With 4 weeks to go, I feel good about the journey that I'm on. I'm still training with a base phase attitude, trying to get mastery over distances. If I were to follow standard periodization, I'd be fully into tempo training with quite a bit of high intensity sprints, however I feel like I need more work on pace, distances, and confidence, so I'll stay where I'm at. The race will be more of another workout for that week which I'm perfectly happy with at this time.
Along the way, I am reading alot of opinions on different things, some which make sense, others that don't. I remember reading an article regarding swimming which opined not to reach out far ahead of you. Reaching out causes you to expend energy with very little gain. Then I read another article which suggested moving with as few strokes as possible was the most efficient; doing this would mean reaching out in front you as best as you can. As with many things, most are opinions and there's a sweet spot to be found.
I also read another article about blading your body, meaning turning with each stroke so that your body takes on as much of a vertical position in the water as possible; this supposedly reduces drag. When I analyze this with my less than educated brain, I get skeptical. Drag in the water is created by how much surface area of your body (skin) contacts the water. I believe this is controlled more by bouyancy than anything else. If anything, blading your body would tend to have your back and front contact the water, whereas staying horizontal may leave most of your back out of the water. It seems a swimmer may increase his drag with this blading technique.
In the end, I think watching the technique of the Olympic 1500 swimmers is a good study pattern. Their pace will be different, but their technique should be exactly what a triathlete needs.
I'm experimenting with nuts on the bike race, more to curb the hunger and calm the tongue than anything. I read an interesting article about training the body to use more fat during events; intriguing proposition if the science is accurate.
More to come on this outstanding road!
