Don't Be A Salmon

Whitford point multi-terrain race report (review?)

2012-05-17T12:50:39Z

The Whitford Point race last night was great fun. It had a very relaxed feel, with mostly fairly local people rocking up, paying a tenner and running through some fantastic Gower scenery on a sunny, spring evening.

The start and HQ are in Llanmadoc on a small lane nestled amongst some little hills and the marsh. I may have started a little enthusiastically, as although I wasn't first to the top of the starting climb I led the descent to the beach. I'm not as quick off road though, and although I was happy with the line I took across the beach and was still with the front group by the point I lost places in the soft sand, finding my line through stones, and in the dunes. I mostly held my pace and place in the run back through the woods (my sunglasses' Chromafusion lenses adjust to changing light and were great here, on a sunny evening in and out of trees) but I didn't feel like I was moving particularly effectively through the terrain.

I guess training on soft sand is something I have the opportunity to do around here and is a good excuse to get on the beach! I'll be running around Whitford and Broughton again before long for sure. It's a lovely area, and I did pay some attention to the scenery during the race.

I finished strongly, and hammered the final, short, sharp climb to the finish and was gaining on the two ahead of me so maybe my pacing wasn't too bad. I finished in 7th place overall, which isn't great but my effort level for the run was really good, and as this was a chance to replace a tempo session I probably got a better workout here. Lovely.

I've been trying to do this race for years and I'll definitely keep my eye open for it when it comes around next year.

Here's the Garmin data:

Hey, or Strava if that's what you prefer (been playing with Strava for a bit):

Whitford Point

2012-05-16T12:19:02Z

I'm running the Whitford Point multi-terrain (i.e. off road, or cross country, or mud, sand, dirt and tarmac) race this evening hopefully. I've heard about this race for a number of years but usually after it happened. "Did you run in the…?" is usually what I get asked in the week after it happened.

I spotted an advertising poster last week so I'll rock up tonight with my tenner in hand and get stuck in, replacing my planned tempo run. It should be fun, and if I'm right it runs all the way out to the lighthouse at low tide. I'll post my GPS data (if I press the right button this time) & you'll see what I mean.

More (limited) info here:

http://www.welshathletics.org/news--media/news/road-running/2012/05-may/whitford-point-race-.aspx

Also:

A pic of the lighthouse.

Flickr pics of the lighthouse.

Cool, huh?

Try-a-Tri 2012

2012-05-07T08:18:54Z

I took photos at Cardiff Tri's Try-a-Tri novice race yesterday morning. Everybody seemed to be having a lot of fun, and you can check out the photos in the Flickr set here.

Digging a new hole

2012-05-02T14:37:51Z

After the taper for my first A race of the year and losing all the fatigue I'd built up and become used to it's feeling pretty tough to try and start digging myself into that hole again. Only when you get to look over the edge back at the normal world do you regain the sense of how hard and tiring all the training needed to push on fitness is. It's good fun, but it's wearing. As I get deeper into each new block I dig myself deeper into the ground. the hole gets bigger and I get tired and sleepy.

Oh well! Crack on!

European Triathlon Age Group Championships 2012, race report

2012-04-29T21:32:59Z

My first A race of the year, and my first international triathlon was held in Eilat, Israel. A bit warmer and drier than we get in Wales, so not perfect to prepare for, but the windy desert wasn't far off what we get on the coast here. I qualified at Bala last year for this, the Euro Champs, to race in the standard or Olympic distance race in the 35-39 year old age group. It was a bit of a trip to get out to (22-23 hours each way! Lots of hanging around in airports) but turned out to be well worth the time, preparation, organisation and hassle. I had a great few days out there with some great people.

The topic of the week was whether to wetsuit or not to wetsuit. I was fairly adamant that I wouldn't use a wetsuit but after 10 minutes of bumbling around in the Red Sea I realised that 20C is pretty chilly for me and I was reminded of Thom Phillip's comments that modern rubber is fast, even removing the buoyancy aspect. After the Llanelli Tri last year I also realised that there's an advantage to keeping your legs warm in the swim, ready for the bike. I spent a little time checking out parts of the bike and run routes too and pretty much sorted out my tactics based upon the wind direction.

I was glad when we finally got to race morning. My bike had been approved and racked, my trisuit had been okayed, and disk wheels were finally cleared for use 1 hour before the start. I was healthy (Gareth and I at Swansea Health Solutions had worked hard to fix some running issues over the last year), fit and ready to go, so standing on the start line I'd completed one of my main aims!

Us blokes in the 35-39 age group had the largest group (I think) and a start wave all to ourselves, and I didn't get a great start position as we all lined up in a single row before the starting mat. I was a bit wider than I would have liked. I'd set my fancy schmancy new Garmin 910XT ready to go with an automatic triathlon set up so it would switch from swim to bike to run with lap button presses and I hit the "enter" button as the horn went and we legged it down the beach and dived into the sea. Nice. I started fast, got on some feet and found my pace but those feet wanted to go left to form a group and I wanted to go straight for the first buoy, 700m out. I stuck to the straight line tactic, went for the buoy and we came together as a group there, turned into the sun, then 100m later turned back to the beach. I felt pretty good, a new higher stroke rate helping this open water swimming lark even in a wetsuit. Jolly good. Close to the beach the fatigue started to build, so good pacing I reckon. I stroked until super shallow then pulled out & up and started the looooong run to transition.

I'm happy with long segments like this. I looked down at my state-of-the-art watch to see my swim time, and found I hadn't started the thing. Oops. I'm getting to that age where modern technology is getting smarter than I am. Er, press start, lap, er, lap again (?) to get to the T1 segment. Blimey. My brain might not have been working too well before the race but it certainly doesn't work well after 22 horizontal minutes thrashing my arms around.

Plenty of time to strip rubber, tuck its arms in and run. From in the water I thought I was positioned ok but it's hard to tell in age group waves. I think I was 8th out of the water. There were quite a few bodies in transition. Nip through to my bike, step suit off, lid on and glasses on. Sunwise had sent me some lovely new blue tinted Chromafusion GS lenses for the bright Israeli sunshine. I ran the bike out and mounted on the road straight into the headwind so I didn't get both my feet in until after the first turn.

There were a few bikes out ahead of me and my strategy was to hammer the bike hard for the first 20km out to the turn. We were going out into the desert, steadily up a slight drag into a strong wind. Hit that hard, pick up places before the turn, and we'll fly back at 50kph with little opportunity of making gains on each other. So that's what I did. Tick, tick, tick, place, place, place. I swapped places with the eventual silver medallist, but other than that I picked off athletes one by one, stretched out on the desert road. We had draft busters all over us (3 motorbikes, I think) so it was clear that we were doing a good, legal job. I had a little back and forth placing tussle with a rider as we got close to the turn (we could see the roundabout from a long way away, and it didn't seem to get any closer) so as it steepened I pushed it hard past him again, slowed for the turn and grabbed a bottle. The aid guy did a great job as even though I slowed for him I must have been motoring already! I poured the entire water bottle down my back to counter the reduced cooling effects of the tailwind home.

From the turn I was hitting 60kph, and averaged around 50kph all the way back with a top speed of 69kph. And there were no descents! Windy day! I'd stuck a GlucoJuice to my top tube with tape, and pulled that off to drink before the run at about 50 minutes of biking time. That worked well and I stuffed the empty bottle into the top of my trisuit to dump at the first aid station on the run. I'd also had one before the race along with a can of unknown energy drink which I'd hoped had lots of caffeine in but was only labelled in Hebrew. It turned out that I'd ridden my way into 2nd place by the roundabout and held that to the end of the bike and T2. I've made some significant power gains over the winter and was struggling to really believe the data from my iBike power meter, but I guess it might be correct! Check out the speed data for windy!

I didn't know my position at this point and it wasn't until partway round the first lap of the run that I realised that the announcer had called out "and here comes the 2nd place athlete from Great Britain" when I ran out. Was he talking about me? I started out at the usual pace, and began to get faster. The looping nature of the 4 lap run course meant I could try and figure out from race numbers and calf markings who was in my age group. I didn't see many, but saw more enter the run course after my first lap round. Nice! I lost one place on the run, and couldn't hold his shoulder. We encouraged each other as we passed, but I couldn't lift my pace to stick with him. For the 3rd and 4th laps I would normally be able to raise my pace at this distance, but not today. I pushed the effort up to the limit in the second half but wasn't getting any more speed out. It wasn't a fast course, with turns, hairpins and changes in surface with lots of gravel. I guess I used up a lot on the bike, or maybe it was a bit hot for me. The aid stations were great and I dumped 2-3 cups of water on my head every lap and that seemed to keep my heart rate to the right level. It felt good too! It turns out the water clearing feature of the Sunwise GS lenses was useful after all!

I'm still trying to learn where my developing fitness levels are, and with the hard first segment ride strategy I guess I found my level on the run. I couldn't have run fast enough to get myself into 2nd place and was happy that I'd pushed myself to my limits for the race by the time I staggered over the finish line. Big effort. Back slaps, handshakes, and water in the shaded athlete tent.

After crossing the finish line I had the strangest feeling of, "oh it's over!" Not the usual elation of finishing, the triumph of placing well or the thankfulness of it all being over, but a feeling that I'd like to go around again (my legs wouldn't). That months and months of preparation; financial, organisational and physical, was over. All that work was at an end. A successful end, but an end. It was done. Funny, I've never felt that before.

I caught up with friends watching (after a long, smiley hobble round a block to get across the barriers, chatting to GB supporters), cheered on friends racing, and enjoyed the sun and the setting. Eventually I got around to the athlete's lounge and lots of cake, bananas, cake, iced water, and cake. Lovely. Cake. When I went to get my bag I found that the results were up and my name was in 3rd place. 3rd place! I'm getting a medal! Awesome! At the same time the fella that finished in the silver medal position found out his placing too, and much back slapping and cheery, sweaty hugging followed. I found my friends and team-mates and told them my placing and they were as chuffed as I was. Awesome, awesome, awesome. What a good week. Lots and lots of work over a very long period of time ending in a good result. There's nothing better.

The following week back in the UK I had the usual struggles with coming down after a high along with soreness, fatigue, eating like I'd been lost in the wilderness, and not enough sleep. It has been time to transition to the next phase, to analyse, consider and plan. The first big race of the season was a massive success and the whole thing was a lot more fun that I thought it might be. Now its time to look onwards to the remainder of the season with lots of races to do, a couple more peaks if I can manage it, more qualifiers and an end to the season with a bit of fun and maybe some fundraising (for charity, not for me).

Thanks to everyone that helped me get to the podium in Israel. My sponsors: Swansea Health Solutions, Sunwise, and BBI Healthcare with their GlucoTabs and GlucoJuice products have all played key parts in getting me out there and helping me perform as I did, and my friends and family have been big supporters of what I've been doing. I couldn't do any of this without Kim, of course, and I hope she also got a lot out of the result. Unfortunately she didn't get a tan, but maybe next time?

(Thanks to James Manson for the photos of me).

Tracking our Graduates' Project

2012-04-24T15:10:54Z

The College of Medicine, Swansea University is interested in understanding what happens to our graduates when they leave their undergraduate medical training.

I'm not directly involved with this project, but I'm spreading the word.

If you're in your final year of study, or if you started your studies in 2006 and you were a Graduate Entry Medicine student with us please take a look at the Facebook page and you could win a £150 Amazon voucher if you answer a quick survey.

http://www.facebook.com/trackingproject

Bronzed

2012-04-22T10:43:36Z

Hey, that was worth all the training & preparation, wasn't it?

European Triathlon Champs, Eilat, 2012 - how did I do?

2012-04-20T19:42:02Z

How did I do? How did I do? I only went and finished in 3rd place in my age group race!

Chuffed to bits.

Landed

2012-04-18T06:41:43Z

I've landed in Tel Aviv and I'm wondering, why am I here? Not the big, "Why Am I Here?", but the smaller, why am I here hanging around for several hours in an airport in Israel after an overnight flight and a long coach journey across the UK with very little sleep and bags of stuff? Why am I in an airport with loads of skinny people in red, white and blue kit laid all over the place like some sort of competitive triage centre? I forgot.

I'm on my way to sunny Eilat on the Red Sea to race in the European (yes, I know, it's Israel) Age Group Triathlon Championships on Friday. I'm here because I habitually tend to push myself a little further than I'm comfortable with, because I know from experience that from those fears can come smiles. With opportunities I think about saying, "yes" before I think about saying, "no". I'm here because I thought, hmm, Israel, I've never been there and I fancy a little adventure. I'm here because this triathlon malarkey (and racing in general) is fun for me, and the racing isn't stressful as such, but the logistics and the travelling can be. I'm here because, although completing a 2 hour triathlon is not a challenge for me, racing in a foreign country against competitors that have gone through a qualifying process is a challenge. As is the aforementioned getting myself and all my stuff to the start line intact. I'm here because last year it rained for almost every race and I thought I might be guaranteed a little sun by the Red Sea. And I'm here because I have good support, and although my family were sad to see me go they also thought it would be a cool thing to do. I miss my bagman but I'm hoping that in future years we'll be able to do this together.

So it seems that results and placings and medals are secondary or tertiary to all this other stuff. That said, I've done the training, I've put myself into a good position with some great fitness, and race day will show what I have. I'll push hard and get what I get. If the experience is as rewarding as I hope it will be, hours and years of preparation will move me forwards and upwards. All while having fun. That's why I'm here.

Sunwise Competition

2012-04-13T15:13:46Z

Sunwise are running another sunglasses competition. Nip to their competition page if you fancy a pair:

Sunwise sunglasses competition

Competition closes 30th June 2012.

European Tri Champs, coming up

2012-04-10T15:45:36Z

It's Tuesday. We're all back at work after a nice Easter break. Next Tuesday I'm off to Israel! It's my first A-race of the year, and a pretty big one at that. The European Triathlon Championships for us age-groupers (i.e. amateurs) is on the Friday and Saturday next week, in the sunny, hot and often blowy Eilat by the Red Sea. I'm looking forward to the sun, although I'm often not much use in it, and I'm well prepared for the wind.

With all the costs, logistics and hassle of getting myself and my carbon stuff all the way to the Middle East I'll be chuffed if I'm goggled up and ready to go on the hooter. It's a bit of a learning curve, pushing me out of my comfort zone (and I hate travelling - like being places, hate getting there) and I'm hoping this will be a long term thing, so getting there, starting and finishing, learning and enjoying are big parts of next week's racing. I'm in great shape right now too, so if all goes very well and I can crank out all I've got it'll be great to see how I compare.

I'll be wearing the skin tight blue & white, and sharing a room with another GB athlete so it'll be good to meet some people and spend some time with little to do but, well, do little at the end of a taper and then hammer it. Followed by doing little. It might be good for my blood pressure.

I'll avoid taking a computer but I'll pocket some gadgets so if the hotel WiFi gods are in a good mood hopefully I'll be flooding my areas of t'internet with pics and words. If I can nab a 30-pin iPhone Ant+ dongle off anyone I'll upload some data too.

Right, back to positive thinking and checking my check lists. Really hoping it's not so windy that my disk wheel gets banned… And that I don't step on anything poisonous in the sea… And that I don't eat anything dodgy… And must work out a puncture kit as I can't take CO2 canisters on the plane…

150-odd days in the life of an age grouper triathlete

2012-04-06T17:02:02Z

I've been taking a photo a day of something training or racing related for the last 150 odd days and putting them up on Flickr as a bit of a 365 project. I started when I began preparing for the 2012 season, and as I train every day I thought I'd snap something as a bit of a record. I've done this before as a normal 365 project, which was a good exercise in thinking about photos and turned out to be an interesting way of chronicling stuff you do.

A lot of it's pretty basic stuff, and there's a lot of cycling in there (not surprisingly). I've tried to put in various bits that show the different things you end up doing when you're trying to be competitive as an amateur triathlete.

Take a look at the Flickr set if you care to, and pop back regularly. The more hits it gets the more I'll be pushed to put up interesting photos!

Links

Flickr: Training and racing 365 set

Swim drills & confounding the Garmin 910XT

2012-04-02T22:14:35Z

The Garmin 910XT measures your indoor swim training distance by counting the lengths you swim. You tell it how long the pool is and it does the maths. It can get confused if you change stroke mid-length or don't swim normal strokes.

I tried it out with some sculling drills today and it was fine with front sculling and mid-sculling but it got a bit weird with back-sculling and added a couple of lengths. Not sure why. Maybe it would be fine in a 25m pool.

I had a look through the data from my 1000m TT swim & found a couple of things. Like I said, my stroke rate could do with improving so I had a crack at that. @thomiphillips has been trying to get me to up my stroke rate and cut out the dead spots in my stroke and he's succeeded to a point, particularly with the TriLife training day over the winter. My tempo pace stroke rate was around 60spm, and it's surprisingly hard to stroke faster. It feels like thrashing at the water and I only managed to get it up to 68spm, but I was only losing 1 stroke over 50m at that rate. It felt good though; more like a punchy open water stroke, like I really managed to cut out the front end dead spot, and you seem to breathe so much more!

End result: I swam the fastest 200m reps that I remember ever swimming in a 50m pool. I swim these things at this pace a lot, and these were a lot quicker for the same effort. Nice. That's something to work on between now and Israel!

Mumbles Duathlon 2012

2012-03-31T16:18:31Z

Wow, what a morning. What a day. What a weekend! The Mumbles Duathlon is a short, interesting race in a fantastic location, in my back yard and right on my training grounds. The start and finish is at Knab Rock in Mumbles, and the weather (even at 6 in the morning) was fantastic. Blue sky, morning sun, high tide. Great!

There are long and short races, and both start with a 5km flat run by the sea, out and back. The bike follows the sea towards Swansea and then kicks up a hill through Bishopston, kicks through a dip at Kittle, and then out towards Pennard. The short race turns around here and heads back to Mumbles, and the long course takes a right turn out to the Gower. Another dip down through the woods by Three Cliffs Bay takes you to the Gower Heritage Centre and a short steep stab of a climb (1:4 at its steepest) up to the lanes of Lunnon. From here legs recover and take you out to the main diagonal road running between Llanrhidian and Upper Killay, which is mostly a gradual climb. You turn back past the airport, back to Pennard, and back to Mumbles cutting the corner off the route out to give you a fast descent to the coast. The second run goes back out on the flat coastal path and the long race does the 5km again, but the short course does 2.5 or 3km (I forget which).

This was a training race for me at the end of a build block, as all duathlons tend to be, and as I said earlier in the week it's the sort of race that gives some indication of my form and the results of my training plans, and hopefully gives me confidence for the upcoming season. Racing itself seems to help get the speed back into my legs. And they usually make me smile too.

Around 200 people turned up for this race and some great athletes were amongst them. My plan was to start steady but fast, not at almost 5k pace, then hit the bike hard, and hopefully hang in for the final run. (Hopefully the gaps would be formed on the bike and I wouldn't be battling in the last run).

A long easy warm up seemed to settle the tightness in my left calf tendons. I didn't feel awesome, but I was pretty good. From the start I was steady, happy to let people get ahead of me but I found a comfortably fast pace and cadence by the end of the first km. I picked up places and was feeling good. I run this path all the time and even saw the usual suspects that nod to one another when out training here. The sea was gorgeous. As the bay curves you can see all the way round from the start to the turn point and back again.

I came into T1 in a sensible placing, and with a quick transition (ow, ouch, oooh - I'd racked my bike on the lumpy, gravelly side and ran through in socks) a quick bike mount and a fast start I picked up another couple of places including James Nunn from my club before the start of the first hill. Another competitor came around hard early on the hill, a bit too early I thought, and I gave him a gap as we climbed. Nunn was close behind. Partway up the guy's pace eased so I went around and pushed hard to the top. My aim on this route is to hit the hills hard, each one a little harder than the last, push through the tops and go steady (well, steady fast) on the flatter sections.

The bloke I'd passed stuck to my back wheel like a limpet, & not a legal-draft distance limpet neither. I turned a few times to glare at him to no effect & wondered if he realised this was a no-drafting race. Once I'd pointed that out he apologised, dropped back & then disappeared. Weird, huh? He found me after the race and apologised too.

Legs found a rhythm & effort, my TT position was comfortable & I got on with the job. I rode on my own for the rest of the bike leg, legs weren't so jellified at the top of the Lunnon climb this year, but the turn into the wind back to Upper Killay was unexpected & tough. I could see the rider ahead & the rider behind in parts & thought I might make up a place but the gap was foreshortened by the wind & the climb. Back past the airport we had a crosswind & my deep front wheel stalled a few times, but generally for most of this route the carbon was an advantage. Back from Pennard I hit the riders in the shorter race & rattled past them, hammering the last kick up to Bishopston & laying it on for the last flat bit on top. Down the hill to the sea was quick & I avoided cars, but got stuck behind a van that was desperately trying to get out of my way but also to safely overtake other cyclists.

Clean dismount into T2 on the line & fast (ooh, ow, ow, ow, hop, ooh!) back to my rack point and my running shoes. Shoes on & I had a gap to close ahead of me & clean Tarmac behind me. I felt better running off the bike than I have in training bricks & picked up a comfy fast pace, but could probably have pushed a bit harder in hindsight. Plenty of pain and effort but I could probably have squeezed more out earlier. I'm still trying to find the best way of using my developing fitness. Out to the turn at 2.5km it was pretty clear there were sizeable gaps ahead of me and I was running out of road, in 5th place. From the turn I turned it up a notch, as planned, & saw Nunny coming the other way with a mild taunt. Plenty of gap, but he's running better than me at the moment. Good motivation!

Running back by the sea was lovely, and I was still moving ok but I could see the finish line around the curve of the bay and it looked a damned long way away! The last 5k in these things always hurts. With about 1km to go my left Achilles tendon suddenly started to tighten & pull - something I've been recovering for a couple of weeks. With about 500m to go I started to die, but strangely I was able to talk my brain out of it and push again. Just push to Verdi's and then you can jog around the bends to the finish. Great finish, great location, great organisers, great supporters and great fun.

So 5th overall with some really good competitors ahead of me. My first run was better than expected (longer warm up next time should help me find my pace sooner), bike was fine, and my overall performance was good. I might need to trust my endurance more and start faster in future races. I'm glad I got my entry in just in time. Not bad for a guy with white hairs growing out of his ears.

This was the first time I'd used my Sunwise Waterloo glasses in racing. I picked them for this to cut out the glare from the sea (they have polarising lenses), which they did perfectly. They sit in the aero helmet perfectly, and they're lovely to run in as they're so light and they sit well. I also took a GlucoJuice on the bike, taped to the top tube with some electrical tape. I'd practiced using them on the tri bike in training and they're surprisingly easy to use - I make less mess with these than gels. The trick is what to do with the bottle after you've drunk from it. Retape it? Too tricky & slow. You can squeeze it into your lycra but that's not ideal. Dealing with gel packets is easier (they slip into your lycra - shorts or top - and then you can pull them out bin them at water stations). I take a GlucoJuice before the start, so in longer races I could pick one up in T2 but that might be a bit late.

A couple of students from the medicine course were racing too, Leanne got 2nd place in the short course ladies event. She's hooked now. Adam look tired when he finished!

Chat, mixing, and then coffee & a second breakfast by the sea in a cafe right by the finish area. Lovely. I hung around until it was time to pick my mum up from the train station (she visited for the weekend), taking in the sun & the sea. A great start to a great weekend!

Race data:

As usual my gadgets were cleverer than me. I was racing with my Garmin 305 and I set it to auto-lap whenever I crossed the bike mount line. Smart, eh? You can set these things to auto lap by position as they're GPS based. So run, hit lap button when entering T1, auto lap with bike leaving T1, auto lap with bike entering T2, hit lap button when running out of T2. (You can't hit the lap button when you're running with your bike).

I also set the auto multisport function so that it would automatically switch from run mode, to transition, to bike mode, to transition, and then to run mode with each of those laps. But I forgot to choose "start multisport" when the race started and just hit the start button instead. Oops. So the whole thing was recorded as a bike with laps. Oh well. In the race I didn't really use it anyway other than to take a look at my heart rate occasionally and time. I mostly use it as a timer during the race and for data analysis after the race. I can't figure out how to change the laps to run legs after the event. Oh well. Here's the data:

Garmin swim data

2012-03-30T16:02:21Z

Look at this, the Garmin 910XT works really well for me in the pool:

Bang on for number of lengths, distance, and probably strokes per length given the metronomic 23 strokes per length throughout this session. That's just for one arm though, so you have to double it up for the accepted standard of strokes taken with each arm per 50m. Likewise, the stroke rate (in strokes per minute) does the same thing. I can't see stroke rate on Garmin Connect anywhere, which is a bit of an omission. You have to go back to the watch to see it.

I didn't confuse the watch too much with drills, swimming just some single-sided breathing and push phase drills.

Huge amounts of data are presented, so much that it seems to be best to stick to the clock and the lap button when swimming and to look at the data later on the computer. It's great to have a quick flick through though to see how many strokes you took for the last interval and bits, and see what your efficiency looked like. It seems that I'll be making use of the stroke rate feature quite a bit given today's 1km time trial:

I failed to improve on previous times. That's a serious problem. I was feeling good in the pool; strong with a good stroke. My stroke has improved over the last year, and it's much better balanced, shorter at the front and longer at the back. I feel like I'm catching water better, have a better feel, have better rotation, and swim straighter when I'm swimming hard and breathing to just one side. Yet I'm no faster. Big problem.

I'm guessing the limiter is my inability to increase my stroke rate. I'll try to chat to people in the know (and that know my stroke) but that looks to be my goal for the next blocks. My stroke rate at race pace is ok at around 60spm, but it should be faster for an open water triathlete.

Collect data, analyse, plan, improve. Thanks Garmin.