Impossible is Nothing

It was Christmas Eve morning, at dark:thirty. I had scheduled a 4800 yard Swim for myself. Let me be clear: Coach Maria is an asshole. After all, I/she hadn’t simply scheduled a nice steady endurance swim. Nope. It was a hard one. In fact, it was a session that I had done last year going into the 2015 Florida double. But last year, I didn’t quite hit the marks I had set for myself.  When I scheduled this one again for this year, I was clearly looking for a little revenge training. I was determined to hit those marks. But, as I …

Cadence – It’s Not Just for Cycling

The very first time I got on a road bike, I put it into one of the heaviest gears, and mashed those pedals around the Pine Barrens of South Jersey for two hours. I’m guessing my cadence couldn’t have been much more than 60-65 rpm. This story is a common one – especially for runners who start cycling. Runners just love to mash and grind, don’t we? If it doesn’t hurt, we can’t possibly be doing it correctly, right? Thankfully, those more experienced at the time than I taught me to stop being such a schmuck. So, I lightened up the …

Free Speed

When I train, I frequently visualize different race-specific scenarios. For example, one of my favorite sequences is to imagine myself in the final miles of the marathon of the Ironman World Championships. I see myself as a quick and sure-footed athlete, as the announcers call out the blow-by-blow of my race. “Simone is looking good with less than 10k to go in this marathon; she is making her competition work for it. She is running down the first place athlete in her age group, and she’s got the time to catch her.” Ah, yes, I say visualization, but really its more …

Test day: Going ALL OUT

I logged in to my Training Peaks account, looked at my training schedule for the day. The title read: “Swim, Field Test.” I felt the nerves almost immediately, as my (too many) years of schooling produce a almost automatic response to the word TEST. Will I pass?! Since I started training with Vince in October, I’ve noticed improvements with my swim. But, now we were going to make it official with a formal test. Oh, the pressure! The workout included a warmup, followed by two time trial efforts of differing lengths. In the description for the workout, Vince had written, …

Swimming in doubt

At times, doubt can be useful to our survival. For example, if someone tells you that you will be just fine if you run into raging flood waters, it is smart to doubt the veracity of that claim. At other times, however, doubt can be counter-productive. Perhaps we are afraid of failure, or we lack confidence. In these cases, doubt can prevent us from reaching our potential. In triathlon, I have struggled with doubts of my ability. Most recently, these doubts have centered on swimming. Growing up on the Southern New Jersey coast, I learned the basics of how to …