Internal Mono(b)log

Today I finally got a chance to take my Nineteen Swimsuits Frequency suit into open water for a real™ test.

I went in the morning as the weather forecast for the day was for dropping temps and deteriorating weather conditions as the day progressed. The sun was trying to shine and it wasn’t raining (yet), when I got to Lake Kelso. I quickly donned my suit, put my Timex Global Trainer in swim mode and put it under my mask strap and, anticipating very cold water, put a neoprene swim cap on my head to try to mitigate “ice cream headache”.

Well, the water was cold, but manageable. My hands, feet and face, were uncovered but not icy cold or even really uncomfortable. I’d guess the water to be in the low 50sº F (~ 10ºC). I managed to get in an hour before the clouds started to really move in and I started thinking it was prudent to get out of the water and to my clothes, before rain moved in. Got nearly 2.5km in and felt pretty good.

Now, to the suit review (part 3). (You can find the previous entries: here (part 1) and here (part 2)).

Putting on the suit today I found myself marvelling at how well it fits. Putting it on today over a tri-suit the suit just came on. Sure a little effort was required to get it sitting “just right”, but if that wasn’t required at all, I’d assume that the suit was improperly sized. Once on, the suit feels so good. It moves with you, doesn’t bind, stretches in all the right ways. On shore, I started to get warm pretty quick, so moving to the water was prudent and quickly done

In the water, the suit took on the thin layer of insulating water at a comfortable tempo (not so quickly that I felt unprotected, but not so slowly that I felt I’d be waiting forever during a shore-start for the suit to water-balance). Once swimming, I’m reminded of the benefits of the variable thickness neoprene that the suit is made with: hip rotation it aided by thicker neoprene on the legs, long catch, high elbows and full extension on the stroke are all aided by the more flexible thinner neoprene on the arms and the expanding wing material. More, the thicker neoprene on my legs, I think, helped keep my legs warm and uncramped in the cold water, even though I’m not much of a kicker.

Getting out of the water, the sun was pretty much gone and the wind was picking up, I was happy that doffing this suit is easily managed. I stripped it off, simulating a T1 strip-off in only a few seconds (maybe 10-15 seconds if I were timing). So even though the suit fits well, provides good thermal and swimming support, it still comes off easily to get you on with the rest of the race.

The Frequency suit is the top of the line from Nineteen and, in my opinion, it’s fit, finish, and features, put it squarely in that category. If you’re on the market for a suit, definitely seek out the Nineteen Frequency and make sure you consider it for your needs.

Wow! So crazy busy these days – in a good way, but still 🙂

This weekend, along with my normal long ride/long run, on Saturday morning I did a VO2Max retest with my coach, Ian McLean at ImFit.ca and did a swim stroke analysis session at AbsoluteEndurance.com.

The retest was good, a hard effort, but rewarding. All the hard work over the last 3 months, since my last test, have paid off. I don’t have the actual numbers yet, but initial feedback was that my threshold power is up about 40w, my VO2 max is up, my fat metabolism is working better. Generally I’m more fit and utilizing my body more efficiently. All good! I’ll post the actual data once I get it from Ian.

The swim session, this morning with Brittany at AbsoluteEndurance.com was pretty cool. The session was an hour long, in their endless pool. The pool has mirrors on the bottom and at 45° at the front of the pool, so you can see your stroke while you’re in the water. Brittany and I spent the hour working on small tweaks to my form. She said that my form is actually really good, but that when I try to pickup the pace, rather than keeping long and powerful, I tend to short myself on the power part of the pull and pickup the stroke tempo. Useful feedback and stuff to work on for me. Awesome! 🙂

Of course, having set new threshold power and VO2max levels, means my workouts are now going to get more intense. Bring it!

Yesterday’s long ride, which was planned to be multiple runs of the Milton Tri course, turned into 2 hrs at 200w on my trainer in the pain-cave. It was too foggy and wet to ride solo safely (I could sometimes not see cars infront of me, never mind bikes), and while I really really want to be outside, I also want to be alive. *sigh*

Today’s run was cool and wet, but the weather kept me from overheating and, you know, once you’re out there and in it, it’s not so bad. Hard to psyche yourself up for it, but really, honestly, once you’re going, it’s all good. I did get to wear my new Sugoi Firewall Tights and new Sugoi Versa Jacket. I didn’t really get to take advantage of the removeable sleeves on the jacket, but the tights were just PERFECT for today’s weather. The firewall fabric on these tights worked exactly as you’d want, keeping the worst of the rain and wind off your legs. I’m really impressed with these and was afraid that, given that it’s mid May, I wasn’t going to get a chance to wear them until fall. Guess this shitty weather is good for something after all.

Contemplating yesterday’s ride and today during my run, there were times when the fact that I wear a RoadID was really forefront in my mind. 3-times during my run today, I was nearly hit, clipped or was cut-off by a drivers who just didn’t see me, or having seen me, didn’t register with them that what they were doing was potentially dangerous or life-threatening to me. Knowing that I have a RoadID on and it can speak for me, if I can’t, lends some peace of mind at these times. I own 3 RoadIDs and, because I train (usually solo) 7-days a week, I’m almost always wearing one. I really believe in this product. It won’t make you faster. It won’t make you more efficient. It won’t get you to your training goals any easier. But… it may keep you alive in a situation where otherwise the outcome may not be as happy.

I believe in this product so much, that I’m sponsoring a give-away for a RoadID Wrist ID Sport customized with your info and shipped to you anywhere in the world! There are up to 5 ways that you can enter this draw. Each action qualifies you for 1 entry. Perform all 5, get 5 entries into the draw. I’ll announce the winner on the blog on the evening of May 29th. Leave me a comment on this post telling me how many of the qualifying actions you’ve completed (1 comment with the number of entries is all that’s required) and you’re entered. Note my comments are moderated, so it may not show up immediately, don’t worry.

Here are the ways to enter:

• Subscribe to rss feed: http://www.internalmonoblog.com/feed/
• Friend me on daily mile: http://bit.ly/leG0MV
• Like the RoadID page on facebook and tell them Internalmonoblog.com sent you: http://on.fb.me/jrO3Lm If you already like the page, just leave a note on the wall saying I sent you back to the page.
• Follow me on twitter: @ryazwinski
• And finally, if you have a blog: post a contest announcement there and send me the link for an extra entry

In order to see the comment box, you need to open this post by clicking on the post title or clicking on the “comments link” under the title. I’m looking at how to make this easier, but for now bear with me.

Good luck and train hard!

My blog has been getting a bit ignored lately as my training schedule has been getting more demanding. Sorry about that! Life happens, you know 🙂

Anyhow, I’ve been meaning to write up a review of SportQuest’s Carbo Pro nutrition suppliment.

This stuff is pretty amazing. It’s like putting high octane fuel in your engine. It’s tasteless and colorless, but really packs an energy wallop!
1 scoop = 100 calories of mixed-duration easily accessible energy.

My typical long-workout/race blend is: 1 packet of Hornet Juice, (maybe) a scoop of Amino Vital and 1 or 2 scoops of Carbo Pro. With this high-test mixture I can run 20k and feel like doing it again! It’s pretty amazing actually. 🙂

This morning, for the 1st time, I used it in the pool for my Friday long-swim. I’m not sure if it’s purely psychosomatic, but when I start to feel energy dwindling, a swig of this blend seems to pick me right back up again. My 2 hr swim this morning just flew by, and had it not for having to get to work, I’d have kept going.

Definitely a fan! Definitely a long-term addition to my training and racing arsenal.

My survey has attracted about 40 responses so far which is awesome (if you haven’t done it yet, please do!). Of the 275 triathletes I follow on Twitter 40 is a reasonable percentage. I’ll take a 1st cut at summarizing the data over the weekend and after randomizing the order of the entries, I’ll make the raw data available via a link to anyone who wants it.

In the process of badgering people to do the survey, I had a twitter conversation with Russel Cox (@russmcox) who pointed me at a report done by the USAT that answered a lot of my questions (and many that I hadn’t thought to ask). Their research is online here, make sure to look at the PDFs as well as they have a lot of very rich data. I wish the raw data were available so you could do analysis on it and drill down to ask specific, unanswered questions, but their data is great none-the-less.

You’re probably going to swallow… You may occasionally spit…

Read more… »

Of late I’ve been noticing that my swim workouts, while of the same duration as planned are covering less mileage (rather than the anticipated increases one would hope for). I attribute this to multiple factors, certainly fatigue plays a part, but also not really having any way to measure targets and guage my workout performance until I’m almost done the 90 or 120 minute workouts.

Well, that recently changed. I don’t, yet, have a measurement device other than my sportcount (which I love for it’s simplicity), but I have now added a FINIS Tempo Trainer to my arsenal of training tools.

In a nutshell, the tempo trainer is a waterproof metronome that you tuck into your swim cap, or attach to your goggle strap and it keeps the beat of when you should be stroking. Again it’s a very simplistic device, but it works so very well.

1st thing I noticed: my stroke is (was) very inconsistent. It’d spead up and slow down depending on whether I was breathing or not. The inconsistency caused the fast strokes to seem harder and the slow strokes easier. To me this seems generally inefficient, as I’d imagine moving at a consistent speed through the water to be the ideal.

2nd thing I’ve found: My slow pace is to swim with a tempo of about 54 bpm. Pushing that upto a tempo of just 56 bpm gets me close to tempo pace and tempo is probably in the 57,58 range. Clearly I want to speed up my turn overs. The tempo trainer will help me do this: now that I have it beeping out cadence for me, I can work on cranking it (slowly) up – while being careful to maintain good form in the stroke.

My only wish is that Finis would combine the tempo trainer and the swimp3. I love my swimp3. I’d likely have gone insane training in the pool without it. Combining these 2 devices would be such a boon!

Good tips from Active.com for improving your pedaling technique!

I’m doing all of these. Are you? 🙂

4 Drills to Improve Pedaling Technique | Active.com.

This morning, as part 2 of my review (part 1 found here) I wore a Nineteen Wetsuits Frequency suit for my 1.5 hr Monday morning swim. Want to get some odd looks, don a full wetsuit in the YMCA changeroom at 5:45am and head for the pool. You’re guaranteed to get at least 1 snicker, a couple of smirks and several questions 🙂 All good fun!

As with my show-room review, the suit went on well, zipped cleanly and the leash nicely stowed away into the leash pocket. Upon entering the pool, my worst fears of the morning swim were realized: the water was warm, very warm. Fortunately I always bring a bottle with Amino Vital or some other product along, so I’d at least be able to slake my thirst :).

In the water, the suit felt amazing. I put it through every test I could think of short of doggie paddling:

• Did 1.5 hrs of mostly Total Immersion style free-style, but mixed it up with some breast-stroke, back-stroke, butterfly, skulling, treading water, mid-water sprint starts, sighting, and under-water swimming.
• In the 18m YMCA pool, there were also many many turns: did some as flip turns, some as touch turns (my normal) and even threw in some dolphining in the shallow end.
• When I got out of the pool, I did a T1 suit-peal to see how the wet suit comes off. 20ish seconds. Not bad. I was happy with it 🙂

This suit, so far, is the bomb! I haven’t yet found anything negative to report about it, and trust me I’m trying. Ok, perhaps a slight (insignificant item): during touch turns, the suit would occasionally gulp a bit of water around the neck seam. The elasticity of the torso flushed it right away, so it really was a non-issue (in fact in the very warm pool, it was a bit of a relief). I may not have had the neck closed properly at the back and this didn’t happen when swimming, just when I was tap-turning at the ends of the pool (occasionally), so… like I said… non-issue.

Tomorrow I leave for Atlanta for a week. I’ve found a YMCA not far from the hotel to keep my swims in place. I’m taking the suit with me in the hopes that I can get in an OW swim session in some cool water for part 3 of this review series. If you’re in Atlanta and know where I can go to OW swim, please reach out and let me know. You’re also more than welcome to tag along!

Stay tuned. 🙂

Oh my goodness there’s so much going on right now! It’s awesome, daunting, and massively fun!!!

1st and Foremost! Last night I was up a Nineteen Wetsuits. I met Steve Fleck and picked up an evaluation Frequency wetsuit. I’ll be trying it out over the next couple of weeks and will be posting my thoughts here, so stay tuned. Some initial thoughts below…

2nd: This weekend is the Toronto International Bike show. Thankfully for my bank account, this show, for me, is mostly about window-dressing and window-shopping. I’ll be looking for some small accessory deals, but in terms of bike, wheels, etc. I’m super happy with where I am now, so I won’t be leaving a great deal of cash behind at the show. *phew*! If you want to go drool over some of the nicest and newest bikes on the market, this is the show for you. Maybe I’ll see you there. Definitely will follow-up my visit with a blog post or 2.

3rd: My Finis tempo trainer and a drag chute arrived in the mail this week. Both devices to spice up my swim workouts. The tempo trainer should be an interesting addition for me. I usually listen to music and find my stroke cadence syncs up with whatever I’m listening to (so I tend to listen to 140+ bpm electronic music), so having a waterproof metronome may be a useful way to crank up my stroke cadence for tempo sets. The drag chute may be a solution to the “lane is filled with slow swimmers” problem, that I encounter so often. I’m hopeful that with the chute, I can work on my strength while slowing myself down and not constantly being frustrated by having my hands in their feet and not being given space to pass. We’ll see 😉

Finally: Travel. On Tuesday I leave for Pycon 2011 in Atlanta. The weather there compared to here (mid-teen’s C vs freezing here) makes Atlanta look like a tropical get-away location 🙂 I’ll definitely be running while there. In fact, I’m in the JLA Shamrock 10k run on the 13th. I’m thinking that I may take my road bike to keep my bike base building in play. Definitely taking my Y membership and swim stuff, that’s an easy one – tho finding the closest Y to the hotel may be a challenge. Finally, I’m really hoping to find open water swimming while there. I’m going to take the wetsuit and even if the water is cold (by Atlanta standards) I’d like to get out for an open-water swim or 2. If anyone knows where this could become a reality for me, please leave me a comment and let me know. I’m desperate to get out of the pool for a while.

Ok, enough blather.

Nineteen Wetsuits: Frequency 1st Impressions

Fit and Finish:
This is one well assembled piece of equipment! The seams are smooth and clean without any visible weaknesses or poor glue jobs. I’m an interesting test case for the suit as I fall right on the size boundary for 2 different sizes. Steve says they recommend smaller in this case and so we went with the medium-small. It fit like it was made for me. The 1.5mm material of the upper has good elasticity and the wingspan material is different from that of the arms giving it even more stretch. Nineteen has added a zipper-cord-pocket at the top and rear of the collar so there’s a place to store the leash and not just have it flapping around behind you for others to snag on. The pocket is a great idea as you’ll always know where the leash is when you finish the swim and are running toward T1.

Comfort:
So far I’ve only been able to judge this from the Nineteen office and my living room, but from what I can tell without yet having the suit in the water for a long period of time, it is very comfortable. The choices of material let the suit stretch (and recover) in all the right ways such that your stroke is not interfered with at all.

Clearly, in water testing will provide much more info on this suit. So far, I have to say, I’m very impressed.
Stay tuned.

Since I’ve had 0 (zero, zip, nada) interest in the Cirque raffle, I’m cancelling it.

🙁 Oh well.