Consistency

4:15am wake up calls again!

My coach from the get-go has always harped on consistency. It's no secret that's is key to getting fast or doing well in anything, really. When I started coaching myself late last year the consistency really fell off. Since I was in control of my days/workouts - I would plan my workouts around my days instead of the other way around and the consistency suffered big time (along with my fitness). I would either have extremely fresh legs or completely dead legs because I'd miss some key sessions, make up for it on a few big days then suffer through the next few with no life or motivation. Sound familiar? I got away with a good race at Oceanside but ultimately the fitness dwindled.  I think when you know what you are doing, there's always someone out there that knows more - which is a big reason why even the big horses in triathlon have coaches too. Just in the three weeks I've been working with Flanny I've seen huge gains in consistency which is leading to quick fitness gains and I'm ITCHING to race.

Last week I entered my first swim meet. It was a US Masters meet in Mission Viejo and the masters group I swim with had a few that were going - so I decided to jump in. If I'm not racing any triathlons right now at least I can jump into a swim meet to satisfy my competitive desires! My tweet after my race kind of sums up how I felt about the day: Today I went to a swim meet just looking for a good workout and left with an overwhelming desire to get faster in the water.

Thanks Jeremy for the pic!

I had so much fun. It actually reminded me a lot of a track meet. Check in, seeded waves, warm up in the warm up pool (track), announcer calling out your name and most of all - accurately measured results. In other words no annoying comments about why your 10k time was too fast because it was short .12 miles or that the current is why the swim was so fast or the climbing on the bike was only 2000ft not 5000ft...oy. In my case, I swam 1500 meters (LCM) and not a meter shorter or longer. Here were my splits:

500: 8:10
1000: 8:08
1500: 8:06
Total time: 24:24, 2nd AG (out of 2 haha)

So for us 'emerican's that's 1:29/100 yd pace on some pretty tired legs as I put in a solid track workout Friday night and backed it up with a 75 mile ride with some HIM intervals the next morning. This was a good confidence booster that my 30:00 at Oceanside was not a fluke and that I'm capable of breaking 30 - especially with fresh legs, a wetsuit and drafting in the mix. However, the biggest take away from the whole race was the fire it lit inside of me. It made me really want to become a student of swimming. I've always just kind of went with the flow by going to masters and getting the work in, but now I'm on a mission to make swimming a weapon instead of my weakness.

Amy and the kids came with me and it was so cool to here them cheer me on every 50 meters. Afterwards we hung out at the beach and enjoyed the day as a family. I can't wait to incorporate more swimming meets in the future to keep feeding that fire. Next up is SDIT on June 30th. Until then it's all about keeping the head down and staying consistent.

Oh ya, does anyone have a cheap power meter they want to sell me? Hit me up on FB or twitter! I really need to start training with power...

Thanks Heather for counting with my kiddos!

Kids knocked out after a long day! 

Already summer here!

Padres + great seats + Ballast Point = good day!
For the record I did NOT quit drinking! I just quit drinking
alone or just with Amy. Official social drinker only haha

More Padre fun with my sister and friends

And plenty of work...