Today is day-1 of the Winter edition of the Guppy Challenge. We are starting today because it's Monday. Click to sign up for this challenge.
The Goal: This challenge is for you who are truly, "completely and utterly" as Paul Sherwin would describe you, horrible at swimming. It's for those of you who are in fear of not making the swim cut-off at an Ironman race. Those who consider a "1" as the first number of your swim split as a small victory (as in 1:59:59).
The Means: This Challenge is 10 weeks long, and the intent is to fix mechanical problems that keep you swimming slowly regardless of how much volume you do.
The Success Metric: An improvement in your Ironman swim by 15 to 20 minutes.
If I'm catching you off guard, and you had no idea this Challenge was happening, no problem (you ought to read the home page articles more closely, nevertheless, okay). During the first week of this challenge we're just getting our bearings. This Challenge commences today, which is a monday, and it terminates February 14, a Sunday. Valentine's Day. Maybe there's some significance there, I don't know.
The idea here is SESSIONS, that is, there is no distance you need to swim, no timed amount, just sessions. What is a session? For the purposes of this challenge it's 500 yards. You swim 500 yards, you swam a session, you can count it as a session. Of course, I hope your sessions are all longer than that. However, you can count it a successful session if you swim that amount.
I will write front-page articles with some swim tips, drills, etc., and I'll link to them from posts here on this thread. You have a few things to do.
1. You should go to the challenge and click "join." This is so you can become accountable.
2. Once you join that challenge, you should write your workouts down on this training log every time you do a workout.
3. You should make sure you have all the accoutrements. A kick board, if you cannot kick and make any progress across the pool - both on your stomach and on your back - then get yourself some short fins (i.e., Zoomers). Make sure you've got good goggles, a back-up pair, a swimsuit, and a back-up.
4. Make sure you've got figured out when your local pool is open for lap swim hours. Of all the local pools. And the pools you're going to need to hit when you're traveling. And on weekends. Make a hard target search of every conceivable available pool, with the hours, and find out how it is you gain access: if you need a swim card (many pools don't take money, only debits from prepaid accounts). Even better yet is if you're a member of a master's swim team. If you're afraid to do this, fine, we'll broach this later.
5. I want you to watch this video. I want you to memorize this video. this stroke. It's going to take a long, long, long time before you ever have a stroke that looks anything like this. If ever. However, the more you watch this, internalize it, memorize it, the more you can envision yourself imitating it. I want this stroke to come out of you, from the inside out. I say this because it's a kind of proxy, or analog, or parable, that I believe in, not about swimming, but about everything: pretend. Pretend to do that thing, to commit that act, to exude that behavior. pretend to be that person you want to be. be a fraud. It's okay. You are allowed to commit fraud in the pool. Pretend to be that swimmer in that video. If you pretend long enough, after awhile you won't be pretending any longer. So, watch that video, because you're going to be impersonating a good swimmer.
If you swam yesterday under the assumption that it would count, you have my permission to log that workout today and count it as if it were today's workout. If you also swim today, just enter it as a separate workout, in which case the training log will show that you swam twice today. That's fine, it'll warm you up, psychologically, to the idea of swimming twice in one day, which is not a bad idea and I think everybody should try that at least once during this challenge.
First week's workouts immediately below, in the next post to this thread =>
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
The Goal: This challenge is for you who are truly, "completely and utterly" as Paul Sherwin would describe you, horrible at swimming. It's for those of you who are in fear of not making the swim cut-off at an Ironman race. Those who consider a "1" as the first number of your swim split as a small victory (as in 1:59:59).
The Means: This Challenge is 10 weeks long, and the intent is to fix mechanical problems that keep you swimming slowly regardless of how much volume you do.
The Success Metric: An improvement in your Ironman swim by 15 to 20 minutes.
If I'm catching you off guard, and you had no idea this Challenge was happening, no problem (you ought to read the home page articles more closely, nevertheless, okay). During the first week of this challenge we're just getting our bearings. This Challenge commences today, which is a monday, and it terminates February 14, a Sunday. Valentine's Day. Maybe there's some significance there, I don't know.
The idea here is SESSIONS, that is, there is no distance you need to swim, no timed amount, just sessions. What is a session? For the purposes of this challenge it's 500 yards. You swim 500 yards, you swam a session, you can count it as a session. Of course, I hope your sessions are all longer than that. However, you can count it a successful session if you swim that amount.
I will write front-page articles with some swim tips, drills, etc., and I'll link to them from posts here on this thread. You have a few things to do.
1. You should go to the challenge and click "join." This is so you can become accountable.
2. Once you join that challenge, you should write your workouts down on this training log every time you do a workout.
3. You should make sure you have all the accoutrements. A kick board, if you cannot kick and make any progress across the pool - both on your stomach and on your back - then get yourself some short fins (i.e., Zoomers). Make sure you've got good goggles, a back-up pair, a swimsuit, and a back-up.
4. Make sure you've got figured out when your local pool is open for lap swim hours. Of all the local pools. And the pools you're going to need to hit when you're traveling. And on weekends. Make a hard target search of every conceivable available pool, with the hours, and find out how it is you gain access: if you need a swim card (many pools don't take money, only debits from prepaid accounts). Even better yet is if you're a member of a master's swim team. If you're afraid to do this, fine, we'll broach this later.
5. I want you to watch this video. I want you to memorize this video. this stroke. It's going to take a long, long, long time before you ever have a stroke that looks anything like this. If ever. However, the more you watch this, internalize it, memorize it, the more you can envision yourself imitating it. I want this stroke to come out of you, from the inside out. I say this because it's a kind of proxy, or analog, or parable, that I believe in, not about swimming, but about everything: pretend. Pretend to do that thing, to commit that act, to exude that behavior. pretend to be that person you want to be. be a fraud. It's okay. You are allowed to commit fraud in the pool. Pretend to be that swimmer in that video. If you pretend long enough, after awhile you won't be pretending any longer. So, watch that video, because you're going to be impersonating a good swimmer.
If you swam yesterday under the assumption that it would count, you have my permission to log that workout today and count it as if it were today's workout. If you also swim today, just enter it as a separate workout, in which case the training log will show that you swam twice today. That's fine, it'll warm you up, psychologically, to the idea of swimming twice in one day, which is not a bad idea and I think everybody should try that at least once during this challenge.
First week's workouts immediately below, in the next post to this thread =>
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman