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New Toy – Garmin 310XT

Matt — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:36:37 +0000

Treated myself to a new Garmin. I’ve got the 310XT which is waterproof. Here’s the track from this morning’s OW swim at Broggie.

OW Swim @ Broggie
Open Water Swimming for 00:45:40
1.10 mi @ 1.4 mph

I’ve also got the cadence sensor, which is now fitted to my Cayo. I’ll see how well that works out tomorrow. So far though I think it’s pretty good – not sure I’d race with it though as it’s quite big and will certainly make getting out of the w/suit harder.

Double Sport Weekend

Matt — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 16:28:10 +0000

General training levels have gone up by mixing in at least one ride to and from work into the week, plus heading off to the pool on a couple of lunch times for some distance or drills. I had a bit of a break by heading up north to visit family, but at least got a few decent walks in – although my walking boots seemed to trouble my heel a little.

The early morning Saturday OW swims at Brogborough are good as they mean I get something done on Saturdays before I have to look after Jodie, this week I was great as I had ample time to get a mile done and still be back home by 8.30. Since Jodie had a Tennis taster at the gym I also got time to put a 45 minute run in on the treadmill and make sure my heel was okay from the walking.

I finished off the weekend with an Olympic Distance brick session (40k Ride, 10k Run). This was good and bad. I tried out a couple of things. Firstly some SiS gels (The Smart1 caffine / carb gel at about 12mi on the bike, then an Isotonic Carb Go gel at around 22mi ready for the run). I think I prefer the Smart1 although the other was okay too. In a OD Tri I think I’d probably pack a couple more. I also took 500ml of SiS PSP22 on the ride, again this was pretty good.

The other thing I tried was not wearing socks. I think I should have researched this a bit more as this didn’t go wholly to plan. On the ride I had no problems at all even though my dhb R1 bike shoes aren’t Tri specific. The run started off okay except for a tiny bit of grit in my left shoe that kept me distracted, but it was my right that got worse. The first 5k was okay, but after that something started to rub on the inside edge of my foot, then toward my end – possibly because I was changing my gait the heel back to rub too. Probably talc in the shoes would help, I might see if I can identify the seam that was rubbing and coat it in something too. Anyway, I’m sat here typing with two blister plasters on – so a painful lesson learned.

First OW Swim

Matt — Sat, 22 May 2010 09:24:02 +0000

Got over to Broggie on Saturday morning for my first OW swim. Met up with some of the TeamMK guys who were great and helped myself and a few other newbies in our first foray into lake swimming. Broggie is obviously really popular on a Saturday morning as the carpark got quite full with swimmers. There were probably about 10 TeamMK’ers and maybe 20 or more from Boxfit Tri Club (it’s one of their ‘home’ lakes). Many swimmers had turned up with bikes so were clearly planning on brick sessions.

Brogborough Lake

First time out and the initial entry into the water wasn’t too bad. But shortly afterwards it does get quite cold on your face, and the tightness of the wetsuit can feel a little claustrophobic. I started with a few strokes, but I quickly found the sensation and experience a bit overwhelming and it was a bit like I’d completely forgotten how to swim. What was comforting was finding that the buoyancy of the wetsuit means you can easily roll onto your back and tread water without difficulty, so it’s quite easy to take a break.

We swam about 400m out to a platform by which time I’d warmed up nicely and was getting more accustomed to the sensation, it was a little off putting to see plant life below me though as we approached the platform! The swim back to the shore was much more pleasant. I’d adapted to the wetsuit which encourages a more gliding style of swimming and easily built up a rhythm. In total we probably only did about 800m but that’s by far the longest I’ve swum without touching the bottom / side etc.

All in all a really good first OW swim – I think Saturday mornings at Broggie will become a fixture, and hopefully another morning during the week too.