain helped during TW 703
Every part of the race was better than my earlier benchmark except for the run, but I'm contented with the results given the extremely hot conditions.
Learnt some new tricks during this trip


Day - 2
Reached Putrajaya 2 days earlier to avoid the same rush during the TW 703. It was more relaxing to just stay around and explore the place a little bit, spend some time going through the merchandise at the expo (which were damned $$$) and generally lazing around.

Day - 1
Joined the morning trial swim organized by the 703 organizers. Good to have a feel of the water before the race. The water was murky with zero visibility with some dead leaves floating at dead corners. Good thing was that the water was warm with no undercurrents, plenty of buildings around for easy sighting, and it is not salty!
Went for bike racking around 4pm (1 hour to TA closure), then back to the mall for dinner.
Poor choice of dinner location at Dome cafe, with extremely slow service and poor availability of pasta that we needed.
Another group of Ang Mohs even brought their own pasta and sauce and passed it to the kitchen to cook when the kitchen ran out of it. One of them even volunteered to cook in the kitchen when the pasta took too long to be served.
Amazingly I managed to clear my bowels 4x in one day. Not Diarrhea. Maybe my body automatically cleanses itself in preparation for important races without deliberate changes in my diet.
Went to sleep around 10pm


RACE DAY

H-2
Woke up at 0445 for breakfast
Surprised that the hotel breakfast started at 5, so I skipped my own prepared bread/bananas/Milo for a proper breakfast
2 x hardboiled eggs, 4 x sliced bread as the minimum intake.
Skipped powerbar to avoid stomach upset, but on hindsight, I should have ate the powerbar since I had already broken in.
Slathered on the sunscreen.
Cleared the bowels 1 last time.

H-1
Arrived at TA 45 mins before closure to allow ample time for setup

Swim
Deep water start with close to 60 pax.
Not a good idea to go into the water too early and get surrounded by other people. Wasting energy and quite dangerous when there isn't ample space to tread water and start kicking each other.
Surprisingly the swim off was pretty smooth. Not that much of jostling like what we have in SG races. And I managed to kick into a comfortable pace that I stuck with for the whole race.

Completed the swim at 49.04
Not too bad.

T1
Managed to keep my composure and ran to my bike without any hiccups.
Helmet on, gloves on, shades on, shoes on.
Clocked 3.44
Good

Bike
Waited till I was on the bike before I turned on the GPS, which meant I could have missed a few hundred metres to a few km on the GPS but it doesn't really matter too much. Data is just data and I mostly use it for post analysis. Immediate data which was more important was on the bike computer.
Oh wait, I forgot to reset the computer before the race, so the Distance travelled could be wrong...
Oh well, just read the speedometer and go by feel.
First 2km into the ride and I started to feel my quads. Not a good thing.
I probably went too aggressive on my kicks during the swim and my quads were a bit fatigued.
Took the gels and salt and started to feel better to start pedaling at my normal speeds.
The course was more hilly than expected and my climbs were gradually reduced to turtle speeds as my quads tired through the 2nd lap. Had to rely on my superior handing skills to catch up on the speed on the downhills. The numerous spin training sessions I had imposed on myself in the aero position helped, and my handling in the aero position on the descents improved greatly. No more wobbling and top speed increased to around 50kmh with less energy expended. Still, my quads were tired so I had to rely more on strategy than endurance to finish the bike leg and not completely screw up my run later.


Clocked 3.25.40
Not too bad

T2
Dismounted the bike on bare foot and ran into TA.
Not sure if it was a good idea but the tarmac was blazing hot so it was really a fast run to the rack and a quick jump into the running shoes without sitting down.
Clocked 3.24
Good

Run
Immediately after I ran out of TA, I started to feel my quads again, and could only manage to do an extremely slow jog pace at around 8.30min/km while I took gels and salts to sort out the quads. Pressed on with slow pace and gradually started to pick up a bit of speed after a few more km.
It was getting really hot and cramps were about to set in.
I realized that my cramps will not go away if I continued with my usual mid foot strike and that will draw power from my quads. Decided to ditch the mid foot and ran with heel strikes (since my shoes was able to support it) to place the stress more on the calves than the quads. It worked nicely!
My quads were tiring and showing signs of impending muscle cramps (shutdowns) early in the run.
Experience and a good understanding of how my body will react was essential, as I had to adjust my running form to achieve the fastest possible pace that I could manage, while keeping the quads working marginally below before the muscle shutdown level.
It worked nicely and I managed to run continuously (less ~100m walk at every water station) till around 14km where the water station ran out of water and it was getting too hot to run without water to cool off. I was getting a bit dizzy when I ran without the water.
Decided that it was not worthwhile to risk a heat stroke on the run so I reverted back to brisk walking for the rest of the run.
Subsequent water stations were stocked with water but the shut down had occurred once I started walking.
Salt stick consumption is to be capped at 8 pcs per day, and I couldn't remember how many I had took so I just dropped the idea of taking the salt stick to clear the cramp and restart the run. Better to finish safe.

Clocked 2.43.40
Bad by my usual running standards, but I'll not risk health for results, so ultimately this is still acceptable.

Timing Breakdown:
Swim: 49:04
T1: 3:44
Bike: 3:25:40
T2: 3:24
Run: 2:43:40
Total Chip Time: 7:05:32

Post Race
Steamboat dinner coupled with a power packed fruit slushie for good recovery.
Stayed for 1 more night before driving back to SG on Monday morning.
Take it easy. Remember that it is a holiday trip for the family too.


The Good

1. Bring along bike covers and masking tapes to cover the bike for overnight racking in case of rain (which in our case, it really rained)
2. Use unique landmarks or lamp posts to recall where my bike is racked instead of relying on number checks during Transitions which may get confusing
3. Extra plastic bags and packing bike and run gears into 2 separate packs. Gear will remain dry in case of rain, and I'll not miss any gear during transition
4. Wore slippers to TA and kept it inside for immediate wear on bike check out
5. Sighting at around every 10 strokes to ensure correct direction. Maintained focus on correct technique to minimize drag (always missed this in previous races). Sighting improved along the swim and buoy turns executed smoothly with double one sided strokes.
6. Running cap is a live-saver. Must bring it for every 70.3 race. Saw many runners with visors putting a towel under their visors to avoid the heat. They might as well get a proper cap
7. Disposable water bottle is a live-saver. Must bring it for every 70.3 race.

The Bad

1. Safety issues for deep water start. Be the last to enter and move to the side/rear for safety
2. Numbness during bike leg - the saddle must be changed
3. Trusting the water stations. Throwing the water bottle away after taking confidence in the water points to have sufficient supply after lap 1 is stupid. I could have ran the full 21km and clocked at least 10 minutes faster if I had enough water to continue the run.

Perhaps

• Skip the long Q at the loo before the race. Just pee in the water :p
• Keep a Stage 3 power bar with Dear for immediate post race recovery meal. Maybe keep it in the fridge-to-go to prevent it from melting.

New Tricks

• Rack the bike on the gear shifters rather than on the saddle. Better stability in case of strong winds toppling the bikes.
• Bring along our own pasta and sauce and cook in hotel for carbo-loading dinner. (and order room service dinner for supporters) - learnt from the Ang Mohs at the dinner place!

Doing relatively ok in training so far

Runs have been relatively easy since I did the 42k last month so I didn't really have to clock a lot of distance for this race, just a simple maintenance routine run once every few days is good enough

Clocked my long swim earlier this week. 2km in about 46 minutes.
Comparing that to my prep for Tw 70.3 which I clocked around 50 mins, it is a good improvement.

Been spending a lot more time on the bike trainer compared to my preparations for the TW 70.3
Setting up the training system into a much more easily accessible configuration really contributed to me spending more time on the trainer.
Now I even manage to read while I spin on the trainer. Good use of time
And added an extra simple weights training after the spin session since I will have warmed up and sweating like hell by the end of the spin session. Really killing 2 birds with 1 stone since I had always been too lazy to maintain a proper weights routine as I had never liked to finish exercise sessions with my shirt still dry. It just feels weird to me.

Comparing this to my previous concern about carrying the trainer out to the corridor to train and then back into the apartment again after use, and a 100% clean up on the bike after every single session, which made me lazy for spin sessions.
I guess being "lazy" in another way by forgoing the 100% clean up on the bike really helped :p


Invested in a stationary swimming gear which I could use for long swim training sessions in small hotel pools when I go on business trips. No more excuses to skip training sessions when I travel.
Apart from swims, I've started to clock at least 30 min spin sessions in the hotel gyms so that I can refine my technique and build up better cycling endurance.


Going by my current condition, my targets for the KL 70.3 will be:

Benchmark (I shouldn't be slower than this)
Swim - 50 mins
T1 - 5 mins
Bike - 3h 30 mins
T2 - 5 mins
Run - 2h 30mins
Total: 7 hours

Stretch Goal
Swim - 48 mins
T1 - 4 mins
Bike - 3h 20 mins
T2 - 3 mins
Run - 2h 15mins
Total: 6h 30 min

I'll be very happy if I can come near to this, but this is really a long shot with my current level. I can hit the targets for each leg in separate sessions but stringing them together in 1 sitting is a different story, that's the beauty of Triathlons!