july highlights: Total Immersion workshop, threetofive goes international, Susan and Pam start riding, Philidelphia pentathlon, my own little pearl.
Tuesday, June 24. Coach Sean.
My life as a riding coach is off and running. I shadowed Laura tonight in Susan's riding lesson and got a lot of good coaching pointers. The true test will be when I try to do this on my own with the next student. Susan is doing a great job, picking up stuff very quickly. She figured out the diagonal very quickly and is doing great at the trot.
Monday, June 23. My own little pearl.
I finally got in to the foot doctor to check out my ankle problem. Turns out that I have a little 'dome' building up in my ankle from a past injury...a little piece of bone that has been slowly building up. Susan found the bright side and referred to it as a 'pearl'. I have a CT on Tuesday and a follow up with the foot doctor next week to consider options. If its small we may be able to treat without surgery. If its bigger, they may go in with a scope and dig it out. Yuck. Stay tuned.
Saturday, July 21. East Coast Pentathlon
I was really looking forward to this pentathlon and I'm happy to say it surpassed all my expectations both of what I could do and what how a non-USMPA could be put on. Ever since Sloan and I did the holiday camp over last New Year's, we felt strongly that there needed to be more pentathlon opportunities than what USMPA provided in San Antonio. Well, Sloan proved it could be done...and done well. All of the venues were at Valley Forge Military Academy so logistically, it was much more convenient than the San Antonio events. The combination of individual and team options meant that a whopping 48 people were able to participate. A major bonus was Emily DeRiel, the Sydney modern pentathlon silver medalist, was around to help out and even compete (she did the fence and run to fill out a team). Here's my story...
Shoot. The shoot turned out to be a range in the basement of the ballroom building. Although it had 10m marks for air pistol shooting, the facility was really meant for rifle or longer range shooting because the lighting was set up only at the end of the range. That meant that we had targets that weren't lit well. Other variables included moving targets (they swayed back and forth a bit since they were on reels), a very warm room and a shorter shot time (only 20 seconds rather than the usual 40...to save time). Thus it was a true pentathlon experience, adjusting to whatever you get. I ended up shooting a 151, far lower than I should have done. Considering the variables and the fact that I had just helped move a bunch of heavy equipment around, I'm not too worried about it. With a score of 151, I won the shoot. Glad to win, but I would have preferred a better score.
Swim. Due to venue availability, we did the swim next. This would be my first 200m since my TI class, so I wasn't sure what to expect especially since I haven't done any sprint work since the class. I ended up coming in about five seconds faster than my last time which was great. Not only was I faster, I wasn't exhausted at all which means the efficient technique really worked for me. I still have more time to take off, but at least I know I'm on the right path. Surprisingly, I came in 2nd in the swim.
Ride.
The ride was even more of a pentathlon experience than the shoot. All but one of the horses were part of the Valley Forge stables so were very used to having different riders, the venue and the jumps that would be involved in the event. Turns out that the horse I was supposed to use didn't get tacked so one of the girls who had brought her own horse offered to let me ride hers. Turns out the horse was pretty new to jumping, hadn't had that many other riders and didn't like oxers very much. In addition, the saddle was especially made for the girl and the horses back so it felt a bit strange too. After some canter transition 'issues' in the warm up, we set out for the course. Wouldn't you know it, the first jump was an oxer. It didn't hapen, we tried three times then moved on to jump 2. Did good for a while until we went to jump 7...another oxer. Didn't happen again. Then she wouldn't go back up to canter at jump 8 so we did some more spins. The remainder of the jumps went well. I ended up with a score of 700, mostly time fault points. But, I did the course, learned some lessons and stayed on the horse. Fine by me.
Fence.
The fence went pretty quickly since there weren't that many of us. The highlight was certainly the opportunity to fence Emily DeRiel. I actually got one touch on her in warm up, then a double in our bout. She actually won the two points though. I ended up second in the fencing event.
Run.
The run went well, even though I was a minute slower than my last 3k. Given my ankle problems, the heat and course (that I help set up), I'm more than happy though. I came in 3rd in the run.
I ended up 2nd in the overall individual men's competition. Nice! Getting some medals and some good experiences really made the trip to Phili worth it. Now I have to work on training for next year.
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Friday, July 20. Longing for Philelphia.
After a cancelled United flight, seven hours in the Sea-tac Airport and a red-eye flight on US Airways I finally arrived in Phili at 6:30am just in time to have French toast with my friend/pentathlon coordinator Sloan and then a swim with Emily at the Jewish Community Center. Sloane is working on the Maccabi Games, thus the JCC connection.
Stay tuned for more...
Wednesday, July 18. Swimming and teaching swimming.
I did the usual TI practice, swim/drills for around 45 minutes. Sometimes they feel great, sometimes they feel not so great...but they are generally feeling better. I passed along the TI video to Jake, the fellow I met in the pool and am trying to instruct on the "TI way". Hopefully its the right one. The one someone else lent me was a copy and it had all kinds of great intros to the different swim/drills. This video was titled "now that you've finished your workshop" or something...I have no idea if its the same video that I saw or not. We were chatting for a while and discovered that we had traveled to similar places in India and Australia and the like. Pretty cool. Jake ended up inviting me over to meet his wife Susan and a friend of hers that she hikes with. They were having a pretty tasty BBQ but unfortunately I had to scoot to meet Pam, another pentathlete, at fencing to show her the TI stuff. After a quick tutorial it was off to pack and get a good nights sleep.
Tuesday, July 17. Sean 0, Susan and Pam 1.
I didn't do any sort of training today because I want my ankle to chill out before the pentathlon this Saturday in Philidelphia. I did, however, do some pentathlon organizing and coaching though...
I did a quick stop at Rain City Fencing to give them the date of our first "Columbia Cup" pentathlon: Saturday, September 29th. If all works well we well do the shoot and fence events there, the fence for sure. There is a shooting range just down the street if we aren't able to get a range up at Rain City by then.
Next it was over to Hilltop to meet up with Pam and Susan, two of the other pentathletes-in-training. Pam's just getting back into her riding, she evented in the past so just wants to get her 'seat' back. Her experience shows, she looks a lot better in the saddle than I do. She got to ride Eli, our all around athlete horse...I'm very jealous. Susan hopped on Eli after Pam for her 3rd horse experience. This time it was an official lesson though now on the true path of pentathlon enlightenment. One good thing she has going for her...most riders have a sordid riding past so Laura has to spend a lot of time correcting bad habbits. Susan is starting from scratch so will probably progress pass the rest of us very quickly. As of last night she was already learning posting, I think I was two to three weeks into my lessons before posting. You go girl!
Monday, July 16. A super shoot at least.
My ankle swelled to the size of a lemon today, so I decided to take things a bit easy for a while...no run, swim or fencing (bouts). I did at least get off my butt to shoot which I seemed to have been putting off for some reason. I kept putting it off since I had to fill my cylinder in order to shoot. Well, with not being able to run or swim I just had to break down and fill the darn cylinder.
The shoot actually went very well. I shot at 174 which isn't bad considering how long its been since I last shot. I did do my point-n-shoot drill to get things started during my warmup so I think that helped me mentally in keeping things steady.
Although bouts are out of the question for fencing right now, I do plan on taking a lesson tomrorrow with Garik to at least get some practice in. If all goes well, I'll head over to Hilltop to start Susan in on her riding.
Sunday, July 15. Weekend report.
The weekend was mostly filled up with swimming and running. I swam Friday, Saturday and Sunday and am still pretty pleased with how things are going. I've even been giving a guy at the pool, Jake, some pointers on the whole TI style. I've done a couple sprint laps and although my times aren't much difference, I'm certainly not putting out as much effort.
Susan and I did the Sunday run at the Arboretum this time. It was a nice cool, cloudy day and the Arboretum is always a great place to run for the scenery alone. We did a slow, steady 40 minute run. My ankle still seems happy...hopefully it will stay that way through the week and Philidelphia pentathlon.
Thursday, July 12. Riding the coach's horse.
So I thought riding in a competition was nerve-wracking...try riding your coach's $50,000 horse for the first time. Tonight, I got a chance to ride Mac, Laura's top competition horse. Mac has a springboard suspension, that is to say he's very bouncy. At the trot I felt like he was going to pop me right out of the saddle. His canter is quite different as well, its more compact and controlled rather than strung out like most of the horses I'm used to riding. He's also much more responsive to slight aid changes which was a major luxury. Being a experiences, precise jumper, Mac really forced me to correct some things I've been having problems with. Balance for one, although my two point is better after a lot of work, it left me leaning too far forward...to jump Mac you really had to have your body balanced which for me means my shoulders have to stay back. The other thing is that Mac requires a correct line, it can be a difficult one, but you have to ride it confidently and correctly or he will respond to your slightest weight change. I actually did pretty well on him, over an oxer several times and several bending lines.
On another note we've set a date for our first Columbia Cup, the annual pentathlon we will hold in Seattle. It will be a very low-key, fun event, but a chance for local athletes, especially budding tetrathletes to try pentathlon out. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, July 11. More swim, more run.
I spent my time in the pool working on TI swim/drills again. Sometimes it feels really good, other times, I can tell my technique is reverting back to old habits, especially when I try to speed up. My breaths and pull are getting a little better, but they still need work too. The nice thing is I'm still taking minimal strokes across the pool and getting great length. I even did a great flip turn at the end. Yee haw!
Because of an afternoon meeting that got me to the swim late, it was also too late to join the Greenlake group for running. So, I did dinner, relaxed a bit and did my run around 8:30. I did the long Portage Bay course again and took about two minutes off my time. This isn't as impressive as it sounds because I really loafed the previous time. But, the run felt really good and more importantly both my ankle and plantar fascitis seem to be doing much better.
Tuesday, July 10. Solo slippery swim.
I got back in the pool for the first time after the TI workshop...it felt goooood. I started by doing some of the elementary drills and then worked my way up to the full stroke swimming. I still need to work some more on balance, hand position for the pull and breathing transition, but overall I retained a lot. I actually got down to nine strokes across the pool. I did a couple sprints that felt great as well (I will probably get in trouble for doing sprints so early in my 'new style' if any of the TI coaches this). The drill/swims will be a regular part of my workout from now on. Actually, for the next couple months they will make up the bulk of my workouts. Now, if I could just get my flipturns working as well as my stroke.
Monday, July 9. Major yoga, minor run.
I hit the Monday night yoga class this week since I wasn't able to go to Sunday's session due to the TI workshop. Man, the instuctor kicked our butts. She did more of a power yoga style session with a lot of movement and loosening up at first. The ab "warmup" was really intense. When we finally started the positions, they weren't all that bad (although my balance really sucked tonight). I could definitely feel that I hadn't done yoga in a while, especially in my back. But it hurt so good.
I did my first post-ankle appointment run tonight. I've been icing it and keeping it raised at night to help keep the mystery swelling down. The run felt SO good. It was just a slow, steady pace run but it felt good to get out and get my legs back in motion. Once back, my ankle seemed OK, but I could tell my plantar fascitis in my left foot was back with a vengeance, probably just because I hadn't run in a while.
I'll be doing my first solo TI workout tomorrow, I'm really looking forward to it.
Sunday, July 8. TI workshop.
I'm fresh from the Total Immersion clinic and all I can say is "I WANT TO GET BACK IN THE WATER TO DO MORE!" I had a lot of expectations going into the clinic, especially since it is pretty pricy (though now I can honestly say well worth it). The coaches, George, Sandra, Laurie and Kurt started on Saturday by videotaping us swimming from underwater. There was quite a diversity of swimmers at the workshop, from a high-ranked Italian triathlete to a woman who just started swimming two weeks prior. After the videotaping, we started learning the TI style at the very beginning: lying on our back getting good balance, kicking quietly, etc. In the afternoon class session, I was actually pleased with my swim on the videotape, although it was obvious I would have some things to work on. Both the pool and class time on Saturday was all about breaking down old habbits so that we could rebuild them the right way.
Sunday started with a dry land drill that really made things sink in, especially how your body shifts from side to side and where your hands should enter the water. Wow, very simple, yet very effective! For the pool session we put on our fist gloves and started in on some more advanced swim/drill time. Getting the balance thing right doesn't come right away, but when you get it right you can feel how it sets you up to be efficient throughout the rest of your stroke. By the end of the final pool session, I was getting pretty good. The video they took at the end of Sunday was very revealing, so were the stats. I had taken 14 strokes across the day before with a significant amount of effort. For this final 'test' I took 13 with hardly any effort at all. NICE!
In the end, I am really pleased with the results of the workshop. I had read the book and watched the video, but there's nothing like having coaches there to make you do it right. Sometime having visuals just isn't enough, you need someone there to make sure you are doing it right, especially when it comes down to the detail and precision needed for this kind of thing. Same went for my experience in rowing. I needed to watch good rowing to get the right images in my brain, but needed the good coaching there to make sure I understood and performed the motions correctly. The TI workshop will give me a firm foundation with which I can continue to improve my technique and in time, my sprint times.
My ankle seems to be doing much better, the swelling is way down. I had some x-rays taken on Friday and have been icing it and keeping it elevated in the evenings. I'm going to try a run on Monday. Shouldn't have a problem since it doesn't hurt during running. But I will be able to tell now if running is responsible for the inflamation. I have a follow-up appointment later this month.
You will also noice that I added a "threetofive in translation" section on the sidebar. Its pretty rough translation, but kinda fun.
Friday, July 6. Catch up.
Whoa! Its been far too long since my last entry. This was partially due to the fact that I haven't been doing a whole lot (no running because of my ankle; no fencing because all the coaches and fencers are at nationals) but more due to the fact that I've been lazy.
Here's the latest scoop...
I had a great riding lesson on Tuesday (Laura and gang are off at a show so we moved my lesson to Tuesday this week). I rode Bayou this time who has is smooth as butter at all the gates. We worked mainly on my two-point to get my legs and body in the right position. A couple drills and then some jumps at the end. It felt great.
The swim last night felt awesome except for the fact that my ankle swelled up afterwards. Still not sure what the problem is but I'm going in today (Friday) to check it out. It doesn't hurt when I run, just when I tweak it the wrong way, usually lifting my foot upwards, and it is swollen all the time. I'm really looking forward to the Total Immersion workshop this weekend. It will build well onto the technique stuff I've been learning from Dave at Swim Seattle.
