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Near Miss in the YMCA Pool this morning.

by: Andy Rosebrook

I hit the pool at the YMCA this morning while my boys were in karate. I suveyed the pool and saw 4 lanes worth of swim lessons 2 full lanes and one lane with two ladies doing water aerobics? (playing jumprope with the noddles). So I took the last lane. This is normally the adult activity lane (ie water walking, etc) but there was no sign this morning and there was circle swim only sing either. So I hugged the lane line and provided plenty of space for folks to come join the lane. Did a HIM swim and got about 1000 in until it got interesting. A group of swimmers took over the water areobics ladies lane and not so politely asked them to move to my lane and just about the same time an old guy walking joined my lane. So the water aerobics ladies joined my lane and we all peacefully coexisted. Then another dude come to the lane after the ladies got out, watches me for a few laps and then joins in. Obviously, I’m splitting the lane and hugging the lane line up and down. Well imagine my surprise when I nearly have a head on collision with this dude coming back. “Come on Man.” was all I said. Lets just say he gave me plenty of space for the rest of the swim. It charged me up for the rest of the swim and…

Categories: Swimming, Team, Training, Triathlons

1/31/2011

triathlete

GPS Coordinates

Chicago, IL

10,000 Yards Complete

by: MJ Slikas

: Participants of Swim A Poolooza 2011

I had many people ask for a report, so here it is. Swim-A-Poolooza 2011 was a smashing success! We had 36 swimmers in total. Some did 100s, some did 75s and some did 50s, but all had fun! I think we had 8 swimmers in each of the lanes doing 100s, but because they’re all experienced team swimmers, there were no problems.

This was the 4th year I’ve organized this event and it grows each year. This is the first year we held the event at the Lemont Park District’s The CORE. What was amazing was that we only had 5 “repeat” participants from last year. This means we had 31 NEW swimmers this year! Thanks to Suzi S., we had great music playing throughout the 3.75 hours. Thanks to both Suzi and Chris S., participants were able to stay fueled and hydrated through the event without having to get out of the pool.

I’ve done this swim about 8 times since I’ve been out of college. As told by the smile on my face, this was the most fun I’ve had. Usually, there is a “dead” point somewhere around the 70-80 rep time frame. And this year, I thought I took out the first 10 way too fast! But it was fine. Aside from a little bit of pruny…

Categories: Events, Swimming, Team, Training, Triathlons
Tags: Swimming

1/29/2011

triathlete

GPS Coordinates

Chicago, IL

Swim-A-Poolooza

by: MJ Slikas

100×100x100

Yep. I said it. 100 yards 100 times every 100 seconds. In other words hundred hundreds on the 1:40. It happens every year. It’s happening tomorrow. And I’m in. I’m always in. What better way to spend a Sunday morning? We have food, drinks, music, but most of all…FUN.

Yes, you get pruny. Yes, it seems monotonous. Yes, it gets a little tiring. Yes, you find yourself wondering WHY the heck you signed up to do this in the first place. Yes, you want to quit. More than once. But when it’s all over, it feels good. It’s a CHALLENGE. Not many people can say they’ve done this. And maybe they don’t want to. But it’s similar to Ironman in that you have to be a special kind of person to even attempt to do something that seems so crazy. You want to see what you’re capable of. You want to push your limits. You want to find out just how tough you are. And when you finish – it makes it all worth it. And that’s what makes us do this year after year after year.

On deck will be plenty of samples of Tri Swim shampoo, conditioner, Foggle, body lotion and body wash. I mean, after that much time (3:45 hours) in the pool, the chlorine is embedded in your skin. And hair. With Tri Swim – you don’t have to go around…

Categories: Product Reviews, Swimming

1/25/2011

triathlete

GPS Coordinates

Harrisonburg, VA

Tri-Swim Tuesday

by: Kati Derrick

They’re baaaaack! I’m thrilled that Tri-Swim has signed on to sponsor Team Trakkers for another year. This stuff is just gold! Since we are also back in the routine of Tuesday morning swim practices (we had a GREAT full pool this morning, if you weren’t there you missed out!) I thought it was time to post another Tri-Swim Tuesday workout.

Today we worked on upper aerobic endurance. (This is another way of saying little rest and hard swims.) If you do this one as written you should need your Tri-Swim to wash off the chlorine AND the sweat!

Warm up:400 – 500 total

200 – 300 easy

4 x 50 kick (25 hard kick, 25 easy) no rest

Main Set: 2100 total

4 x 50 [25 sprint, 25 recovery] no rest

4 x 100 [50 sprint, 50 recovery] no rest

4 x 150 [100 @ t-pace, 50 recovery]

2 x 300 [200 @ goal race pace for 300 pool swim race, 100 recovery] no rest

2 x 150 [100 @ t-pace, 50 recovery]

Cool Down: 100 easy

Categories: Swimming, Training
Tags: swim workouts, Tri-Swim

1/13/2011

triathlete

GPS Coordinates

Bethlehem, PA

What I learned about nutrition in 2010

by: Chris Garges

Being relatively new to the sport of triathlon (3 years), I always brushed over nutrition as “something I don’t have to worry about”. Heck, I was never taught anything about nutrition by a coach (never had one) and I wasn’t a big sweat loss guy, so it was one less thing to worry about. Sure, as I moved from Sprints to OLY’s and on to the half iron distance I would think about it and have a plan, but my plan was simple….take what’s on the course and carry an energy gel or something for the run. It seemed to get me through ok.

Well, in 2010 I was lucky enough to become a member of Team Trakkers. Team Trakkers had this wonderful nutrition sponsor, First Endurance and this wonderful website that had a wealth of information about nutrition. As I trained harder and longer, and raced harder and longer nutrition was turning into a bigger component than it had prior and now I was paying attention.

Two of the defining characteristics of First Endurance are their commitment to quality products and their persistent research and development to create the best products that work in real life race situations. They use nothing but the best, highest quality products. Their products are Gluten Free and contain no high fructose corn syrup. The three main components I was immediately drawn to were Ultragen (for recovery) and EFS

…

Categories: Athletes, Nutrition, Product Reviews, Running, Swimming, Team, Triathlons

12/13/2010

triathlete

GPS Coordinates

Harrisonburg, VA

A GREAT SWIM

by: Kati Derrick

I had a pretty dismal workout week this week, but since I am trying to ‘be the change‘ this season I am not going to wallow in my couch potato week, instead I’m going to focus on my Thursday swim. I was a substitute teacher a couple days this week which was super fun, but I’m not in the groove yet to get my workouts done on the days that I sub, so I had a run Monday and a swim on Thursday and a couple of days of yoga. My run went fine, but my swim was just, well one of those swims.

I wasn’t fast, nor was my form just so, I was just happy to be swimming and felt my ohm with the water. I did a ladder swim, here is the workout:

warm up: 200 sw. 2 x [25 swim, 50 side kick, 25 swim]

main set: mod. pace: 400, 300, 200, 100

Negative split sets: 300, 200, 100

Fast sets: 200, 100

Because it’s off season I had to do my 4 x 150 pull

200 cd

It made me even happier to get out of the pool and wash because I’m pretty sure the chlorine level was through the roof – my skin was literally itching while I was swimming! Thank goodness for my trusty TRI-SWIM, otherwise I’m pretty sure I would have lost a layer or

…

Categories: Swimming
Tags: positive attitude, swim workouts

10/23/2010

triathlete

GPS Coordinates

Sandusky, OH

Rev3 Cedar Point: Race Report

by: Jamie Bull

Race morning had officially arrived. After a surprisingly good sleep, I was up, hit the bathroom and downed a bottle of EFS and some Clif Shot Bloks.

I decided that the whole day was going to be focused on two main ideas:
Take the whole day one mile at a time
Enjoy every mile of my only first Ironman
Those two mantras would end up driving me for the next 140.6 miles.

Other than a minor pre-dawn freakout in transition area. I was able to keep a pretty level head as I set up my bike, organized my transition area and filled up my nutrition bottles. I was pretty happy and surprised with my attitude. I’ve been a LOT more nervous for a LOT shorter races.
I’m not sure what it was, but I was just ready to race, get out there and start tearing up the course.
Heading over to the swim start and patiently waiting for the gun to go off. Sam was an amazing sherpa and helped me stay cool calm and collected up until the second I had to leave her and dive head first into the water. Just as I was starting to head through the start gate, she handed me her cell phone. It was my mom calling from Connecticut to give me some last minute last minute well wishes. Hearing how proud she was…

7/6/2010

triathlete

It didn’t start to hurt until 7,000 yards. . . .

GPS Coordinates

Harrisonburg, VA

It didn’t start to hurt until 7,000 yards. . . .

by: Kati Derrick

Alternative Blog Titles:

When the water around you starts to hurt. . .

Humbled at 8,000 yards . . .

Can someone wash my hair for me today? I could go on forever with there, you know I did have 2:45 min. to think them up! So I survived my epic swim yesterday and even had a little fun! Here is the full report: Our swim team decided to do a fundraiser, inviting all families (kids and parents) to an event called Swim2Win. Folks could swim 25 25’s, 50 50’s or 100 100’s. (that’s 650 yards, 2500 yards or 10,000 yards respectively) We allowed people to swim as individuals or share the yardage with a team.

My fabulous sponsor TRISWIM stepped up and provided not only prizes for the event, but lots and lots of great samples!

Because I was in charge of the event I decided to swim my 100 x 100’s during the day, rather than during the event which was held in the evening. A fellow swim team parent and rocking fast swimmer, Chad agreed to swim the 100 x 100’s with me. His wife Cyndi came along to swim her 50 x 50’s too! It seemed like a good idea to bike over to UREC since it’s only about 2 miles away and we didn’t have parking passes. I packed up all my goodies: 1 bottle h20, 1 bottle w/ 1 scoop EFS lemon…

Categories: Swimming
Tags: 10000 yards, 100x100, Swimming

7/2/2010

triathlete

GPS Coordinates

29.5352287,-81.5625000

The Dangers of Tri

by: Joel Strickland

You may not think of it this way, but triathlon is an inherently dangerous sport. Bike crashes, broken bones, dehydration, hyponatremia, blisters, heat stroke, road rash. The list could go on and on. Far too often we hear of athletes who are injured, sometimes seriously, or die in races. More often than not, those athletes who die suffered some heart-related condition, and died during or following the swim.

A study completed in 2009 indicated that triathlon had double the risk of sudden death as do marathons. The rate of death in marathons according to the study was about 4 to a million. The death rate in triathlon was about 15 per million. Now, those odds may seem extremely low. In fact, I think the odds of winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning are greater. The fact of the matter remains, however, that there are risks in our sport.

This risk was highlighted just a week ago, when on June 26^th, 40-year old age grouper Rudy Valentino drown during the Philadelphia Triathlon.

Races typically do a good job of having lifeguards and observers on kayaks during the swim. The troubling part is that not everyone is trained to recognize drowning. We all think that a drowning victim looks like the poor, hapless victim on b-rated horror films or tv shows.

An article recently published on a Coast Guard website paints a disturbing picture of drowning:

From the article:

The…

Categories: Swimming, Triathlons

6/23/2010

triathlete

GPS Coordinates

Bethlehem, PA